How To Use LinkedIn To Grow Your Business - Joshua B. Lee

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story Podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Bro.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Joshua B. Lee. What's up, dude? Not much, Sebastian, man. Excited to be here today, kicking off, talk all things, LinkedIn, whatever, man. You know, I'm gonna open books. Let's let's go.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Let's do it. Let's dive in. Well, as we connect these days in this rapidly changing digital world, you and I have been connected for a minute now on LinkedIn and over on Instagram and through how exactly. I love how we said that at the same time. Um, and you made a post, I think it was last week, a couple weeks ago, about engagement. And I'm always the first one to speak up and say, Yeah, my engagement sucks. And I'm not very good at engagement unless I post a poll. So that's where our conversation started. But to add some context, I like to tell people's story on this on this show. And so if we can back up a little bit and talk about what brought you to present day, and then let's dive right into LinkedIn 101 if you're listening to this right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Well, Sebastian, let's see here. So back in November 3rd, 1978, I was born. No, I'm just no, man, it's uh, you know, I we go back 20 years, man. That's when I first started my company in the online advertising space. You know, I was kind of blessed and cursed. Um, I kind of fell into it. I had a buddy of mine that was in there and he kind of brought me in. And I was with a company for about six months, and that owner tried to change from like an owner to an operator. And that's a huge difference because if they don't actually know how to run a company, it's amazing how that kind of shifts. The company went down really quickly, and I kind of fell into some opportunities because I was sitting on the backside and you know, was a good guy, just built relationships in that first six months. So, one of my first clients when I started my own company was MySpace. So I used to monetize all the traffic on MySpace with a partnership with Yahoo. So, I mean, that's how far back it is. I actually helped them design some of the first social media ads um back when they kicked it off back in 2003 through 2004. So it's I remember those days. It's been a wild ride. Back then it was like printing money. We did arbitrage, you know, buy low, sell high. You know, we're monetizing tons of traffic. It's good and bad because as a young 20-year-old, lots of money, lots of opportunity. But as a young 20-year-old, guy, especially, we make a lot of dumb mistakes. So went through the whole piece, built a couple of different companies and everything you can monetize, right? Like it was CPC, CPA, CPL, CPM, all those different aspects. And then about eight years ago, look, outside looking at everything, like Josh is successful running multiple companies. You know, I can monetize over half a billion dollars in advertising. You know, I've controlled over 35 trillion online impressions. And then there was a couple of different things. One, I realized there's a huge difference between traffic and actually true engagement. Like most people don't get that. Two, I was everything was about monetization. So my life actually was falling apart. Um, and it was all about how much money I could make. And so I had a reset in my life, went through, um, actually ended up getting divorced, walked away from all my companies. At 36, I moved back in with my parents a little bit, a thousand dollars of an aim to protect my kids from a long divorce, and started standing in authority, really concentrate more on the human aspect of marketing and be able to, where we are today, help humanize the way we are online and be able to build that more engagement opportunity to educate, inspire, and draw people in rather than always selling them. So hopefully I covered a little bit, but not too much.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Wow, great story. I some uh similar story too. Uh, and uh I completely understand the whole starting over process, but um I I firmly believe that life is gonna do whatever it takes to get your attention and it's gonna remove whatever you'd like, uh whatever needs to be removed that may be in the way to be able to get you to where it is you want to be. That is, if you are aware enough uh to recognize the exactly the truth and what needs to be done. I always say the that I didn't find the work, the work found me, and I don't mean uh business work, I mean the the personal work, the uh the the real work, getting in and healing what needs to be healed and and resolving what needs to be resolved so that we can properly show up in this world for who we need to be. So stoked that uh you're able to wade through that storm. Uh that life is full of uh of of uh twists and turns at times, but I believe it really shapes our character uh and develops into it develops us into who we need to be. So that's brought you to present day. You guys you're gonna all in with LinkedIn. You yourself is a are a significant uh creator on the platform of LinkedIn, and you help clients uh really become that go-to source on LinkedIn. Let's talk about that because I don't I don't I I see a lot of chatter online, especially on Facebook and some masterminds I'm involved in. People are all jazzed up about being involved with LinkedIn now, saying that it's a good place to be, yet it was the first social media platform on the on the on the scene. No one really knows that.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Oh, yeah. No, they're actually just celebrating their 18th birthday this year. So they've been around for a long time, and it's crazy. But yeah, everyone's excited about LinkedIn. It seems like no one understands other than how to spam a lot. We all get it right that you get the the thousand spam emails, and you know, you're like, oh, this is what pushes most people off. But there's massive opportunity on that platform, and that's kind of what we saw. We're like, okay, how do we actually actually leverage this? And that's that was my shift, right? To be honest, Sebastian. Like when I first started, you know, seven years ago, like I understood how to control traffic. So I mean, I use that traffic to my advantage. And and then I was like, wow, okay, all we're doing is moving a whole bunch of traffic around, it's not doing anything. How do we actually understand the right algorithm? And for me, in the long run, it was understanding the one algorithm that truly matters most, it's the human algorithm. How do actually human beings under their sign? Because as marketers we go, LinkedIn's a B2B platform. Well, I look at it this way. I don't really believe there's a B2B or B2C that's business to business or business consumer. Who doesn't, if you don't know, I know you know Sebastian, but you know, just anyone listening, I believe it's all H to H, human to human, because every company is run by another human being. Most marketers have just forgotten that over the time. And so that's what we have to get back to. How do we actually as humans push that? And like you are talking, you and I were talking about engagement. Well, how do we actually condition someone since we've been conditioned for 20 years on how we use online? How do we recondition them to worry more about the the triggers that are we we rely on emotionally comparably to how whatever the algorithm is that changes every six months?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, that human to humans huge. I I learned about that years ago. My buddy Brian Kramer. Yeah, Brian's amazing. Yeah, he's he's incredible. He wrote a book and in and really went all in on this human to human thought process on here. And I think a lot of people are starting to discover that. It's funny you see him at times course correcting people online that think they've revolutionized the human to human. But he was talking about this when, like, I think like 2013, 2014. I mean, way back before humans were actually recognizing humans in the digital space, I think, you know. Uh what, but it is so true. And I have another another analogy would be that behind every B to B is a C, uh, and vice versa, too. So that human element and component of being able to, it's interesting to see there is a huge difference between engagement and traffic. Engagement, I think, are is is familiar. Traffic is unfamiliar. It's just something that is, you know, it's action being taken on a piece of content. I think that the human element of engagement is where the magic really happens in so that's what we have to be able to get to, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:05

