294: Leverage LinkedIn™ While Working Full-Time

Melissa Henault:

Okay. So for today, my topic so I work full time, but I wanna grow my business on LinkedIn. How do I leverage LinkedIn and not get fired? How do I leverage LinkedIn and generate leads and not get fired? So that is my mini topic today. I wanna preface this. I grew and scaled my first online business while working full time as a senior level leader in a Fortune 500. And I had to do it incognito. I wanted the hell out, and I didn't want them to know that I wanted out. Out.

Melissa Henault:

It was a cutthroat industry that was in a downsizing time frame where you just sneezed wrong, you get fired. Right? What I'm gonna be sharing with you today is really the strategies I used to leverage LinkedIn without selling in the feed to still match my corporate income and get out of corporate America. Okay? So that's what I'm gonna be sharing with you today. If you're like, oh, cancel. I'm gonna go do something else because this is not me. I promise you what I'm about to share with you will still apply. You'll find a lot of value in it. Okay.

Melissa Henault:

So the 4 components we're gonna talk about is number 1, be an authority anyway. So be an authority anyway. You can't get fired for just having knowledge, so

Melissa Henault:

So we're gonna

Melissa Henault:

talk about that. Number 2 is grow an ideal network. Nothing's holding you back from strategically growing your potential client base on the platform. Your employer can't see or know that. Number 3 is review engagement and comments on the thought leadership post on a weekly basis for follow-up. And I'm gonna do a deep dive on each one of these bullets. This was what I did for, like, a year. Then the magic happens in the DMs.

Melissa Henault:

So this is number 4, selling in the DMs. You're not gonna be able to sell on the feed, which is not a bad thing. If you're employed full time, and you know about a shadow of a doubt, company you work with would lop off your head if they knew that you were doing something different. You're not gonna be selling and saying, buy my stuff in the feed. Quite honestly, you shouldn't be saying buy my stuff in the feed anyway. Right? There's more savvy ways to do that. But you're not gonna be open for business publicly. The other, like, caveat or disclaimer I do wanna mention for some of you that are watching this or listening to this later.

Melissa Henault:

Some of you have your own demons in your own head that you shouldn't be promoting or growing your own business using LinkedIn because of fear of perception of others, but it's not an a reality. We've had clients who are employed. I had someone come through who sold some clean crafted wine a couple of years ago, and she it was a side gig. She just loved this clean wine and got a nice kickback from it. It was like a direct sales company, and she was a senior level in a pharmaceutical company. She went to her director and was like, look, I love this wine, and I would like to make a side business out of it, and promote the opportunity on LinkedIn. It's not gonna inhibit me from working my day job. It's just a passion, just like real estate might be for someone else outside of the day job.

Melissa Henault:

Right? And it's community and it's culture and it's fun, and I just want you to know that I'm not gonna be doing this during my my day hours, but you're gonna see me leverage LinkedIn because it's my chosen platform to do this. I challenge some of you to have that conversation because that person in particular, her boss was like, cool. Like, where's the link? I wanna hear about this line. So don't make stories in your head. But if you're in, like, a toxic culture where heads are getting popped off like I was, I literally had another director that I worked with reach out to me and be like, hey. Your employee over there, she changed her profile. It looks like she's selling some other things. You might wanna have a talk with her.

Melissa Henault:

That's the culture I was in. I certainly wasn't gonna go directly promote stuff in my feed.

Melissa Henault:

So here we go.

Melissa Henault:

Here's what I did that still allowed me to exit. So number 1 out of 4 is become an authority anyway. You can create content weekly that creates authority in the area that you want to sell in. It doesn't matter what you do for a living. Some of you, it's kinda cool. Some of you are pivoting out of your corporate careers or or trying or have this goal or you're in the midst of pivoting out of something that you're doing in your day job that you just actually wanna consult and come back and do on your own. That's actually a really easy transition if you ask me. Because no one's gonna question you putting content in your feed as a thought leader in the realm that you're already a thought leader.

