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Your LinkedIn Marketing Plan – Element # 5 is ‘Your Industry Influencers’

What ‘Industry Influencers’ are aligned to your brand?

One of the things that LinkedIn is awesome for is been able to connect you up with industry influence.  This is one of the key things that you want to consider when you aren’t developing your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

When you think about the power of the second and third degree connections that exponentially grow every time you connect with a prospective client for referral partner, it’s not too hard to see how you will attract industry influencers when you are creating and curating relevant industry content.

Key Actions:

  1. Think strategically about who has a relationship already with your target market.
  2. Grab your notepad and write down the names and company names of 20 people who may be a potential partner.
  3. Save them as a lead in your Sales Navigator account so you get updates coming through on your Sales Nav feed.

 

The Top 10 Mistakes That Professional Service Firms Are Making When Aiming to Grow Their Business

Common Mistakes Made By Consulting Firms When Trying to Market Their Business

Over the last 12 months, I’ve spoken with over 130 consulting companies about their online positioning.  In particular, many of the companies have been interested in how to use LinkedIn to help them attract new clients.

In talking with the CEOs and Head of Operations, I’ve found 10 common mistakes happening across small and medium sized consulting firms.

 

1. Lack an Effective Marketing Strategy

Many firms are so focused on servicing their clients, and working in the day to day operations of the business, that they find it hard to pull themselves out and start thinking strategically about how to promote their services to attract new clients.

They are so engrossed in their business, they find it hard to see the points that a prospective client would see as valuable.

As a result, the key messages on their social media profiles, their website, and all the marketing collateral are not focused on highlighting the winning combination of messages that need to be communicated to attract great new clients.

 

2. Poor Online Presence

Your firm has ignored LinkedIn because nobody in the business understands it.

Your people have been working so hard doing what they’re great at, they haven’t had time to look up and see how the online world has evolved.  They may not realise just how important having a strong online presence is.

It’s a fact that your prospective clients are googling your name, and LinkedIn is going to be in the top search results.

Ignoring LinkedIn is like not participating in an industry conference happening in your city.  If you’re not networking via LinkedIn and talking about what you’re passionate about, you’re invisible to the majority of the market.

 

3. No Compelling Content

Your leadership team has probably have heard that creating high quality content is critical in today’s economy, but everyone seems to be making excuses about ‘not having enough time’ to do it.

This is a problem because not building your website and social media profiles with high quality content is like failing to put some good juicy bait on a hook and simply throwing out the line when your fishing.  If you don’t have time to create content, you’re saying you don’t have time to put the juicy-bait on the hook…instead you just throw out the hook and hope for the best.

 

4. Putting out Crappy Content for SEO 

Some consulting firms have outsourced their content creation to an external content marketing agency, social media  or SEO service company that have promised to create content that is “search engine optmised”.  If this is the only objective, then the content created is likely to be a re-worded set of articles and posts similar to thousands of other articles that your competitors are also creating.

This is not the way to stand out in your industry, and does your brand a disservice, because potential clients don’t see how your firm is different from any other.  They start to see you as looking very ‘same-same’ and undifferentiated.

You need to blend the SEO methodology with high quality thought leadership so you start being seen as a true leader in your sector.

 

5. Inappropriate Delegation or Abdication

Some consulting firms have put the task of social media management onto a team member who does not necessarily understand how to do it properly or even wants the responsibility. Or perhaps the team member is interested to do social media, but does not have the capacity to take on this responsibility as they are already busy with their current workload.

This is a problem because the results of the social media activity will never be as good as they can be.   There will be a lot of time, ‘being busy’ and there’s a high chance that the time will be spent implementing the wrong social media activities.  If there is no one overseeing the implementation of an effective marketing strategy, there will be a high chance that there’ll be extreme inefficiencies when the team member is trying to build the brand and generate leads.  And its not their fault that only be a fraction of the potential results will be generated for your firm.

 

6. Inconsistency in Lead Generation Activity

Many consulting firms will have a spurt of energy in creating good content, perhaps they’ll create a professional video and a few articles and a whitepaper, and then they’ll drop the ball because something urgent or seamingly more important comes up.   And because they don’t see an immediate ROI, they’re less inclined to quickly come back to the task of content creation.

Similary, many will “have a go” at social media and be actively doing all the things that we say to do, but then after 2 or 3 months, they get busy and drop the activity because they need to service their new clients.

This is a problem because your prospective clients and referral partners need to see and hear from you consistently in what ever social media platform they use.

 

7. Belief Their Giving Away their Intellectual Property

There are some more established consulting firms that are apprehensive about creating thought leadership content, as they think that it will stop their target market contacting them about their services.

They believe that they’re ‘giving their IP away’ for FREE and this could make their service offering redundant.

So they keep their best ideas to themselves…and hide away in the background.

They become their industry’s ‘best kept secret’ as only a small fraction of their market ever get to appreciate the knowledge and wisdom they’ve accumulated over the years.

Meanwhile, their top competitors and emerging leaders within the industry are cranking out high quality videos, articles, thought leadership pieces and elevating their positioning to the target market.

 

8. Worried About What Others Will Think

There are some more introverted consultants who don’t feel comfortable giving their opinion on industry issues because they’re worried that someone will disagree with them.

They’re worried that they’ll be slammed by some wacko who will leave inappropriate comments or who wants to start a heated discussion for the world to see.

This is a mistake because when you cast your opinion on relevant issues going on in your industry, you’re highly likely to attract like-minded clients who will recognise what you say to be true, and since you’re so congruent with their views and their values, they will end up being an easier client to deal with, who doesn’t second guess your process or recommendations.  So by communicating relevant opinions and suggestions to help your target market, you’ll attract your best type of client.

