and we are live welcome everybody to
another YouTube hangout super excited to
be here with you this afternoon I’ve got
a special guest
Alex P Roos who is a LinkedIn marketing
expert joining us from Australia so it’s
just past 6:00 in the morning for him
and we’re going to talk about strategies
to help you grow your business through
LinkedIn so Alex welcome aboard thanks
for having me it’s a absolute pleasure
and look any time we get the opportunity
to really transform or share our message
on how to leverage LinkedIn is an
absolute privilege whether that’s in
front of ten people one person a hundred
people so thank you for having me
for thousands thousands Alex Allison or
thousands for people who don’t know
about you maybe just a quick overview so
that gives them some context yeah so
essentially about four years ago I was
at a point in my business journey where
it failed in my first four businesses
and managed to sell start grow and exit
to businesses and I thought that’s a
pretty good recipe to start as an
advisory firm and when I did that I
noticed that the whole landscape around
sales and marketing and the importance
of personal branding had really shifted
and so all the traditional forms of
advertising and marketing were somewhat
outdated and so we looked into all the
social media tools and I was in the
process of actually hiring a PR company
and I was driving home one night and I
got an email from a friend of mine and
the headline I probably shouldn’t have
checked because I was going 80
kilometers an hour but I got it the
headline said ninety four point two
percent of journalists and editors are
on LinkedIn and it was quite fitting
because we’re in the process of actually
hiring a PR company anyway started
connecting with a few Germans here and
then literally within the next few
months we connected with over 330
journalists and we got featured in a lot
of publications so that really started
my journey on LinkedIn and from there we
managed to get on board a lot of
partnerships with the accountants we
grew that into our business practice and
throughout those accounting firms when
we had those conversations we realized
that a lot of businesses were coming to
us and saying well if you know how to
leverage it would love to learn that as
well and
then we set up link filter about three
years ago and today we’ve now educated
over fourteen thousand people in 55
industries in 30 countries in our unique
three-step methodology so it’s been an
interesting ride
cool now lengthen is an interesting one
for me I actually just got bought by
Microsoft and see how that goes it’s
super interesting uh when I first got
into social LinkedIn was one of the ones
that I was going hardcore on and then I
just stopped because I wasn’t getting
the value and I was getting it in other
places and and that I was back in the
day when LinkedIn you to tell you for
your country
how United and right like how many
connections you had and I wanted to be
like top and Canada knows working
towards it and now just I and Chuck is
like once you over is a 500 connections
stop showing you how many can I get if
you have um yeah so like you know as an
entrepreneur where you spend your time
super important you’re not repairing
yourself obviously you’re getting value
from it you’re doing something right
that I was doing wrong so so maybe walk
us through look what are the three steps
that somebody has to go through to get
success with LinkedIn yeah um so we
break it down into planned connect
profit so the first step in any
marketing strategy in order for it to be
fruitful has to be the foundational part
so you got to build the right
foundations and the way to do that is to
sit down and and if you guys whether
you’re watching this live or whether
you’re watching recorded version I would
definitely grab a pen and paper and
write some of these questions out
because I’d love for you to create a
plan and start executing that on
LinkedIn so first and foremost you need
to understand your outcome for using
LinkedIn what’s your outcome is it to
generate thousand more leads is it to
generate ten new clients is it to
expanding to nationally whatever that
might be then once you’ve got your
outcome and it’s clear and measurable
the next thing you want to do is ask
yourself the question what are what are
the six to 12-month marketing objectives
that I have for my business overall not
just LinkedIn but overall once you’ve
got that then you need to ask yourself
what are the who do I need to connect
with in order to achieve those marketing
objectives
you know you’ve got to come up with your
industry your your title you’ve got to
think of also the location along with it
you got to think how big is the company
other companies that you want to connect
with as well so that will essentially
create your client avatar and the reason
why that’s important is because in order
to meet your marketing objectives you
need to connect with the right people
and I know a ton of people who have
15,000 people on their list but or in
their connections and they’ve never done
any business whatsoever which I think
it’s quite ridiculous I’d rather have a
network of 20 people and do more
business so I think it’s that balancing
the quality and quantity equation and
then the last step in the plan stage is
making sure you have a compelling
LinkedIn profile and one of the biggest
businesses I’ve learned is that you need
to build your business based on the
outside inside approach you go to your
market you find out exactly what they’re
looking for by building something to
begin with and then evolving it over
time so your LinkedIn profile is very
similar so you need to ask yourself
three very important questions what are
the top three objections that I normally
face every single time that I saw my
product or service what are the three
challenges I solve with my product or
service and then how am i different in
the marketplace and then once you’ve got
the answers to that you go into all the
various sections like your summary your
like your skills and expertise like your
work experiences your headline or
recommendations on all those sections
you re jig those particular sections
with the answers because when someone
can it goes on to your profile
essentially they’re looking to solve
those particular challenges they’re
looking to solve those objections before
they connect with you and that’s that’s
the plan so it’s a first step so let’s
get let’s get real like practitioner in
light on this as an example so for me I
have a book coming out in December I
have time right now right I mean not in
the same amount of time but I’ve time
now to kind of lead up to that
finding value I’m doing a lot of that on
my youtube channel that strategy is
pretty set you know I have a lot of
people who are following me on LinkedIn
I don’t really engage much I mean if
people write me a message all right back
kind of thing but I’m not involved in
groups I’m not really doing things if I