I mean, we have to get past like everyone's like, I want traffic, but traffic's just traffic. If they don't take an action, they don't move forward. If you just draw someone, like how many times this is bounce rates, right? People go into your page and try to go through. But we went, we all want to be able to have someone to be able to take an action to be able to move forward. And that's what we have to be able to find that emotional connection because as humans, we are emotional beings, we love or hate something to some degree, right? If we're indifferent towards that content, like that, everyone's so scared to be you know polarizing online, but that's how we make decisions, right? You love or hate something. Like if you're indifferent, you're just not wasting your time, you're wasting their time as well. And that's what we see so much on content.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah. So when what did you do when you first started on LinkedIn? How did you how did you really hit the ground running or build what you've what you've built now to now go and pass on to the clients you work with?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

You know, and that's the whole piece, right? I mean, it was, you know, we were doing this originally. It was around I look back the first time we we were doing LinkedIn, it was probably 2012, 2013, around that same time frame, too, that we were just doing traffic sites. So we were actually taking the traffic that we controlled because we controlled amazing amounts of traffic. We understood the algorithm, and what we were doing was we were creating articles and we were able to boost the article views, right? I could have someone come in and we could actually make an article view of 30, 40, 50,000 views, right? And then they were using that as leverage to go in and go, hey, look, I have 50,000 people. So they were getting placements, they were going through, they were using it for customer testimonials, but that was the old me, right? That was like, oh, well, let me just show this is what you want to be and let me do it. And that's when I started really playing around on LinkedIn and we had this shift. And when I had my own life shift, I said, wait a minute, how do we actually set this right? And then I started playing around and I started truly looking how people engage online. You know, there's uh the great movie on Netflix. Um, oh my God, I just uh the one about social dilemma. Thank you. I'm losing my mind here. Yeah, social dilemma, and I mean you look, the we've been conditioned over time to comment, like, share, post, comment, like, share, post. We have this pattern that we're all in. And we have to be able to create stock gaps in those patterns. And the way to be able to create stock gaps, what I found was to be able to appreciate people for something they've never been appreciated for. Since you're conditioned just to like and comment go through, when's the last time someone went through and then you started testing this out? Like, hey, Sebastian, I saw you like my post. Just want to reach out and say thank you, right? Oh, hey, Sebastian, I saw you looked at my my profile. Just want to say thank you, right? Creating that, those thank yous, because like we saw this especially in COVID, right? The things that we take for granted on a regular basis, right? Wearing a mask every day, right? Going out anytime we want, traveling. Hell, I remember I took for granted that my kids actually went to school, not just the other room. Yeah. So that's the same kind of situation with social media is we take for granted all these views, these likes that go in through. And we created stopgaps by actually saying thank you to people and then saying, Hey, I'd love to find out what pushed you to like my post or what pushed you to check out my profile to start a conversation because start with appreciation, conversations turn into relationships, relationships turn to opportunity. And that's the kind of process that we started doing. And I was blessed to start working with some of the men and women I used to read their books on how to be able to start my own companies 20 years ago, and now they're my clients.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I love that. Love that. So someone's just getting started, or they're dusting off the old LinkedIn profile and said, Well, I want to figure this thing out and they want to get started today. What are the first few things they should be doing?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