The others who don’t agree will at least remember your name for someone who is comfortable and confident to express themselves, and they’ll probably have a heightened interest the next time you put out your opinion.

Having the courage to communicate your view will boost your company’s positioning as a highly visible industry leader.

 

9. No System to Proactively Build New Business

Many consultants are not being proactive in reaching out to their prospective clients and referral partners.

They don’t have a system that runs like clock-work to generate new enquiries and build their brand within their target market.

This is a mistake because relying 100% on ‘inbound’ marketing strategies is a big mistake.  You need to combine it with a little ‘outbound’ to get maximum results.

With all the great work you’ve done with your website, and building your brand, you’ve got to reach out and be proactive in starting a conversation with your target market.

 

10.  Not Following Up with Leads

How many times have we all being told “The fortune is in the follow-up”?

Most consultants might follow up once, possibly twice with a prospective client, but research indicates that we now need 7 various touch points after the proposal has been sent to secure the deal.

The problem is that there is usually no system to make it easy for consultants to do all this follow up work.  With today’s technology, it’s easy to build an automated process that will gently guide the prospective client into making a favourable decision.

Why Should I be Using LinkedIn?

Many of the business owners and board of directors that I speak with don’t know what LinkedIn is, and aren’t sure how to use it – but it’s on their radar as one of the top priorities. Why? Because people are googling their name, and their LinkedIn profiles are showing up in the top 3 search results.

LinkedIn is the first place many of your prospective clients and people who’ve been recommended to contact you will go to – they’ll read your profile, look at your photo and then you’re headline.

If all that looks good, they’ll read your summary and glance down at the last few blog posts you’ve written. What they see, and the way they feel as a result of taking this 10 seconds out to check you out online could be the deciding factor as to how compelled they feel to contact you.

This post introduces you to LinkedIn, so you can start to become familiar with the potential it presents to you as a business owner or business leader, or board director:

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a networking site for business people, specialists, consultants, coaches and organisations to connect.

What’s the Purpose of Your LinkedIn Profile?

Your LinkedIn Profile should strengthen your Personal Brand.  So when someone Google’s your name, it will provide a positive influence for them to contact you about your services.

LinkedIn is Booming !

3 Interesting Facts:

1.Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in June of 2016 for $26.2 B

2.LinkedIn is now adding 2 new members every second

3.As of 2016, 7 million Australians are on LinkedIn

 

Interested to See How LinkedIn Can Help You Attract More Clients?

You’re welcome to book in 10 – 15 minutes to chat via phone or Skype so we can see if LinkedIn is likely to be a viable lead generation tool for your business.

Call me on 0409 990 606 to arrange a mutually convenient time.

 

Prefer to Email?

Alternatively, feel free to email me bonnie [@] perfectboom.com

I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Bonnie Power

 

 

 

CEO + Founder
Perfect Boom

LinkedIn Marketing Strategist | LinkedIn Expert

How to Use LinkedIn to Attract Students into Your Programs

 

In this Video You will Discover:
•How to fill in the top 7 elements of on LinkedIn so you attract more enquiries to your business
•The 3 keys to a great photo that will build trust and likeability
•The # 1 thing you should be doing on LinkedIn to build your reputation as one of your industries best

Video Notes

Use Your Summary Section to show how you help your students achieve results, and solve their biggest problems

Why is this important?

When you think about your students, they  are doing a lot more research before deciding on a course.  One of the key research tools is LinkedIn.  If you facilitate the course, or play a leadership role within the training organisation, LinkedIn can help you promote a strong reputation.

Your prospective students are probably googling your name, as well as the training organisation’s company name. LinkedIn ranks very highly on the search engines. So your LinkedIn profile is probably going to be in the top 3 of the search results.

You can test this yourself, by googling your name after this video and seeing if your LinkedIn profile comes up…If you don’t have one yet, you can start googled people that you know and you’ll see that their LinkedIn profile will probably come up in the top 3 results.

  1. Photo – make sure you are smiling and looking directly into the camera. Have a plain background behind you. Seriously consider getting a professional photographer to do this, as you can use the images across all your websites and social media profiles.
  2. Your Name – Just use your real name, don’t put keywords into your profile. If you have a common name like John Smith, use your middle name,
  3. Your Title – Use a title where by your prospective clients will look at it, and think “Yes” that’s someone who I am interested to check out further…..eg Owner | Corporate Training Consultant
  4. Industry – Select an industry that your colleagues and clients will find you. eg. Professional development | Training
  5. Summary – your professional bio goes in here. While you staff may have summaries that look and sound like a resume, you as a business owner will engage your audience by outling why you are passionate about your business, and also tell people why your products and services are worth their consideration.

We help our participants develop into champions in their industry, by providing high quality training programs.

What is the Summary section?

It’s the first paragraph that LinkedIn suggests you fill out on your profile. You get about 2000 characters, and we suggest you use all of them to describe yourself and the services your company offers.

How do I write a great Summary Section?

• Go into your profile and click on edit. Go down to your summary section and begin typing.
• The summary section is a great place to put a bio about who you are , what you do, and why you do it. Use a conversational tone, write like you are talking to a prospective client who is interested in getting to know you. Make sure you write a little about the reason you like doing what you do.
• If you are fortunate enough to be passionate about the work you do, then say this…it will attract many more clients your way. People love enthusiasm….and will always choose a service provider who is not only competent, but is a positive shining light in their industry.
Most people struggle when they have to talk about themselves, so you’re not alone if you feel like this. To help you make a start on improving your LinkedIn profile, I have attached a small checklist of things to include in your summary section.

Action Steps

Your action steps for today is to download this checklist and make a start filling in the questions.
Alternatively, if you’d like a quote on our professional writing services, please feel free to make an enquiry.

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