have a book coming out in December and
it’s targeted towards entrepreneurs what
do you recommend I do between now it’s
like what this is June I guess it’s July
for you or in different months are in
July we have until December what do you
recommend that I do for LinkedIn to be
able to sell my book what’s a book about
it’s helping entrepreneurs so it’s
geared toward helping entrepreneurs okay
so I’m happy to have a conversation with
you and get you written up in some of
the columns that I write for so that’s
that’s the type of people you should be
connecting with journalists columnist on
so essentially what I did when I wanted
to build and gain exposure for our link
fluency I connected with people in Inc
people in Forbes people an entrepreneur
people in Wall Street Journal people in
New York Times and all I did is
implement this three-step methodology
and started connecting with them and
building relationships and adding value
so that the first step I’ll be employing
is essentially going out and connecting
with journalists and editors and the
biggest challenges that these
journalists and editors face is that
they don’t have access to key experts
you you’re in a fortunate situation
because you’ve spent a ton of time over
the years building your influence of
building your thority which is going to
work in hand for you because they’re
looking for experts and many people
don’t have that expert status so and
that’s why you would have an easier time
to connect with journalists and editors
but in saying that if you’re an
entrepreneur listening to this and you
don’t have the connections you don’t
have the influence you’re probably where
I were as five years ago and all I do is
connect with the journalists became that
thought leader became that person that
always helped them out and I got to tell
you there hasn’t been a time that I’ve
got on the phone with a journalist
within the next three to four months I
haven’t been featured in a publication
because you’re essentially just solving
their challenges which is access to key
experts and also the time pool and
because they don’t have access to key
experts they have to go looking around
in their network if you can be that
person then you’ll get a ton of media
coverage that’s the first strategy
second strategy is definitely going out
and finding joint venture partnerships
so with your book I would be connecting
with other influences who have a big
database of entrepreneurs and business
owners and then asking them to promote
you through that database whether that’s
a joint webinar you do whether it’s an
email out to the list and I’m sure
you’ve done that in the past but um 49%
of key decision-makers are on LinkedIn
and they’ve now got over four hundred
and thirty three million members I like
every time I say that I’ll get excited
because the sole purpose of what were in
business is to get our message right get
in front of key decision-makers and 49%
of them run their so they’re the two
strategies I will implement it’s
interesting and what what is different
than I had in mind going in was with the
YouTube strategy it’s a one-to-many
right like it thousands of people watch
and so I could talk about the book and
it’ll it’ll sell to the audience here
where your protein is much more
one-to-one identifying the influencers
whether it’s an entrepreneur with a list
or media or key partner find out one
person making that one connection in
then using that influence to make
something happen
for sure and look you know yourself your
network is your net worth at then a day
all these relationships that I’ve now
built with journalists when I launched
the next business because I’ve got all
these relationships already built
I can then utilize those relationships
into my next business and that’s
essentially what we did so we had all
these journalists and editors that I had
connected with and I had built these
relationships with them but then when I
launched length loans are literally
within the first three weeks we got
featuring in 17 media publication
we never sent out a press release and
this is coming from a guy who failed in
high school my high score was 48 percent
in English I ran home told my mum
absolutely stoked she was not stoked she
was a she she wasn’t impressed so if a
high school dropout who failed in
English can actually achieve this this
type of media coverage and also the
exposure that we’ve managed to generate
in the leads through LinkedIn like
anyone can really do it you just got to
have a harder goal then want to add
value to people’s lives love it so so
okay so let’s take that the next step so
I’m making a list I find an editor of
ink magazine perfect this is a perfect
contact that I want to get to know you
know if I have a connection maybe I ask
that person to introduce me if I don’t
have a connection in what do you
recommend am I using email how to
introduce myself will you how do you get
on somebody’s radar once you’ve found
out who that person is yeah so this
really takes us to the connect stage so
now that you’ve kind of built the right
foundations in the plans Asia connect
stage is all about building a target at
least to then build those relationships
in a prophecy age which is the third
step so if you like I’ll take you
through the connect stage and I’ll share
with you a very unique strategy that
I’ve used in connecting with journalists
because I think it will put all the
pieces together so essentially the
connect stage is where you you sit down
you go through all your existing
contacts and you LinkedIn has this very
powerful CRM system where you can create
tags and tag people into those folders
so I would be the first step is going
through all your existing contacts and
tagging them into those folders you
don’t want to send irrelevant and
untargeted messages to people so and
that’s the key to marketing obviously
making sure that you get your message
right and in front of right people now
once you’ve created those tags you want
to then create new lead folders so if
you’re targeting journalists I would
create a tag called
under journalist Inc journalist Forbes
journalist New York Times
once you’ve done that I would then jump
on to those particular publications look
for journalists who have written around
your particular expertise and then once
you find a particular journalist let’s
say it’s Alex bruised or John Smith
whoever might be go search for them on
LinkedIn and send them a personal
invitation to connect with you and you
could just say that something as simple
as you know I saw your article five
mistakes all young entrepreneurs make I
thought it was thought-provoking would
be great to connect now if you’ve got a
very good compelling profile that’s why
we say their actual connect stage is so
important
you would then have more than 50% of
those journalists connecting with you
when I first started it was less than 30
because I didn’t have a sort of profile
that I have but still 30% is it’s pretty
