In this interview episode, I am chatting with one of my clients, Marisa, about how she’s been leveraging LinkedIn and relationship marketing to book clients and grow her audience. Grab your notebook, because we have lots of actionable tips and advice around LinkedIn!
In this episode you’ll hear:
About our guest:
Marisa is a Ray Edwards Certified Copywriter and "You Are the Brand" expert. She's the founder of Copy Connection, an online copywriting program that helps business owners promote like a pro and increase sales. In addition, she is the host of the "Resilient Faith Online" podcast.
Connect with Marisa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/
Download her free resource:
https://marisashadrick.ac-page.com/Turn_Knowledge_Into_Online_Revenue
Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @ambitiousbookkeeper
For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:
Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com
Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog
Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper
Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup
Connect on Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa
Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/serenashoupcpa
Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.
Podcast Publishing Tools we use:
In this interview episode, I am chatting with one of my clients, Marisa, about how she’s been leveraging LinkedIn and relationship marketing to book clients and grow her audience. Grab your notebook, because we have lots of actionable tips and advice around LinkedIn!
In this episode you’ll hear:
About our guest:
Marisa is a Ray Edwards Certified Copywriter and "You Are the Brand" expert. She's the founder of Copy Connection, an online copywriting program that helps business owners promote like a pro and increase sales. In addition, she is the host of the "Resilient Faith Online" podcast.
Connect with Marisa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/
Download her free resource:
https://marisashadrick.ac-page.com/Turn_Knowledge_Into_Online_Revenue
Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @ambitiousbookkeeper
For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:
Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com
Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog
Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper
Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup
Connect on Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa
Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/serenashoupcpa
Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.
Podcast Publishing Tools we use:
Serena: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast today. I have a very sp, I always say this, I always have a very special guest because I do, you know, ask people to come on my podcast. So they're all special, but, uh, today I have one of my clients on the podcast who is a copywriter, and she, I, we, you know, we were talking on one of our. A while back about what she has going on in her business and some strategies she's using for marketing. And I thought it would be great to bring her on to talk about those. So without further ado, welcome Marissa.
[00:01:00]
Marisa: Hey, so good to be here. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. This is gonna be fun.
Serena: Awesome. So would you mind doing your spiel, introduce yourself to the audience, who you help, how you do it, all that good stuff.
Marisa: Absolutely. I started as a writer publishing articles and that sort of morphed into copywriting, but, but what I do is I help people that are either in service base or B2B, just take their ideas and turn into compelling and marketable message.
And I do that through copywriting. Through really, uh, clarifying their brand. So I'm also a brand expert and I'm a certified copywriter, but also you need the component of strategy. So marketing strategy is sort of the umbrella and the other pieces help bring all that to life. And typically I help people that are under the six figure mark.
Awesome.
Serena: [00:02:00] Great. So a while back we were On a call and you had kind of mentioned that you were seeing some traction with your LinkedIn marketing strategy, so I was like, Ooh, we should talk about that. Cuz I don't think I've had anyone on the podcast yet to talk specifically about LinkedIn. And I do believe it's a very powerful tool, but it's also overwhelming for people, uh, because it, it functions so differently than the rest of our social media.
So, uh, would you like. Kind of talk about the strategy you're using, where you're seeing success and maybe give some pointers.
Marisa: I would love it. I love to talk theory, but I also am very hands-on, so I'd love to give your audience some practical tips as well. Perfect. So LinkedIn is really interesting cuz I always used to look at LinkedIn as very.
Kind of a suit and tie platform. You know, not as, um, kind of down to earth and relational. And I dunno why I had that image. Maybe it was like that years ago, [00:03:00] but I've noticed that LinkedIn has, has changed and evolved. Now some people are happy about that and other people aren't. Uh, it just depends what's posted.
Right. It's still a professional platform. where B2B are able to make connections and we wanna maintain that integrity of that platform, but it's not as stuffy as I feel like it used to be. It's more relational. Which is fantastic. And I'm still on the honeymoon of being on LinkedIn. I started to deep dive into LinkedIn at the end of last year, around the end of the summer, and I had some experiences with some other platforms.
Meta went through a lot of changes formally Facebook and my, uh, uh, right about the time when the algorithm changed last year and early last year, um, I realized that the algorithm was not playing nicely with me. And so a lot of things were going on. Um, you know, the results of campaigns weren't as good as I would like to have seen.