I mean, first thing I ever see, Sebastian, is people don't take the time to be able to fill out their profile on LinkedIn fully first, but two, unless you're looking for a job, if you're looking for opportunity, it shouldn't read as a resume. And honestly, I don't think it should read like a resume ever. Everyone writes it like a resume. And like, it's just not the way. It should be your career journey. How do you tell the story? Right. Being able to go through and really fill that out to be able to tell a story of how you've gotten to where you are. So many of us go on there and we look at it and we go, Oh, wow, look, Sebastian, man, he woke up one day, he was born a podcast host, right? No, you weren't. You had an entire journey to be able to get here. We just talked about a little bit how your journey and how things change, just like with mine. So, like if you look at my profile, it goes all the way back to me being a server at Chili's, right? And I want people to understand like, these are all the different jobs that go through. So you want to be able to fill this out because not only is it good for someone to be able to find relatability, again, we're going to that connection as human beings, but we want to be able to have the SEO ability as well, too, because Google indexes our profiles. Google actually used to index profiles and just articles. And as of last month, they actually started indexing our posts as well, too, on Google, which is amazing for SEO benefits. This is why you saw the posts go from 1300 characters to 3,000 characters now, because we're trying to be able to get more indexability. And that's the platform we all really want to be shown on.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, absolutely. So making sure your profile is complete, making sure it's not too resume-y right. That's a word, but it is now. And then as far as content is concerned, we'll dive right into the content game. I've heard a lot of times from a lot of LinkedIn creators that it's very rarely about your LinkedIn content, it's more about the engagement on other people's content. And some would even say, I love the comment or the phrase, comments are content. So let's talk a little bit about what someone should be doing content-wise on a daily basis. Should we post a couple times a day? Um, and how does that all work?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah, no, I mean, there's been definitely research that goes through. Unless you are a household name, you know, that's that's going through, you should be only posting one time a day. Because again, the second time or third time that you post that day, you're just getting your decreasing your visibility on those other posts. LinkedIn doesn't want a whole bunch of content from one person. So that's where you have to be able to start, like being able to share. And you're looking for, we've seen stats that kind of come through that if you have less than three lines, you're gonna get dinged, right? You want to be able to go through. So these are the different pieces that you want to be able to, how are you sharing? At the same point, don't be that person always talking about yourself, right? So many people are just pitching, talking about what they can do for someone, not what they have done. So, like I kind of look at Sebastian that the 10, 20, 70 rule of content, which is 10 personal, 20 around your company of what you've done, not what you can do, and then 70 other that adds value. So that's the content posting, like going out, right? But at the same time, like you said, commenting on someone else's posts are phenomenal. LinkedIn loves this. They've got, you know, like the SSI score that still has a viable insights onto how you're showing up on LinkedIn. Have you heard of the SSI score? I assume I have not. I have now. Okay. Social social selling index score. I assume with all the amazing people that you've worked with, that maybe that they've been brought up, but you know, so you can actually go in. Of course, now it's behind the paywall. Thank you, LinkedIn. But if you have sales navigator, things like that, you can go on Google and search SSI LinkedIn, and it'll actually pull up your score. It's a zero to 100. It really shows up how you're like engaging with insights, how much your profile, your brandability, all these different aspects. It's what LinkedIn sees on the backside, right? So it gives you a better understanding of how they're seeing you and how you're showing up. And then you're talking about comments. I mean, different people have different views. Gary V says you want to give your dollar 60 every day, which is everyone has their own two cents. So you should be commenting on 80 people's posts a day. I think that's a little bit aggressive. I'm not sure what else you could actually be doing all day if you're doing 80 comments a day, but you definitely want to be identifying your audience through something like Sales Navigator, finding the people that I post in the last 30 days, because it will show you and break that out for you, engaging on their content and reaching out. Like Sebastian, if you put something out there and you are a client that I want to be able to get access to, I'm gonna like your post, right? Because that's gonna give you that dopamine hit that we all look for from our content. I'm gonna probably comment on it too. And then I'm gonna reach out and say, Hey, Sebastian, I saw your recent posts on your podcast with Shay, right? Um, man, really loved it. Appreciate you sharing that. Thank you so much. Love to be able to connect with you. So that's kind of how we actually look about doing. I know it has threw a whole bunch of information at you. Yeah. But you know, those are just some of the different tactics that we're kind of using to be able to leverage not only content, but also engagement on someone else's content as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