good and then as soon as they connect
with you you put them into that folder
that you created earlier
then you create a list of at least a
hundred so in in the journalist or the
media space we recommend having a list
of a hundred of them and then in the
profit stage which we can kind of talk
about next that’s where you start
building a relationship with them
through a series of four emails so
that’s that’s the strategy that will
implement cool so we got some questions
coming in for those you guys watching
live on the right side you can write in
a question for me or Alex really alex is
among grants for the link I’ll just ask
the question the first one comes from
des who’s writing in are linked in
groups valuable flatout know in my
opinion I’ve never
ah yeah I’m a part of groups I don’t I
don’t spend a lot of time in groups
because I think groups have become a
little bit spammy and people are just
posting up articles and and stuff and
it’s very time-consuming
now the reason so what my whole strategy
with groups is instead of joining their
groups go find a group owner they’ve
already got a list of all the MP
people who are targeted within that
group build a relationship with him and
then get him to promote you and that you
could do that through broadcast so I’ve
held I did one webinar where we had over
3000 people register and that was that
all came through a relationship that I
built with the group owner and they sent
out three emails to the to the members
within their group and we got a lot of
registrations come through that now the
only time I would utilize groups is
within your profile so I would list at
least six to eight groups within your
profile because what that does is shows
that you’re you know staying up to date
and you’re current with all the latest
tips and strategies and insights within
your industry so that’s the only time
that I would recommend using groups
that’s interesting there’s a lot of
people see use groups and there’s a
different approach you’re really like
you’re a sniper you want like this
particular person and that’s it if I get
that person I’m good like this these are
hundred people or whatever it is and not
like they’ll take me to the masses I’m
not trying to get the masses I want the
people who are taking me there yeah yeah
and I think the people the power that is
you I’ve now built a relation now in
that group he’s now got over a hundred
and ten thousand people when we first
started that relationship bill sixty
thousand so you can go after one person
and all the masses but you can go and
find one person who has a list of the
masses I I’d prefer to build long-term
relationships with people and you can’t
do that on a mass level one-on-one so
best part best I guess
strategy is to find joint venture
partners and get them to promote to
their lease cool next one coming in how
can I get people to take me seriously as
a young entrepreneur so is that just
down to the profile or how do you come a
young entrepreneur I don’t have a lot of
credibility or experience yet how do I
get people to take me seriously well I
think if the first first sort of advice
I would give you and this former one
entrepreneur to another I think it’s
it’s a change of mindset there first and
foremost so I think for you to think
that at some
level you may not take yourself
seriously or know your worth in in the
world and looked I was there I like I
said I was a high school dropout first
of all businesses completely failed
before I turn everything around and I
think part of that process I realized my
worth in this world and what I can
provide to people and the products and
services I built how much impact they
can have in people’s lives and I think
what I’ve realized is people don’t care
about your age people don’t care about
where you’re from all people care about
is you getting them a result so if you
can get them a result then that’s all
that matters now you may not have the
profile that you know some some some of
the entrepreneurs who you know but at
the end of the day you’ve got to start
somewhere
all entrepreneurs have started at a and
they’ve now gone to 2d or air for within
their journey of getting to that elusive
Z which I don’t think we’ll ever get to
because we’re always looking to expand
our comfort zone so I think you know
first of all it’s a change of mindset
but second of all it’s going out there
and maybe if you don’t have the
credibility start connecting with
influences build those relationships and
like you just never know some of them
will start our profiling you in some of
their articles just because you built a
relationship with them and if you know
your industry well if you if you have
been in your industry long enough you
start getting featured in publications
purely because of your advice not
because of your profile as you start
building a profile then you can target
bigger publications so that’d be my
advice then yeah I mean just an echo
Alex’s point when I was 19 I had my
first software company and I was afraid
to sell because there were guys three
times my age you had degrees that I
didn’t have and I didn’t want to meet
anybody it was all by email and then it
only was when I realized hey they don’t
care how old I am they just cared that I
can give them value I can solve a
problem for them it was just it was all
up in here was just myself telling me
that that I couldn’t do it when when I
got over that I served to see major
results exactly and can I just make
another note on that you know
and when when I launched a business
advisory firm I had a daughter a sales
company saw that launch advisory firm we
and essentially we realize that when
connecting with joint venture partners
our accountants are probably a good fit
for us because they’ve got so many small
business owners on their list now I’m 26
at that time I look about 20 so I’m now
going into accounting firms where the
partners are like 45 plus so they look
at me and they asking themselves which I
know questions like what can this young
kid teach us about business and that’s
when I came to the realization that even
though I’m 26
I’ve managed to sell to businesses when
these accountants who are 45 plus habits
and I’ve got rare knowledge that they
need and I started focusing on that and
as you buy it as a result of focusing on
that I was able to get cut through and I
just basically said to the accountants I
said what’s your number one challenger
said sounds of marketing getting more
clients I said fantastic I’ll come and
do a one-hour session absolutely free
for you if you love it
we’ll partner if you don’t I’ll walk
away we won’t charge you absolutely
complimentary we didn’t the onus was on
me to deliver and we did then that’s how
we grew the advisory firm so yeah yeah I
think more and more people in their 40s
50s 60s realize that they don’t have the
knowledge they don’t have a lot of the
knowledge they have some of the
experience of how in in Edwards but
marketing has changed right websites