Um, my [00:04:00] Facebook account got hacked and it maxed out my credit card. Then when I got that all resolved, thanks to Facebook, they, it is, there is a way to get all that resolved. At first, somebody said, well, contact Facebook, and I thought, well, that's like contacting. J Lo, you, right. Or Chris Hemsworth. How do I get ahold of Facebook?
Right? But I was able to connect and they reversed all the charges, but then I realized that my account was getting closed and I had things scheduled out. I had a private Facebook group and I had livestream scheduled and I couldn't get in. And once it happened the second time, I said, okay, I'm seeing the writing on the wall.
A lot of things are happening. I don't. Safe anymore on this platform. I can't rely on this platform. And so I said I have to think differently and look at a different platform where I really wanna deep dive and I am B2B, so I needed to find a place where I could speak business to business to other people.
And I said, I'm gonna try LinkedIn again. And [00:05:00] I went on that journey of. Not even sure what to do. I was, one of the greatest advice advices that I received was for my husband. He says, when you begin to go online, just be yourself. And I said, are you sure, ? And he said, just be yourself. And so I said, you know what?
I'm just gonna be myself. I'm just gonna be helpful, supportive, share things. You know, things that people say, well, don't share that. You could sell that. I said, you know what? They'll probably forget in two days, so what the heck? So I just share a lot of tips about copywriting, about marketing, about strategy, sometimes personal stories, sometimes things in the news, things that are going on, something that would be helpful for B2B.
And I started that way not knowing really what I was doing. And within the first week, I landed. Amazing copywriting client that reached out to me and uh, that really helped bump up fourth quarter, which, you know, that. So in any event, that was a, a direct result of [00:06:00] LinkedIn cuz I had not met this person before.
Didn't know who he was. I was following him, I was commenting on his posts. And then after that I decided, hmm, what should I post about? Cause I wanted to mix it up. And I said, you know what? There's a lot of tools that I use and some of them are amazing. I'm gonna give a shout. to some of these people that I admire, whether it's someone that has an amazing tool or if it's maybe a mentor, and I'm just gonna give 'em a shout out, give 'em some love.
And I did that with one particular tool called Send Spark, and they reach out to me and said, we saw your post, obviously you tagged them right? And uh, we saw your post and we wondered if you would do a workshop for us. And so that immediately, that opportunity grew my email list. And this was all within the.
Month of being on LinkedIn and not knowing what I was doing. So I thought if I continue on this path and all I was doing was posting every day, now some people may roll their eyes at that and think every day, but you [00:07:00] need to realize that, um, we're in the people business. And we are going to spend somewhere.
We're either gonna spend money or we're gonna spend on time. We just have to be strategic and see if it's a good fit for our business, where we're going to spend either time or resources. And I decided it was worth my time to spend. Like 45 minutes to an hour every morning creating a post for LinkedIn.
And so I started doing that and It was a test that I was doing from September through December of last year, and I loved the results. It was growing my LinkedIn connections, not only for prospects, but also peer to peer, which is very, very valuable. and so this journey, I just started deep diving.
With the changes that are happening, I think especially in Facebook, I feel my opinion that there's a mass exodus of Facebook and there's people that are [00:08:00] coming onto LinkedIn. I'm hearing more and more from other entrepreneurs that they're closing their groups and they're moving on to LinkedIn. I closed my Facebook group.
I do very minimum work on Facebook. I actually just repurpose what I create on LinkedIn. Put it on Facebook and put it on Instagram. And those numbers are growing, the vanity numbers, right? But really the magic is in the engagement. So let me just give you, um, if I could it just five quick overarching tips about LinkedIn just so you can get an idea about the power of LinkedIn that I had not realized because we all.
To be more visible. We all want to attract our ideal audience. We all want more customers. We wanna create more revenue, right? And this is the sticky point, cuz things have changed. It used to be you can create these funnels, these campaigns, run Facebook ads and tweak those things, but. less people are showing up to live webinars and things have changed [00:09:00] since Covid.
And so realizing that the market is changing and some people say, does it really change? Well, first of all, your, your market, they grow. They become more savvy as far as whatever it was. Their pain point, their, their learning has increased and so maybe what they wanted a year ago, they don't need that anymore.