You know, I had to go find out what mine was right now. 72.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

All right, so you're above where you need. So let's go. Zero to 30. Think about it this way, right? Zero to 30 is like the SAT scores, right? You should put your name on the test, they gave you 300 points. Like, yay, you know your name. Good job.

unknown 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

30 to 60 is about, you know, like you're you're more of a like you're just looking at other people's content, you engage a little bit here and there. And then when you're 70 above your posting, you're going in. This shows that you're actually in the LinkedIn algorithm. And so this is where they start rewarding you more. They're like, hey, these are the leaders that are going in. And you see, we're not talking a lot, right? You're gonna get like a uh anywhere from a five to 10% boost on your posts, visibility-wise, when you're over 70.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Love that. Let's go. So, what kind of content? Like, I I see that well, obviously polls are getting the most, uh, getting the most, but there's also kind of frowned upon too, becoming a little taboo. And uh, and then uh well, carousel posts, but I guess that would be more of a document post, seem to do well. Just plain text will do well at times. Even a YouTube link has done well for me when I remove the link out of the text aspect of it. So if I post a new video of you know best podcasting equipment uh from my weekly YouTube video, I could I could upload it negatively to LinkedIn, but the results are deplorable. I mean, I can't get anyone to watch that video. But if I post a YouTube link, I can get a couple hundred views on the post and some action in the comments. Nothing to write home about by any stretch of imagination. But I thought it was kind of interesting because I cannot get someone, and I and I follow people that that create like Trevor and and and Trev Trevor Houston and and Shay, of course, with with with her videos. And you know, these are unique examples, right? Um, and but there's there's there's a significant, there's a significant um uh engagement rate on that, but I can't get anybody to watch my videos for some.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