YouTube snapchat they realize is
important and and they’re looking to
young people now for advice more than
ever than in the past so yeah I love it
next question do you need to produce
regular posts yeah it’s good question I
put up a post a week I don’t I don’t
spend a lot of time putting up posts I
think it’s good in terms of because when
you write a post what happens is all the
people who are in your network get a
notification which at the top right hand
side of their account to say that you’ve
written a post and OH
your headline is visible so I think in
terms of you know keeping top of mine I
would write post but I would do it once
a week I think a lot of young
entrepreneurs and I see a lot of more
mature entrepreneurs now just hiding
behind content I think just get your
goal is to get out there and sell now
whenever you launch any business I think
80% of it is purely sales and marketing
20% content so depending on your stage
in your business and your role within
that business that really
tells you what what sort of percentage
you should be spending but as a rule of
thumb I do one post a week on LinkedIn
cool and I guess that looks fun is it I
mean I’m not the expert so when somebody
looks on your profile you talked about
having an important profile – that has
credibility your post show up on your
profile as well correct yeah so just
underneath your contact details all your
various blogs that you’ve written will
actually show up right before your
summary so and that’s really important
to ensure that the posts that you put up
are relevant to your profile because
I’ve seen a lot of profiles whether the
right there in the marketing space where
they’re writing about branding and then
the writing about recruitment and then
you get to their page and you think okay
well is this guy an expert in
recruitment or is he an expert in
marketing so make sure that whatever
posts you write are based around your
particular message cool if I was trying
to target a a specific segment specific
you know I’m taking my Alex sniper rifle
out uh you know maybe so maybe like as
an entrepreneur for me I might put the
cover different areas but maybe now I’m
talking about business growth and I’m
targeting you know business growth kind
of reporters as part of my strategy to
now create some content before I go and
reach them so that when they come hit my
profile they’re going to see that
content yeah so what I would do next
scenario and this is also the case if
you own multiple businesses it’s it
becomes a little bit more tricky in
terms of how you write your profile so
in your summary I would
right if you own multiple businesses or
going after multiple different target
markets I’ll rewrite your summary in a
way where it basically emphasizes on
that so I would if you’re a serial
entrepreneur your own model businesses I
would write something like you know Alex
Bruce is the founder of Lincoln sir and
he also is passionate about x and y and
those that x and y is those two
additional businesses that you operate
so when people get to your profile they
go okay Evan owns three businesses and
this is why he’s passionate about those
three businesses if you don’t explain it
all of a sudden when they get to your
profile you may look a bit scattered
like is everyone focusing on recruitment
is he you know is your Tugg is he all
about his book at the moment or maybe
he’s all about his youtube channel like
unless you properly explain it in your
summary in a story format people just
won’t resonate with it and then they’ll
think you’re you’re scattered and the
likelihood of them connecting with use a
lot less hopefully that explained it
yeah no it’s good yeah wheels are
already bumping up against the clock
it’s crazy how quick time goes the last
question let’s shop writing in should I
stay connected to big entrepreneurs that
are not in my industry I think it I you
never want to remove a connection unless
they can continuously spam you or do
something that you don’t want to be
connected with them ever again
the reason why I say you should stay
connected with them because those big
influences probably have a mass reach
and a lot of connections in their
particular network now the more
connections you have the more you’re
able to search for entrepreneurs so
right now I’ve got last time I checked I
think was like thirteen thousand four
hundred connections that gives me a
reach of twenty three million people so
the more and more connections I have the
more reach I have in terms of finding
and connecting with people in my second
degree connections now the less and less
connections you have obviously more and
more people will be in the third degree
a connection level and therefore
you’ll need to email them so I recommend
having more and more connections now I
wouldn’t recommend going out there just
connecting with everyone for the sake of
boosting that up you want to make sure
it’s targeted by the people that you’ve
really connected with I do recommend
staying connected with them but maybe
create a different folder and that
father could be you know do not contact
or influencers so that way you don’t
send them emails that are that are not
relevant do you say yes to anybody who
wants to be your connection I do I do
I’ve I’ve started to filter a little bit
because I’m getting and this is no
disrespect to Saudi Arabia because I’ve
got a lot of friends there but I get a
lot of people who I like from thanks the
head of banking Saudi Arabia you got to
kind of really ask yourself with the
head of the Saudi Arabian bank connect
with you and the likelihood is no and
the ones that I had connected with
around those type of messaging um
they’ve sent me spam like emails such as
you know we’ve got a account with four
hundred eighty million dollars and would
love for you to um give us your bank
detail so we can transfer it so you get
those every now and then but I would
connect with anyone who sends me a
connection invite and you can remove a
connection so if you start it to get one
or two of those people sending you
something like that you can just remove
them as a connection but connect with
everyone and put them into like a do not
contact list so that way you don’t send
them irrelevant messages all right
awesome Alex appreciate the time for
people watching they want to learn more
about you where are they going I just go
to wwl influencer comm and that’s Li NK
cell ue NCE are calm and guys look at
anytime we share our message that the
number one thing we want you to take
away is that just implement and execute
99% of entrepreneurs that I come across
now all about you know feeling good
about being an entrepreneur I think you
want to be in an exit
and I love for you to execute the
content you’ve learned today make sure
it doesn’t get washed away on paper and
keep me posted with your results I love
it Alex Hanks at the time thank you guys
so much for watching
continue to believe and we’ll see you
soon
also thanks Evan