They're in the next step. The other thing is if the market didn't change, it's the same as real estate. People normally say. In real estate, it's a buyer'ss or seller's market. And so we realize that the market does change. So it's so important to really put our finger on the pulse, cuz right now, when you look at what's going on with Facebook, when you look at economy, when you look at all the things that are happening post covid, um, it's a little harder to just automate.
Turn something on and hope for the best. We need to be at least more personally involved, in my opinion. So some of the things, five tips is really to, to build your network is really important. And if you think of any [00:10:00] entrepreneur, if you could think of someone that you say, oh man, I really admire this entrepreneur.
They are so successful. They did not do it alone. And one of the realizations last year was that I'm not enough. You're not enough. Now, Serena, you're enough to be respected, to be valued, to be loved, to be heard, to be seen, to be given opportunities, but when it comes to building an online business, we are not enough on our own.
We're just. And that was like throwing cold water in my face cuz I thought if I just do it this way, you know I'm a copyrighter. I thought, you know, if I just do it this way, create the funnel this way, it'll work. It didn't. And I realized as I thought of all the entrepreneurs that I admired, all of them, I mean, you could just name any of them.
They did not. Do it alone, which is why affiliate marketing is so valuable, but it's through connections. They don't just reach out and say, Hey, will you promote this for me? Yes. They've had some type of [00:11:00] connection. So LinkedIn building your network is really important, not just for potential customers, but also peer to peer.
And so you wanna be able to constantly be doing that and have that happening. Organically as much as possible, and I'll tell you how I shifted things later so that I could make time for this. The second is that we need to add valuable content. Like I said, I just decided to create something that would be helpful knowing the audience.
It is very clear. They're business people, maybe service base. Maybe they're, they have a large company, right? Or maybe they're just a solopreneur, but we can figure out how to find the exact audience within LinkedIn, but you add valuable content. So that's number two. Number one is you can build a network.
Number two is that you can add valuable content to be able to show your credibility, be of service. There's a thing called reciprocity and copywriting that when you [00:12:00] give and give and give and then when you ask, it doesn't feel salesy, doesn't feel pushy, it doesn't feel like it's out of place. It's just a natural process.
Cuz that's why we're on LinkedIn, right? That's why we're on any type. Internet space. The third is engagement. Now we all want engagement on our posts, but the real leverage is when we begin to engage on other people's posts. Now think about this, Serena, now you have a podcast. You know, do people readily leave a review and a.
you know, podcasters, I have a podcast as well. We have to ask for that and hope that they will do this cuz they don't naturally say, Hey, I'm gonna write and review this podcast. No matter how much value they got, even if they took notes, they don't, they won't do it. Or if they read a book, how many of us read a book and we don't stop for a moment to leave a book review.[00:13:00]
So I decided last year I'm gonna take random out of random acts of kindness. and if I like a book, I'm gonna leave a review. If I like a podcast, I'm gonna leave a rated and review it. If it's a tool, I'm gonna give a shout out on LinkedIn about the tool, how great it is, and how it saved me time or whatever it is.
And in doing that, that is amazing cuz you're engaging in a way. that people notice. So when you engage and you think, well, I don't have time to comment, I don't have time to follow other people, you strategically pick those people that you wanna follow, and then you engage in a way that has value and you'll stand out.
Then by the time you're ready to maybe DM them and you don't get creepy right when you first DM them. You just normally, in the beginning when you first connect, is a good time to, to DM and message people and thank them for the connection, but you wanna establish that first. So I just take random outta random acts of kindness and I begin to engage with [00:14:00] various people and.
The fourth that's very similar is to nurture relationships. And the, the difference with that is that's when you're intentionally finding opportunities when it's a good fit to DM people. And you never really make that ask at the first dm. It is, uh, just a way to be able to. Continue the conversation, continue building that relationship, and then if it seems like it's something that would work to make a connection, and by a connection, I simply mean get on a call.
It could be a phone call, it could be a Zoom call. Just get on a call. and it could simply be a, uh, 30 minute, 15 minute, 30 minute consultation call. Or a lot of times I'll just say, you know, if it's peer to peer, would you like to talk shop? You know, I would love to compare some notes, you know, and things like that.