Melissa Henault:

It's just that in the future, you will not be employed by someone. So for instance, let's say you're a CFO for a company, for a big fortune 500, but you wanna break out of that, become a fractional CFO for entrepreneurs. Right? You wanna do your own thing. Well, guess what? A CFO is a CFO. Their knowledge is their knowledge. What is wrong with you being in the feed every single week providing value and knowledge and expertise in the realm of finances and business? Does this make sense? The flip side of that is you may be a CFO, but you want to launch a business in basket weaving. I'm being slightly sarcastic, but that's radically different. No big deal.

Melissa Henault:

You can still talk about the strategies around basket weaving. Right? Only then you're not selling it. So what I mean is even if you're making a big pivot or you're selling something completely different, doesn't mean that you can't be a thought leader in that space. So let me not go so polar and nonapplicable. So let's say you are a senior level executive. Let's say you're a COO, but all of a sudden, you've got this big calling to be a mindset guru or get into the woo space. What's wrong as the COO of any company being a thought leader once a week around mindset? About the key strategies that you're applying. This is what I started to do.

Melissa Henault:

I started to just talk about key steps, key strategies, key things around key topics, and I wasn't selling anything. But what's gonna happen is people looking for people who have that subject matter expertise are, guess what, gonna start engaging with it. Okay? That's number 1. Number 2, is they're gonna be more likely to engage with it if you're growing a network of ideal clients. Before I get into growing a network of ideal clients, I want you to think about creating content weekly that creates authority in your area of expertise. And I saw that was some of the questions that came through with the hot seats today, and we'll talk about that. And then add value as a subject matter expert so that people start to see you imprint on their brain that you are the expert. Give practical tips that create action and breakthrough.

Melissa Henault:

This is all about just giving the perception. You're not selling anything. You're just giving away free advice. You're giving away free knowledge. What's interesting is those that it resonates with are either gonna engage with you or jump in the DM with you about this. Okay. So that brings me to grow your ideal network. So stop accepting requests from the non ideal clients.

Melissa Henault:

Right? So you may have a corporate gig, but you have this big vision and goal to really pivot and grow this new business. And let's say your corporate role, the people that are trying to connect with you or connecting with you based off of your current corporate title, and they're not your ideal client, stop accepting the request to connect with these people. Because you're training the algorithms that these are the people you wanna connect with. So unless it's business necessary, stop. Your lawyer's not gonna see that. Just stop. The next thing you need to do from there is strategically start to grow your network with the ideal people. So, again, for those of you who are currently employed, you may be currently connected to a lot of people that are aligned to your current day job.

Melissa Henault:

Now bonus, if they ultimately will happen to also be potential clients with the side gig that you're launching, that's amazing. But for some of you, for instance, we had a client who was an engineer who launched a a real estate coaching business or, get this, engineers to invest in real estate. Those are really nice easy segue. Right? Because this whole network was a bunch of engineers. Then he got the tar start talking about real estate investing, and he already had an audience of engineers, and he started to strategically grow it even more. But for you, it depends on your scenario. If you're making a radical pivot, you may need to look at, who do I need to grow my network with? Because it's not gonna be enough to just post content weekly as a thought leader if you're posting it to people who don't give a shit. Bottom line.

Melissa Henault:

So it's that old adage where my old business mentor who was an ER nurse before she became a multimillion dollar a year business owner and real estate investor. Now she costs a 100 k to work with her for 6 months. She never touched LinkedIn account. And when she put content out, no one would engage with it around who she is today. Why is that? Because her network was full of nurse college grads that she connected with a decade ago that are not her ideal audience. And guess what? They don't give a shit because they're not engaging with our content. So the second thing you need to do is on a daily basis, you need to be growing your network with ideal clients. Now we have a whole module on this where you can go take a look at that.