another YouTube hangout super excited to
be here with you this afternoon I’ve got
a special guest
Alex P Roos who is a LinkedIn marketing
expert joining us from Australia so it’s
just past 6:00 in the morning for him
and we’re going to talk about strategies
to help you grow your business through
LinkedIn so Alex welcome aboard thanks
for having me it’s a absolute pleasure
and look any time we get the opportunity
to really transform or share our message
on how to leverage LinkedIn is an
absolute privilege whether that’s in
front of ten people one person a hundred
people so thank you for having me
for thousands thousands Alex Allison or
thousands for people who don’t know
about you maybe just a quick overview so
that gives them some context yeah so
essentially about four years ago I was
at a point in my business journey where
it failed in my first four businesses
and managed to sell start grow and exit
to businesses and I thought that’s a
pretty good recipe to start as an
advisory firm and when I did that I
noticed that the whole landscape around
sales and marketing and the importance
of personal branding had really shifted
and so all the traditional forms of
advertising and marketing were somewhat
outdated and so we looked into all the
social media tools and I was in the
process of actually hiring a PR company
and I was driving home one night and I
got an email from a friend of mine and
the headline I probably shouldn’t have
checked because I was going 80
kilometers an hour but I got it the
headline said ninety four point two
percent of journalists and editors are
on LinkedIn and it was quite fitting
because we’re in the process of actually
hiring a PR company anyway started
connecting with a few Germans here and
then literally within the next few
months we connected with over 330
journalists and we got featured in a lot
of publications so that really started
my journey on LinkedIn and from there we
managed to get on board a lot of
partnerships with the accountants we
grew that into our business practice and
throughout those accounting firms when
we had those conversations we realized
that a lot of businesses were coming to
us and saying well if you know how to
leverage it would love to learn that as
well and
then we set up link filter about three
years ago and today we’ve now educated
over fourteen thousand people in 55
industries in 30 countries in our unique
three-step methodology so it’s been an
interesting ride
cool now lengthen is an interesting one
for me I actually just got bought by
Microsoft and see how that goes it’s
super interesting uh when I first got
into social LinkedIn was one of the ones
that I was going hardcore on and then I
just stopped because I wasn’t getting
the value and I was getting it in other
places and and that I was back in the
day when LinkedIn you to tell you for
your country
how United and right like how many
connections you had and I wanted to be
like top and Canada knows working
towards it and now just I and Chuck is
like once you over is a 500 connections
stop showing you how many can I get if
you have um yeah so like you know as an
entrepreneur where you spend your time
super important you’re not repairing
yourself obviously you’re getting value
from it you’re doing something right
that I was doing wrong so so maybe walk
us through look what are the three steps
that somebody has to go through to get
success with LinkedIn yeah um so we
break it down into planned connect
profit so the first step in any
marketing strategy in order for it to be
fruitful has to be the foundational part
so you got to build the right
foundations and the way to do that is to
sit down and and if you guys whether
you’re watching this live or whether
you’re watching recorded version I would
definitely grab a pen and paper and
write some of these questions out
because I’d love for you to create a
plan and start executing that on
LinkedIn so first and foremost you need
to understand your outcome for using
LinkedIn what’s your outcome is it to
generate thousand more leads is it to
generate ten new clients is it to
expanding to nationally whatever that
might be then once you’ve got your
outcome and it’s clear and measurable
the next thing you want to do is ask
yourself the question what are what are
the six to 12-month marketing objectives
that I have for my business overall not
just LinkedIn but overall once you’ve
got that then you need to ask yourself
what are the who do I need to connect
with in order to achieve those marketing
objectives
you know you’ve got to come up with your
industry your your title you’ve got to
think of also the location along with it
you got to think how big is the company
other companies that you want to connect
with as well so that will essentially
create your client avatar and the reason
why that’s important is because in order
to meet your marketing objectives you
need to connect with the right people
and I know a ton of people who have
15,000 people on their list but or in
their connections and they’ve never done
any business whatsoever which I think
it’s quite ridiculous I’d rather have a
network of 20 people and do more
business so I think it’s that balancing
the quality and quantity equation and
then the last step in the plan stage is
making sure you have a compelling
LinkedIn profile and one of the biggest
businesses I’ve learned is that you need
to build your business based on the
outside inside approach you go to your
market you find out exactly what they’re
looking for by building something to
begin with and then evolving it over
time so your LinkedIn profile is very
similar so you need to ask yourself
three very important questions what are
the top three objections that I normally
face every single time that I saw my
product or service what are the three
challenges I solve with my product or
service and then how am i different in
the marketplace and then once you’ve got
the answers to that you go into all the
various sections like your summary your
like your skills and expertise like your
work experiences your headline or
recommendations on all those sections
you re jig those particular sections
with the answers because when someone
can it goes on to your profile
essentially they’re looking to solve
those particular challenges they’re
looking to solve those objections before
they connect with you and that’s that’s
the plan so it’s a first step so let’s
get let’s get real like practitioner in
light on this as an example so for me I
have a book coming out in December I
have time right now right I mean not in
the same amount of time but I’ve time
now to kind of lead up to that
finding value I’m doing a lot of that on
my youtube channel that strategy is
pretty set you know I have a lot of
people who are following me on LinkedIn
I don’t really engage much I mean if
people write me a message all right back
kind of thing but I’m not involved in
groups I’m not really doing things if I
have a book coming out in December and