Maybe it's on LinkedIn. I've done that before and people on LinkedIn, but it's a great way to go beyond [00:15:00] just. Bubble face and you know, a name on there and get to know people. And in doing that, I've had people refer me to other people that they thought would be a good fit for me. So it, again, the process might feel like there's a lot of time involved, but it really isn't the posting.
You can repurpose posting or you can just spend like the first 30 minutes of the day what's happening. What did you read? What takeaway do you have? Because we're all, our minds are going a mile a minute. We've got lots of things we could share, and all we need is little slice. Less is best. And then the fifth is that you can use filters even on the free LinkedIn platform because all the tips I'm giving you is using it on the free one.
You don't necessarily have to invest. In like Navigator or cuz they have different features. LinkedIn has a variety of different features, but the one that would really leverage, [00:16:00] you know, people that are trying to grow B2B is to get on navigator and use all those tools there. First, there's a learning curve, right?
So you could use the filters on LinkedIn and when you've exhausted that and you've created this rhythm, then you can consider, hmm, you know, I got these. Maybe it's time to get on navigator and you've already got a rhythm going. So as soon as you start paying for it, you're using it. You're not learning about it and trying to figure out how to do this and kind of hit and miss start and stop.
So the five quick tips is that LinkedIn allow you to build a network. You can add. Valuable content, right? You can engage with your network by commenting. You can nurture relationships with dm, and then you can also use the free features on LinkedIn to be able to find those targeted leads. And that's one of the things that's so beautiful about being able to use LinkedIn.
You can find targeted. Do you have any questions about that? Did I explain that? , I
Serena: [00:17:00] do.. Can you elaborate on, or give an example of how you would use the filters? Like are you saying you should be using the search bar and searching like an industry that you work with or can you elaborate on that?
Marisa: ,
absolutely. Um, , in on LinkedIn up at the top, um, there's a place that you can use the search functionality and there's like a dropdown box that you see and you can search for second, third connections. So you just find, um, people and, and you can search by industry various ways. You just kind of find your sweet spot and there's something called like, boolean qualifiers when you use and or, or not.
It's a way to filter as well, but you go in there and you just begin, just begin with something like, say you want to, um, say you wanna find coaches, right? You start with that and you begin looking to see what the results are, and you, if you see that it's too [00:18:00] broad, then you begin to kind of niche down.
Maybe it. Personal development coaches, or maybe it's, um, marketing coaches, you begin to distill and from what you see, then you'll be able to figure out if that's a good list of people that you wanna reach out to. And then one of the things that you can do since it's not saved, is just grab the URL from that search that you created and.
On a document, cuz chances are you're not gonna be able to go through all of them. To connect and see, but that will give you something to start with when you start in the morning. Right. Whether you're going to do a little bit about this every day. I decided I'm gonna do this once a week and I have.
Made room for this now seeing what I've been seeing on LinkedIn. And so I have outsourced now a lot of my post-production for my podcast, and I'm not taking any more one-on-one clients because that's very [00:19:00] consuming. That just, you know, freckles your calendar. And so I've made room with some of these to be able to.
A block of time on Mondays to be able to do this, and then it's just kind of following up throughout the week and you know, those type of things, but you can use those in the beginning and when, this isn't very visual, but you can go up at the top and start there and then look at the options that it gives you in the box and start there.
And then you can refine from there. And it's amazing. I mean, you can get lost in there because you see so many different people, but you can kind of tell if it was a good. Because of the words that you put in there or if you know of someone that you're connecting with, and you would love to have 'em as a client.
Just see who are they are, what key words are they using? What are they saying in the description, and then try using those words and put 'em in the the filter as well to be able to search. Okay. So you kind of work both ways in doing that. Does that help? ,
[00:20:00]
Serena: totally. My other question, when you talk about your first tip building a network, my question is, question is who do you. I mean this, this first filtering question kind of answered that. Um, my first part of the question was, who do you connect with, um, or outreach to? And so that, that is how you would do that. Part of it is using the search function. My other part of the question is who do you decide who to take or accept connections from?
Marisa: , that one is interesting cuz I don't want a lot of spam. So I usually go and check the profile and see if it would be someone that it would be mutually beneficial. Mm. To have a conversation. Okay. Now, there was a gentleman that was part of an agency and we connected. I just had, I had to go with my gut and I thought, this sounds really good.