What they're looking for now, which is crazy. I mean, like you almost need like 200 in you know, engagements to be able to truly get that viral boost on LinkedIn, which I mean, of course, if you're getting 200 likes or comments in there, you're already going in. But that's what they're seeing right now. It used to be 20. Now they're looking for 200 over the first 24 hours. So, I mean, like this is kind of what that that LinkedIn looks for and kind of adjusts for it. Videos, um, you know, I was kind of blessed. They started a new creator program over at LinkedIn a couple months back. I was one of the first people um invited into the program. And, you know, what we're seeing right now from them is, you know, they got rid of LinkedIn stories. Well, surprise, surprise, we're gonna be probably getting reels here real soon. Um, you know, and so they're looking for what they kind of show where like like think of Instagram reels, right? I mean, like they're looking for more people to do take business and make it more fun. So you're looking for those 15 to 20 second videos. Uh, they're gonna go in, and that's what we're seeing kind of have better visibility. Um, same thing, like in every anyone listening to like Sebastian, you were talking about removing the link on your YouTube video. Yes, you do that on there. Never go back in the first hour and edit your post because that will actually decrease your visibility on the algorithm too. If you go in and you're like, oh man, I messed up, I need to edit. However, it might be, we've seen a negative shift in that if you edit your post in the first hour. Interesting. Any videos over 30 seconds, I mean, it's it's rough. Um, I mean, unless you've been, unless you're Shea Robottom, who who actually has really figured out and has the massive following going through. Um, I can get a massive engagement on you know, my posts being able to go through. I personally, anyone that I work with that has a podcast like yours, like I actually leverage articles because they're so highly indexed on Google. The Moz score of SEO, how it's actually ranked on Google, it's a hundred out of a hundred. So you get a massive indexability aspect. So actually taking the full video, inserting it into the article, and then creating the content just like you would do on your website, but doing that as an article can work really, really well because yeah, the visibility on LinkedIn, but over a lifetime, immediate visibility might be a little bit lower on articles, but over a lifetime, I mean, we I consistently get article reads over time. And what you really want to get to is the elusive LinkedIn newsletter. Once you actually post enough articles, LinkedIn has a new feature, which I'm probably you've seen with other people. It's like I have my weekly dopamine dose, it's a weekly newsletter, and LinkedIn does all the work for you. It's the article, but then they email all your subscribers for you.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah, I saw that. I'm like, how does this happen?

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Yeah. Yeah. So that's really why I mean, like, I'm teaching you the ways like take your podcast, put them in an article because you can do pictures, you can do video, and you can do content. So it works really, really well. How you can even embed an audio and into your article and allow people to be able to read, watch, or like some people like to read a book, some people like to listen to it, others like to wait for the movie to be be released. So you can do that in an article. You get the SEO ability, and then once you start posting enough articles, you get that newsletter, which is really, really awesome.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

This is great. So that leads me to my next. Next question Is this whole creator mode useful? Because I've seen my engagement drop because I turned on creator mode and I turned it off and then I just checked yesterday and it's back on. So I don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Are you using the five hashtags? Because you know you have to have five hashtags that you associate with creator mode. So you're using the five hashtags in your content.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

What what are the hashtags?

SPEAKER_00 22:23

So when you turn creator mode on, you have to select five hashtags you want all of your content to be associated with. So if you're starting, if you're posting content, not using those five hashtags where they're out of scope, you are going to see a lower visibility because you've already kind of gone, hey LinkedIn, hey everyone. These are the five things that I'm going to be talking about the most. And so that's what they want to make sure of you're including at least two to three of those hashtag associated every single time.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

I am. I have marketing, marketing, podcasting, and podcasts suck.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Okay. So I mean, like you shouldn't. We've seen over time, like I'm seeing a I've seen an increase in visibility online, and my follower account continues to be able to rise up because that's where LinkedIn really why they're doing it. Also, the other reason why you have creator mode on, it's raising your hand to LinkedIn saying, hey, I'm a creator. You know, they just got a they just started a $10 million fund this year for creators. Um, their first vey into that was um about a month and a half ago, where they said they're gonna put $15,000 pot for a hundred people that they're gonna give $15k to to help them produce a LinkedIn live show. And so they're going through to select. I think their selections and done, you know, next month, but that's where they're starting to drive that in. So when you put turn creator mode on, it says, Hey, I'm a creator, I'm gonna put content on here. Look at me, right? Not just so much the people that are actually the users on LinkedIn, actually LinkedIn itself. So that's kind of where I see because I want to get access to newsletters. You know, they've talked about an audio version of Clubhouse coming on LinkedIn. There, there's different features that come out that they're gonna give the creators first access to. And I always want to make sure, you know, I'm I'm moving first.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