it’s targeted towards entrepreneurs what
do you recommend I do between now it’s
like what this is June I guess it’s July
for you or in different months are in
July we have until December what do you
recommend that I do for LinkedIn to be
able to sell my book what’s a book about
it’s helping entrepreneurs so it’s
geared toward helping entrepreneurs okay
so I’m happy to have a conversation with
you and get you written up in some of
the columns that I write for so that’s
that’s the type of people you should be
connecting with journalists columnist on
so essentially what I did when I wanted
to build and gain exposure for our link
fluency I connected with people in Inc
people in Forbes people an entrepreneur
people in Wall Street Journal people in
New York Times and all I did is
implement this three-step methodology
and started connecting with them and
building relationships and adding value
so that the first step I’ll be employing
is essentially going out and connecting
with journalists and editors and the
biggest challenges that these
journalists and editors face is that
they don’t have access to key experts
you you’re in a fortunate situation
because you’ve spent a ton of time over
the years building your influence of
building your thority which is going to
work in hand for you because they’re
looking for experts and many people
don’t have that expert status so and
that’s why you would have an easier time
to connect with journalists and editors
but in saying that if you’re an
entrepreneur listening to this and you
don’t have the connections you don’t
have the influence you’re probably where
I were as five years ago and all I do is
connect with the journalists became that
thought leader became that person that
always helped them out and I got to tell
you there hasn’t been a time that I’ve
got on the phone with a journalist
within the next three to four months I
haven’t been featured in a publication
because you’re essentially just solving
their challenges which is access to key
experts and also the time pool and
because they don’t have access to key
experts they have to go looking around
in their network if you can be that
person then you’ll get a ton of media
coverage that’s the first strategy
second strategy is definitely going out
and finding joint venture partnerships
so with your book I would be connecting
with other influences who have a big
database of entrepreneurs and business
owners and then asking them to promote
you through that database whether that’s
a joint webinar you do whether it’s an
email out to the list and I’m sure
you’ve done that in the past but um 49%
of key decision-makers are on LinkedIn
and they’ve now got over four hundred
and thirty three million members I like
every time I say that I’ll get excited
because the sole purpose of what were in
business is to get our message right get
in front of key decision-makers and 49%
of them run their so they’re the two
strategies I will implement it’s
interesting and what what is different
than I had in mind going in was with the
YouTube strategy it’s a one-to-many
right like it thousands of people watch
and so I could talk about the book and
it’ll it’ll sell to the audience here
where your protein is much more
one-to-one identifying the influencers
whether it’s an entrepreneur with a list
or media or key partner find out one
person making that one connection in
then using that influence to make
something happen
for sure and look you know yourself your
network is your net worth at then a day
all these relationships that I’ve now
built with journalists when I launched
the next business because I’ve got all
these relationships already built
I can then utilize those relationships
into my next business and that’s
essentially what we did so we had all
these journalists and editors that I had
connected with and I had built these
relationships with them but then when I
launched length loans are literally
within the first three weeks we got
featuring in 17 media publication
we never sent out a press release and
this is coming from a guy who failed in
high school my high score was 48 percent
in English I ran home told my mum
absolutely stoked she was not stoked she
was a she she wasn’t impressed so if a
high school dropout who failed in
English can actually achieve this this
type of media coverage and also the
exposure that we’ve managed to generate
in the leads through LinkedIn like
anyone can really do it you just got to
have a harder goal then want to add
value to people’s lives love it so so
okay so let’s take that the next step so
I’m making a list I find an editor of
ink magazine perfect this is a perfect
contact that I want to get to know you
know if I have a connection maybe I ask
that person to introduce me if I don’t
have a connection in what do you
recommend am I using email how to
introduce myself will you how do you get
on somebody’s radar once you’ve found
out who that person is yeah so this
really takes us to the connect stage so
now that you’ve kind of built the right
foundations in the plans Asia connect
stage is all about building a target at
least to then build those relationships
in a prophecy age which is the third
step so if you like I’ll take you
through the connect stage and I’ll share
with you a very unique strategy that
I’ve used in connecting with journalists
because I think it will put all the
pieces together so essentially the
connect stage is where you you sit down
you go through all your existing
contacts and you LinkedIn has this very
powerful CRM system where you can create
tags and tag people into those folders
so I would be the first step is going
through all your existing contacts and
tagging them into those folders you
don’t want to send irrelevant and
untargeted messages to people so and
that’s the key to marketing obviously
making sure that you get your message
right and in front of right people now
once you’ve created those tags you want
to then create new lead folders so if
you’re targeting journalists I would
create a tag called
under journalist Inc journalist Forbes
journalist New York Times
once you’ve done that I would then jump
on to those particular publications look
for journalists who have written around
your particular expertise and then once
you find a particular journalist let’s
say it’s Alex bruised or John Smith
whoever might be go search for them on
LinkedIn and send them a personal
invitation to connect with you and you
could just say that something as simple
as you know I saw your article five
mistakes all young entrepreneurs make I
thought it was thought-provoking would
be great to connect now if you’ve got a
very good compelling profile that’s why
we say their actual connect stage is so
important
you would then have more than 50% of
those journalists connecting with you
when I first started it was less than 30
because I didn’t have a sort of profile
that I have but still 30% is it’s pretty
good and then as soon as they connect