He and I also looked to see if they're active. Putting out comments, you know, are they, are they posting? Because [00:21:00] if they're not posting, I can't comment, you know, I can't be part of that conversation and see who else is conversing in the comments. Because that's the other thing you can look at is if there's someone that you wanna connect with, you look to see those other people that are commenting and then you can reach out to connect with those people as you look at those, cuz that gives you, obviously you're interested in the same thing.
so. So it gives you a little bit of insight depending on who the person is and what their brand is. It gives you a little insight whether you should connect with the person that commented, and then you have an in and say, Hey, I noticed your comment in such and such a person's post. I totally agreed.
It's resonated so much. I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn. Maybe we can have a conversation about this later. And you just leave it at that, you know, or you can say that in a dm, you know, thanks so much for connecting with me. Love the comment you made about such and such and copy and paste it on there.
You know, if you ever wanna [00:22:00] chat about this, I could talk about this for, for days. You know, talk to you soon. Bye. You know, or something like that. And I always say, I look forward to your, the content in your feed or something like that. So you think of different ways that you can connect and resonate with them.
So it just depends, but that agency person, we ended up getting on a call and you think, okay, is he gonna try to get me to buy something on the agency? Well, it ended up being a wonderful call. Um, they handle really large companies and they don't like doing the coaching, getting in the weeds, which is what I do.
So he said this would be great because oftentimes I get people that want a lot done, a lot built out, you know, really hands on, build out my funnel, do my Facebook ads, do all this stuff, and I don't do any of that post-production stuff. I don't do the backend systems. I can. You know, coach people on what they need to do, but they need to hire out somebody.
So I said this would be great cuz I only had one resource to refer people to. [00:23:00] Now I can refer them to them. And some of these people are millionaires. They, they have a big team. and so I just refer 'em to them. So it was a wonderful conversation. Um, they may have me on their podcast. It was just great. And he said, this was so great, you know, chatting with you because we were just resonating with everything.
We were just seeing everything eye to eye, and it was, that's a great connection to have. So will it come right away? No, but this is what you're doing is you're planting seed. and if you continue to plant seeds and you continue to make these connections, it just gets bigger and bigger. And of course I save, you know, If you, if you're not sure how to find them each day, one of the things you can do, and again, if you had some of the paid features, this would be easier.
But you could say there's three people that you wanna really connect with them. Maybe even have a conversation with them. Maybe they're peer to peer. Then just bookmark them. Bookmark them, [00:24:00] and then just go to those bookmarks in the morning and see what com, what posts they have and comment on it. So you're not, cuz sometimes a fee doesn't give you the ones that you wanna look at, gives you a lot of stuff, but it doesn't give you the specific ones.
You can just bookmark it and that way you can go to. Their feed and see what they posted today and comment on it. If you don't have another way to find it, so you don't have to go in and search 'em all the time and. You know, see what they had, you could do that as well. So, um, does that answer your question a little bit?
Serena: ,
absolutely. And that kind of leads me into, Like you said, I don't want a bunch of spam, cuz that has been my biggest peeve with LinkedIn is trying to figure out, and I never even thought of just going to their profile first to see like, should I, are they active? Should I accept their invitation?
Do we have mutual connections? Like that kind of stuff because I get so many cold pitch. in the connection request. And that's just an automatic no for me ,
Marisa: absolutely. And me too. There has [00:25:00] been less and less of that, but that's one of the reasons why I didn't even jump on LinkedIn in the first place.
Cuz it seems, the only thing that happens on LinkedIn is people, you know, pitching to you something, but, um, but I found that it's less and less now. I would. Maybe once or twice a month. That happens now, but I always go to the profile and I look at the profile first. And plus, I also wanna say something intelligent when I connect with them, cuz I wanna DM them.
So if I visit their profile and I show that I indeed had an interest in them and I said, oh, I see you do this. That's fascinating. You know, I do this, you know, and you just find a way to start that conversation so you don't just say, thanks for connect. You know, or something like that over and over again.
You wanna customize it as best as you can so that they, they see that you have an interest in what they do because everybody wants to feel like they're not one of the masses. So when you do that, that's [00:26:00] part of that relationship marketing. For sure.