Melissa Henault:

I'm not gonna go into a rabbit hole about that today, but you need to be doing this daily. This is going to be the reps that you need to take. And then I want you to use open ended messages where you can in the field. You're gonna get a few of those a month, but use those. The second piece to that is be prepared when they do accept the request to connect to go straight to an open ended question and get into dialogue with them. This is what I did. This is how I got into conversations. It's interesting.

Melissa Henault:

Have you ever noticed when someone requests to connect with you and you do a little banter back and forth in the DMs, are you more likely to see their content in the feed and be like, oh, that was so and so that I chatted with over in the DM? I don't want you to think about it being a direct sale into the DMs when you connect with them. That's not reality. That's going from swinging the bat, going all the way around the bases, and going home on day 1. Right? Rapport building, connecting, and having some conversation in the get go is going to allow them to then see your content in the feed each week around thought leadership and that subject matter expertise. Right? Makes sense? The marketing begins once you're connected to them. So you guys have some homework on that to really strategically think about, if you're employed right now, is my current network full of people who mirror my current industry? Question number 1. Question number 2, is that ideal or is it non ideal? Are they my ideal client or are they not? If they aren't, the next step is I need to start growing my network with potential clients. K? We have a whole module on how to do that.

Melissa Henault:

This brings me to number 3. This is where the magic happens. You have to do 1 and 2. You have to create content so that people know you're an expert. You're not showing your knowledge and expertise. Right? Number 2, you have to grow a network in tandem with that. It's like a highway traffic. They're growing a network, and the content is coming through the feed, and they're seeing it.

Melissa Henault:

Right? It's that repetition of know, love, trust, and the feed, which brings me to number 3, act engagement. Once they see your content and it resonates with them enough that they feel compelled to engage, this is what really begins to initiate preliminary steps to the sale. What happens is, they either like or they comment on your thought leadership post. And what I do is I call this clean up by days. So this is on your LinkedIn checklist. And again, I told you guys, this is applicable to all of you, but I'm making it very simple for those of you who work full time. I'm telling you exactly what you can do to leverage LinkedIn and not sell directly in the feed and still be successful. When they engage in your thought leadership post, and we still do this, so this day on Friday why do I say Friday? I like to let my content grow and live on LinkedIn for a couple days.

Melissa Henault:

Unlike the other platforms, you'll get a notification and engagement on something you posted, like, 2 or 3 days ago. So I don't wanna follow-up and check the box on that post too soon. I wouldn't wanna live in the feed for a couple days, if that makes sense. So that's why I call it clean up Fridays. So I go in on Fridays and look at the post from Monday through Friday. Typically, Mondays are gonna have the most traction because it's been there since Monday, unless it was a non ideal post people didn't engage a lot with. What I'm looking for is who commented and who liked. So the comments, the first thing you can do, and I encourage you guys all to do this, is to respond back to that comment.

Melissa Henault:

Create some pleasantry there. Acknowledge their comment, whatever it was, before you take it to the DM. This is just another point of contact. It takes 11 to 20 touches to sell anyone anything on the Internet today. Don't let this disheartening. You can do the math on that. If you grow the connection, that's one point of connection. If you ask them an open ended question in the DMs, that's 2.

Melissa Henault:

Maybe they didn't see something in your feed that's compelling, that's 3. So they comment on it. You comment back. That's 4. Right? Now you go message them in the DMs because you're taking it off the feed. That's 5. Right? If it takes 10 touches, you're already halfway there. Is this making sense? What we do is, number 1, if there's a comment, we're gonna make a comment back, and then go have a conversation in the in the DMs.

Melissa Henault:

And depending on the comment, you may even say, hey. That's a really great point. Would love to take this further in the DMs. Check your check your DMs. Check your message. Right? Because, again, these are for for those of you who are flying kinda under the radar, you don't wanna look like you're necessarily selling something in front of everybody you work for. So you're gonna take it over to the DMs. The other thing I'll see on Fridays that's really important is you're gonna find remember those 2nd and third degree connections that are engaging with your content.