with you you put them into that folder
that you created earlier
then you create a list of at least a
hundred so in in the journalist or the
media space we recommend having a list
of a hundred of them and then in the
profit stage which we can kind of talk
about next that’s where you start
building a relationship with them
through a series of four emails so
that’s that’s the strategy that will
implement cool so we got some questions
coming in for those you guys watching
live on the right side you can write in
a question for me or Alex really alex is
among grants for the link I’ll just ask
the question the first one comes from
des who’s writing in are linked in
groups valuable flatout know in my
opinion I’ve never
ah yeah I’m a part of groups I don’t I
don’t spend a lot of time in groups
because I think groups have become a
little bit spammy and people are just
posting up articles and and stuff and
it’s very time-consuming
now the reason so what my whole strategy
with groups is instead of joining their
groups go find a group owner they’ve
already got a list of all the MP
people who are targeted within that
group build a relationship with him and
then get him to promote you and that you
could do that through broadcast so I’ve
held I did one webinar where we had over
3000 people register and that was that
all came through a relationship that I
built with the group owner and they sent
out three emails to the to the members
within their group and we got a lot of
registrations come through that now the
only time I would utilize groups is
within your profile so I would list at
least six to eight groups within your
profile because what that does is shows
that you’re you know staying up to date
and you’re current with all the latest
tips and strategies and insights within
your industry so that’s the only time
that I would recommend using groups
that’s interesting there’s a lot of
people see use groups and there’s a
different approach you’re really like
you’re a sniper you want like this
particular person and that’s it if I get
that person I’m good like this these are
hundred people or whatever it is and not
like they’ll take me to the masses I’m
not trying to get the masses I want the
people who are taking me there yeah yeah
and I think the people the power that is
you I’ve now built a relation now in
that group he’s now got over a hundred
and ten thousand people when we first
started that relationship bill sixty
thousand so you can go after one person
and all the masses but you can go and
find one person who has a list of the
masses I I’d prefer to build long-term
relationships with people and you can’t
do that on a mass level one-on-one so
best part best I guess
strategy is to find joint venture
partners and get them to promote to
their lease cool next one coming in how
can I get people to take me seriously as
a young entrepreneur so is that just
down to the profile or how do you come a
young entrepreneur I don’t have a lot of
credibility or experience yet how do I
get people to take me seriously well I
think if the first first sort of advice
I would give you and this former one
entrepreneur to another I think it’s
it’s a change of mindset there first and
foremost so I think for you to think
that at some
level you may not take yourself
seriously or know your worth in in the
world and looked I was there I like I
said I was a high school dropout first
of all businesses completely failed
before I turn everything around and I
think part of that process I realized my
worth in this world and what I can
provide to people and the products and
services I built how much impact they
can have in people’s lives and I think
what I’ve realized is people don’t care
about your age people don’t care about
where you’re from all people care about
is you getting them a result so if you
can get them a result then that’s all
that matters now you may not have the
profile that you know some some some of
the entrepreneurs who you know but at
the end of the day you’ve got to start
somewhere
all entrepreneurs have started at a and
they’ve now gone to 2d or air for within
their journey of getting to that elusive
Z which I don’t think we’ll ever get to
because we’re always looking to expand
our comfort zone so I think you know
first of all it’s a change of mindset
but second of all it’s going out there
and maybe if you don’t have the
credibility start connecting with
influences build those relationships and
like you just never know some of them
will start our profiling you in some of
their articles just because you built a
relationship with them and if you know
your industry well if you if you have
been in your industry long enough you
start getting featured in publications
purely because of your advice not
because of your profile as you start
building a profile then you can target
bigger publications so that’d be my
advice then yeah I mean just an echo
Alex’s point when I was 19 I had my
first software company and I was afraid
to sell because there were guys three
times my age you had degrees that I
didn’t have and I didn’t want to meet
anybody it was all by email and then it
only was when I realized hey they don’t
care how old I am they just cared that I
can give them value I can solve a
problem for them it was just it was all
up in here was just myself telling me
that that I couldn’t do it when when I
got over that I served to see major
results exactly and can I just make
another note on that you know
and when when I launched a business
advisory firm I had a daughter a sales
company saw that launch advisory firm we
and essentially we realize that when
connecting with joint venture partners
our accountants are probably a good fit
for us because they’ve got so many small
business owners on their list now I’m 26
at that time I look about 20 so I’m now
going into accounting firms where the
partners are like 45 plus so they look
at me and they asking themselves which I
know questions like what can this young
kid teach us about business and that’s
when I came to the realization that even
though I’m 26
I’ve managed to sell to businesses when
these accountants who are 45 plus habits
and I’ve got rare knowledge that they
need and I started focusing on that and
as you buy it as a result of focusing on
that I was able to get cut through and I
just basically said to the accountants I
said what’s your number one challenger
said sounds of marketing getting more
clients I said fantastic I’ll come and
do a one-hour session absolutely free
for you if you love it
we’ll partner if you don’t I’ll walk
away we won’t charge you absolutely
complimentary we didn’t the onus was on
me to deliver and we did then that’s how
we grew the advisory firm so yeah yeah I
think more and more people in their 40s
50s 60s realize that they don’t have the
knowledge they don’t have a lot of the
knowledge they have some of the
experience of how in in Edwards but
marketing has changed right websites
YouTube snapchat they realize is