Serena: Do you have any tips for people that are listening and they're like, this feels.
Really fake or not genuine for me to like, you know, some of us have difficulty complimenting other people. Like, you know, I'm not the type of person that walks up to someone randomly and I'm like, oh, I love your jacket. Like, that's usually not me, unless I truly, truly love their jacket. So do you have tips for someone like that that's like, this feels very awkward,
Marisa: Well, what you're doing is you're seeing the value of what they bring to an audience. So you're not necessarily complimenting them, you're seeing the value that they bring and you appreciate that as an entrepreneur, that value, cuz you know what's what it takes to do that. So you can word it in a way and say, oh that is so valuable for so many audiences.
Sometimes, you know, I have audience asking those questions, so I'm so glad we made this connection. [00:27:00] You don't have to necessarily pump up their ego, but it's an acknowledgement of their work and what they bring to the table because everybody works very hard online. And so when you recognize like what you do is so valuable because many people.
You know, hate doing that part. You know, we don't wanna be thinking about the numbers, you know, and all of the other stuff. And so that brings so much value and you do it with such integrity and such excellence that it makes it easy to refer. So if I was first connecting with you, I would say, oh my gosh, this is so needed.
I often come across people that, you know, need this service, and so I would love to connect with you and find out more about it so that. You know, intelligently refer you to some of my peers or something like that. Doesn't have to be fake cuz you wanna be authentic. You're just trying to find and extract how their contribution fits in the big picture.
And how this would be a great connection. So it's not [00:28:00] just flattering them on, oh, you got a great profile. What a pretty picture. I never do that, but, but you know, it's just a great way to, or if they have a great profile, I say, wow. I've been trying to, I've been working on my profile and you just nailed it.
The profile looks so good, it's so clear. Love your brand messaging. I'm a copywriter and so I really look at those things and I appreciate when people really just has a crystal clear message. That one was. Spot on. Things like that. So
Serena: when you do that with someone, do you, um, do you wait for them to reengage back with you or do you go in a couple weeks later and DM them again?
if they never responded? ,
Marisa: I don't. And because I'm just, uh, continuing the conversation and that's why if you are looking at their profile and you see that they're posting. And they're active and they're posting a lot like every day or every other day, most [00:29:00] likely they will respond. If you accept a connection of somebody that's not posting and it's been a long time since they posted, you probably won't get a response because they're not in there, they're not active in there.
So I think it depends on the quality of the connections, whether they dm, and a lot of times people do respond sometimes. It's immediate. Sometimes it might take a day or two, but that's okay if they don't respond and they don't wanna connect and dm, there's so many more, it's okay, but it, a lot of times it's just that they haven't had time.
Like I was outta town last, uh, from Saturday. I just got back yesterday. So, you know, it was hard for me to keep up with everything while I was, you know, out of town, but sometimes, you know, when people are out of town, these are business people that are in meetings and everything else, you give 'em a little grace, but.
It depends. If you're trying to make a connection and you've already have a relationship and you're trying to schedule an appointment and you haven't heard from them. For example, [00:30:00] sometimes I DM and I ask people if they'd be interested to be in my podcast, which is a great way to get to know them as well.
And if I see that they have value to bring to my audience, then I'll DM them again. I said, just checking in. Not sure if you saw my previous message, but I'd love to have you on my podcast. Here's a link to my scheduling tool. Can't wait to talk, you know, or something like that. I'll DM them again. So I think what we're seeing is the ones that are the spammy ones that keep sending us those dms.
You know, are you interested or not? You know, let me know. Do you know? Those kind of things cuz they DMed just always trying to get a conversion of some sort, but, um, but what we're doing, it's more think of more about how. Leaving that relationship. If you're leaving it open-ended and you're leaving, you know, value in your posts, and if they're commenting on your posts or liking the posts, you know, you wanna make sure you respond too.
. [00:31:00] So you don't just respond on, you know, the posts that they do that you wanna connect with, but if they're responding to a post that you created, you. Definitely continue that conversation and bring maybe a different twist to it or say, and one of the things I didn't include in this post is this too.
Hopefully that's helpful. So we're always trying to be helpful.