Melissa Henault:

This is golden. This means you created content that week, someone in your network engaged with it, and when they engage with it, some other people in their network that you're not currently connected to saw it as a stranger and liked it so much that they were compelled to hit the reaction button even though they don't know you. So many of you are missing out on growing hot connections by letting that disappear into your feed and never going back to find those people. These are people who are telling you, I am so compelled, even though you are a stranger, that I am engaging with what you're talking about. If you can grab 5 of those people a week into your personal connections and aggregate those over time, the activity on your account will skyrocket because you'll build a network of people who are showing you that they like and are compelled. So look for those 2nd and third degree connections and go connect with them. And the moment they connect with you, the first thing you wanna do is bring them back to reminding them that they were actually the first person that touched you. So when they respond to that connection, hey.

Melissa Henault:

Thanks for the request to connect. Really loved your support on my post about fill in the blank, whatever that thought leadership authority piece was. This is gonna be your inroad into conversations for selling. So number 4 is, after the cleanup, is selling in the VMs. Now you've got them in the VMs. What does the conversation look like? So with the thought leadership piece, what we're doing is we're asking open ended questions that are relevant to you and their potential challenges and potential products and services that you can create transformation or change. You're driving conversations based off of your authority based posts, and you're asking open ended questions on the inside of the content. So let me give you an example.

Melissa Henault:

We'll go back to my example of someone who's a COO in a Fortune 500, but is trying to lift off a personal coaching and mindset business. Maybe their thought leadership post was a couple of quick tips on managing stress or anxiety in the middle of high pressure as a executive, blah blah blah blah. When you get into the DMs of someone acknowledging that, hey. Thanks for your support on my post about managing high pressure careers through certain modalities, blah blah blah blah blah. What modalities do you find most effective? What areas have you found most challenging? You just wanna get them talking about the area of expertise that you provide service in. We don't wanna just be talking about sunshines, rainbows, pointless conversation. We wanna be driving that conversation into purposeful conversation of discovery, of resource, tools, and support, and consult for business. Last couple of things I wanna say here is it's a bonus if when you go down into the DM funnel like this, you have a resource to share initially to create value instead of just immediately trying to sell them.

Melissa Henault:

If they share interest or challenge in an area that you're an expert in, can you offer something of value before you sell them so that they can experience you even more? So have you guessed it on someone's podcast about that topic? Can you share that podcast with them? What's really cool about guessing on a podcast is you're not really selling, you're just showcasing your expertise, and you're like in their ear for an hour, and you're really hearing the value of knowledge. It could be a downloadable resource. Maybe you created a template or a checklist, something of value. Like, for me, it might be, oh, I see that you're looking to really grow their LinkedIn presence. Right? Oh, that's so awesome. Not sure if you were aware, but I happen to be a LinkedIn expert. I actually have this really cool checklist you might wanna take a look at if it would be value. I didn't go straight to, hey.

Melissa Henault:

Do you wanna invest $: 55100

Melissa Henault:

What did you think about it? What have you applied? Asking more open ended questions that are gonna lead into the sale, lead into the consult, lead into the invitation. Right? What I want you to understand is that in all of those steps I just shared with you, none of it was public sales in the feed on LinkedIn. Does that make sense? None of it was. And so this is how I started. So I'm gonna sum this up for you guys. Number 1, become an authority anyway. You can map this content out and become an authority anyway. Number 2 is grow your ideal network.

Melissa Henault:

Number 3 is review engagement and comments on posts weekly for follow-up. This is gonna be your gold in your network growth. Number 4 is selling the DMs. If you wanna go deeper on network growth and selling the DMs, we have deeper modules on that. Today was really a specific topic on how do I get started with having a presence on LinkedIn, even though I'm employed. Hopefully, that was helpful for you guys.