important and and they’re looking to
young people now for advice more than
ever than in the past so yeah I love it
next question do you need to produce
regular posts yeah it’s good question I
put up a post a week I don’t I don’t
spend a lot of time putting up posts I
think it’s good in terms of because when
you write a post what happens is all the
people who are in your network get a
notification which at the top right hand
side of their account to say that you’ve
written a post and OH
your headline is visible so I think in
terms of you know keeping top of mine I
would write post but I would do it once
a week I think a lot of young
entrepreneurs and I see a lot of more
mature entrepreneurs now just hiding
behind content I think just get your
goal is to get out there and sell now
whenever you launch any business I think
80% of it is purely sales and marketing
20% content so depending on your stage
in your business and your role within
that business that really
tells you what what sort of percentage
you should be spending but as a rule of
thumb I do one post a week on LinkedIn
cool and I guess that looks fun is it I
mean I’m not the expert so when somebody
looks on your profile you talked about
having an important profile – that has
credibility your post show up on your
profile as well correct yeah so just
underneath your contact details all your
various blogs that you’ve written will
actually show up right before your
summary so and that’s really important
to ensure that the posts that you put up
are relevant to your profile because
I’ve seen a lot of profiles whether the
right there in the marketing space where
they’re writing about branding and then
the writing about recruitment and then
you get to their page and you think okay
well is this guy an expert in
recruitment or is he an expert in
marketing so make sure that whatever
posts you write are based around your
particular message cool if I was trying
to target a a specific segment specific
you know I’m taking my Alex sniper rifle
out uh you know maybe so maybe like as
an entrepreneur for me I might put the
cover different areas but maybe now I’m
talking about business growth and I’m
targeting you know business growth kind
of reporters as part of my strategy to
now create some content before I go and
reach them so that when they come hit my
profile they’re going to see that
content yeah so what I would do next
scenario and this is also the case if
you own multiple businesses it’s it
becomes a little bit more tricky in
terms of how you write your profile so
in your summary I would
right if you own multiple businesses or
going after multiple different target
markets I’ll rewrite your summary in a
way where it basically emphasizes on
that so I would if you’re a serial
entrepreneur your own model businesses I
would write something like you know Alex
Bruce is the founder of Lincoln sir and
he also is passionate about x and y and
those that x and y is those two
additional businesses that you operate
so when people get to your profile they
go okay Evan owns three businesses and
this is why he’s passionate about those
three businesses if you don’t explain it
all of a sudden when they get to your
profile you may look a bit scattered
like is everyone focusing on recruitment
is he you know is your Tugg is he all
about his book at the moment or maybe
he’s all about his youtube channel like
unless you properly explain it in your
summary in a story format people just
won’t resonate with it and then they’ll
think you’re you’re scattered and the
likelihood of them connecting with use a
lot less hopefully that explained it
yeah no it’s good yeah wheels are
already bumping up against the clock
it’s crazy how quick time goes the last
question let’s shop writing in should I
stay connected to big entrepreneurs that
are not in my industry I think it I you
never want to remove a connection unless
they can continuously spam you or do
something that you don’t want to be
connected with them ever again
the reason why I say you should stay
connected with them because those big
influences probably have a mass reach
and a lot of connections in their
particular network now the more
connections you have the more you’re
able to search for entrepreneurs so
right now I’ve got last time I checked I
think was like thirteen thousand four
hundred connections that gives me a
reach of twenty three million people so
the more and more connections I have the
more reach I have in terms of finding
and connecting with people in my second
degree connections now the less and less
connections you have obviously more and
more people will be in the third degree
a connection level and therefore
you’ll need to email them so I recommend
having more and more connections now I
wouldn’t recommend going out there just
connecting with everyone for the sake of
boosting that up you want to make sure
it’s targeted by the people that you’ve
really connected with I do recommend
staying connected with them but maybe
create a different folder and that
father could be you know do not contact
or influencers so that way you don’t
send them emails that are that are not
relevant do you say yes to anybody who
wants to be your connection I do I do
I’ve I’ve started to filter a little bit
because I’m getting and this is no
disrespect to Saudi Arabia because I’ve
got a lot of friends there but I get a
lot of people who I like from thanks the
head of banking Saudi Arabia you got to
kind of really ask yourself with the
head of the Saudi Arabian bank connect
with you and the likelihood is no and
the ones that I had connected with
around those type of messaging um
they’ve sent me spam like emails such as
you know we’ve got a account with four
hundred eighty million dollars and would
love for you to um give us your bank
detail so we can transfer it so you get
those every now and then but I would
connect with anyone who sends me a
connection invite and you can remove a
connection so if you start it to get one
or two of those people sending you
something like that you can just remove
them as a connection but connect with
everyone and put them into like a do not
contact list so that way you don’t send
them irrelevant messages all right
awesome Alex appreciate the time for
people watching they want to learn more
about you where are they going I just go
to wwl influencer comm and that’s Li NK
cell ue NCE are calm and guys look at
anytime we share our message that the
number one thing we want you to take
away is that just implement and execute
99% of entrepreneurs that I come across
now all about you know feeling good
about being an entrepreneur I think you
want to be in an exit
and I love for you to execute the
content you’ve learned today make sure
it doesn’t get washed away on paper and
keep me posted with your results I love
it Alex Hanks at the time thank you guys
so much for watching
continue to believe and we’ll see you
soon
also thanks Evan
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