Serena: That is, um, I. So helpful
Marisa: . So in, in the morning I do the content creation and then we get busy, right? I can't be on LinkedIn 24 7. So later in the afternoon or early evening, I'll go back and I'll see if I missed anything. If they.
They reference to me, even the reply and they put at, and then my at on LinkedIn, I'll see an email that comes in, right? Sometimes they don't, and so I have to literally go to the post and see that somebody had commented, but I typically look at, you know, the [00:32:00] LinkedIn has like notifications and things that you can look at, and I look at that, see if I missed anything.
But I do that in the afternoon, right before I shut down and get ready. Be done. And LinkedIn you can schedule too, so you can schedule natively on LinkedIn. Um, so that's always helpful too, but be sure if you're going to do this, make sure that your profile is, you've used every piece of. Area, you know, on LinkedIn especially, you know, when they first go before the scroll, make sure that all that is up to date.
Cuz I had one gal that I was coaching and they were having a broadcast on LinkedIn because a lot of people do live broadcasts on LinkedIn or podcasts live on LinkedIn. And I said, she said, how can I prepare? And I said, well, let's take a look at your LinkedIn first. Let's see if there's anything we can add.
I went in there, it had her old name. I don't know if it was old, married name. It didn't have a recent photo. It had no banner, it had no description. [00:33:00] I said, oh my gosh, you gotta update this because you're gonna be on LinkedIn. And what do people do is they go to your profile. So you wanna leverage all of that and make it as.
because they're visiting your home, right? You wanna make it as nice for guests as possible, and there's so many areas that could potentially be people you can add to your email list as well. So I mean, if you want, I could give you a quick one over so that you can make sure that your LinkedIn profile is updated.
Um, you know, that maybe your audience could, could use that as well.
Serena: , that would be awesome. So, One of , a couple big takeaways from our conversation is that you block off time weekly to do searches and you block off time daily to do content creation.
Marisa: Correct.
Serena: Okay. Um, correct. And then you acce you only accept connections after you look at their [00:34:00] profile and make sure there's a mutual, mutually beneficial.
Potential relationship, um, which is such a good, good pointer that I think that was like my missing piece for LinkedIn , is that I get like super overwhelmed with all the connection requests and I just basically ignore them all unless like there's something very personal in the. Connection message, right?
Because you can create a message when you do a connection request. ? Um, generally I just feel like most of them are spam. And so I've kind of paused doing much on LinkedIn. Um,
Serena: one thing I don't think we really covered, um, to a very high extent, is the reason why it's important to engage, because of the algorithm.
And I've explained this to a couple people that if, if you were on Facebook way back in the day before the algorithm was the way that it is now, At the beginning of [00:35:00] Facebook, if you were connected with someone, you could see all of their activity. So it would pop up in your feed that, oh, so-and-so commented on someone else's stuff that you're not even connected to.
So that's how Facebook used to be way, way long ago, but that's how LinkedIn is now and that's why it's such a powerful tool, currently , I think, because when you engage on someone else's post, Your comment is gonna pop up in your connections feeds and give you visibility to more people than you're actually connected with.
I don't know if I explained that very well, but
Marisa: Yes.
Serena: Would you agree, ?
Marisa: Yes. I think the algorithm works in our favor right now that could change. . um, like everything else, and I totally get what you're saying about. Um, I just decided last year when I had this epiphany that relationship will always beat algorithms no matter what.
. [00:36:00] Relationships always, so my focus is less on the algorithm because that can change changes daily. It could change in an instant, and I think the relationships are the things that are going to help us move forward because the algorithm, we can't control the algorithm, but we can control the way we show up and the way we serve people and the connections that we make, and, you know, the appointments that we make and, and we create these opportunities to be able to engage with people and, and we become memorable.
Then people will refer, sometimes people refer people to me and I ask, well, how did you find me? And they says, so and so referred. Me to you, and I only had a conversation with them once. You know, and so, and so, I just, I try not to worry too much about the algorithms. Um, I love the fact that right now it seems to help us.
and it seems to be in our favor, but that can change the more people are leaving Facebook and joining LinkedIn, you know, I think the one thing you [00:37:00] just wanna do is if you provide content and you provide daily content, I think the algorithm will like you a little more too. And, uh, I get a lot of profile. I mean, the vanity numbers grow. And a lot of times the algorithm, you know, we wanna see those. Vanity numbers don't mean anything, but the vanity numbers do grow. And whenever you do a presentation or you're in a, there's so many webinars, right? There's webinars, there's virtual conferences, there's so many things.
As soon as I get on one of those, guess what I do? I take a screenshot of everybody, right? And I go find them on linked. And I see if they're a good connection, I connect with them because we have something in common, right?. And it depends on what the workshop or the conference was, but every time, and that picture doesn't go anywhere, it just stays somewhere in my computer.
But I just use it to grab the names. That's all I care about. That is so smart. Cuz sometimes there's conferences where they call all [00:38:00] the, the book writers. Right. I'll get on there and I wanna know, cuz book writers, they, the authors, they love writing, but they hate market. and they don't know how to market on the back end.
So I just snag a picture and I have already a way to make a connection. Hey, I saw you at the same virtual event. What did you get some takeaways out of that. I got like this one main takeaway out of this conference, and I'll share that with them. I'd love to connect. And then it's, it's a way in. So I take screenshots all the time and then I go back.
Does that take time? , but it never takes that long. I mean, it could take maybe 30 minutes if it was big, you know? And I had a lot, cuz sometimes you have to scroll over on Zoom to get the rest of them. If it was a big group, but it's a great way. I recently joined nsa, so what am I doing? Soon as they have an NSA meeting, I take a screenshot and I go connect with every.
And so that's a great way to do that, but whenever I see coaches, whenever I see service-based work, people, authors, [00:39:00] You know, speakers, a lot of those people are looking for help with their marketing strategy, and so oftentimes they don't know how to distill all their many ideas and just create like a keynote or create some type of talk that they could use, say as a podcast guest or something else.
They just, they have all the knowledge, but they just don't know what to pull out and how to structure. And I see that over and over and over again. So the fact that I had been in public speaking and I won awards in 2015, uh, I was in an international speech competition with over, it was somewhere between 32, 30 5,000 contestants and I kept winning is a six month competition.
and I just wanted to get over the fear of public speaking. So gosh, what a way to do it, right? So I went through this six month competition and I ended up being one of the top hundred speakers in the world that year, and I spoke at [00:40:00] Caesars Palace. And so, you know, there's just so much that. People need when it comes to being able to show up and deliver all that knowledge that they have, that they don't know how and you can't get around it.
You gotta be able to speak, you've gotta be able to tell your story, your origin story. You gotta be able to have, you know, your, your keynote. So if you have an opportunity to speak on stage, you know you can do that as well. Because it's not just all online. Not just all online. We gotta look at other ways to get in.
Of audiences that are the right audience. You need to become that expert contributor on established platforms, virtual face-to-face, all across the board. So that's kind of my sweet spot. Now, what I love to do, because I realize that people are too close to their own business, and it's the same for me, that's why I have mentors too.
Serena: ,
so this has been [00:41:00] so, so incredibly valuable. Thank you so much. If someone wants to connect with you, um, and learn more about what you do, so one of the things that you just mentioned was the speaking, and that's been a huge focus for me this year. Getting on stages, whether virtual or in person. And that is one of the best ways to build relationships, honestly, and talk about relationship marketing.
Um, and so if someone wants to either work with you to figure out how to put together a talk for podcasts or for speaking, or if they just want to connect with you, where's the best place to find?
Marisa: I would say, since we're talking about LinkedIn, I would say connect with me on LinkedIn cuz I have a free resource that is exactly what I was talking about, how to distill your ideas into a marketable message.
And that resource has some video tutorials with it. So that's a great place to start. Make sure all the branding, the messaging, all of that is [00:42:00] clear, but if you connect with me on LinkedIn, absolutely. Um, just let me know that you heard me on this podcast and let's connect and. Have a conversation. That'd be awesome.
Serena: .
Well thank you so much for bringing your LinkedIn knowledge. It's been super exciting to watch you on LinkedIn, so definitely go connect with her. Um, she is always bringing the value and I know that a lot of us bookkeepers and accountants have a hard time with. Written language or spoken language, getting our ideas out.
So you definitely want to connect with Marissa. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Um, and we'll see
Marisa: you soon. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Bye-Bye everyone.
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