That would be badass, a clubhouse version on LinkedIn. How perfect. I've seen mock-ups.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

I've seen mock-ups. So I mean, I I they know they're building it. It was supposed to be released by end of year, so I don't I haven't talked to anyone over there yet on where they're at, but think about that, right? You're 100% correct. Like being able to have real like profiles to look at, and like we all know Clubhouse, you look at you listen to someone, you look at their profile, and you're like, something's not adding up. And then you go look at their LinkedIn and you're like, okay, this makes a little bit more sense. But if you're on LinkedIn and you have all these different people that are actually using audio with verified kind of background, as much as it can be, I think there's a real potential there.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

I love that. This is great information because you know what? It's not there's no, there's no fluff with this, it's just experience on what you've done on the platform, what you guys continue to do for clients, and then being an actual uh being part of the LinkedIn creator program, you do have some inside information on what's going on by design. LinkedIn really wants to create that community of create that community of creators. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

I mean, Sebastian, I'll be honest. I'm a little scared when they said that they were they were, you know, gonna be releasing like a real version, reels for LinkedIn. I mean, like, I'll be honest, I can't dance.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

So I think that might make the good reels though.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, you know, I I'm still trying to figure it out on Instagram. I I always have to kind of create some things. It's it's rarely me on there, but no, on LinkedIn, it's hopefully they'll be able to get better visibility on on video because people like to be able to see video. And if you're gonna use video, you have to have the captions on there. And again, that that sweet sweet spot on there is about 30 seconds because oh, captions. Oh yeah, have to have the captions on there because look, I don't care where you are, LinkedIn is still like a professional platform, so there's a lot of people that just do not um spend time, you know, watching it and listening to it. So they actually might read it as and spend a little bit more time. So we've seen a bus, uh, a big jump on there, you know, and the other big shift that we're seeing right now, and this happened last year, is dwell time. Have you heard about dwell time on LinkedIn? Everything okay. So dwell time is surprise, surprise, how long you dwell on a post. So the longer that someone sticks on your post, the better. This is why we see polls, right? Someone's reading it, they're actually taking an action, they're going through um multiple picture posts because they're going through a little bit more. Um, you know, the slides, you know, that we use was PDFs, the best that I've found to be able to use when you're using slides and stuff like that. So the longer that someone stays on your post, that's actually one of the biggest um pushes for engagement. So, how do you actually keep someone on your post longer? And so dwell time will actually be one of the bigger things. The last piece I'll give you, and like I mean, I I swear we're just doing a masterclass here, Sebastian.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

This is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

I just found this out, and this was just recently released um LinkedIn research, and that what we're kind of seeing here. What do you think is the biggest, the most powerful piece that someone can actually do on your post? Is it to be able to watch the video? Is it to make a like? Or do you think it's to hit read more?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I would say read more.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Oh, yeah. That is actually more powerful than a like right now. Wow. This is why when someone goes and does one line, you're actually not, you know, you don't get that much visibility on that post. They're looking to be able to see like likes are great, but I think they've realized at a certain point we can make likes up. We can there's people that use automation, which use automation on LinkedIn. There's forewarning for everyone listening, we'll potentially get banned. They are they just did a massive ban about a couple weeks ago, and they continue to be able to look for automation. But that read more button is really a big push in showing that someone's actually paying attention to the content.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Yeah. Um, LinkedIn engagement pods are garbage. Uh yeah, I I I just uh in full transparency left uh two of them. Uh and it wasn't like Lem pod ones, it was like a past client of mine and some insurance buddies got together, and there's a few there's a few familiar cast of characters in that group that I'm sure you'd recognize too. But I quickly realized that you know, LinkedIn is you're telling the algorithm what to do, which is here's my content, only show it to the people that are in this engagement pod. Right. Don't show it to anybody else. And then I I I left the engagement pod, posted on my own, stood on my own two feet on LinkedIn, dang it. And um, I got a great engagement. So right out of the gate on on like an image or something. I got like a thousand views on it. And I was like, what is this? So if you're listening to this and you're thinking that there are no hacks, there are no special, uh, there's no special sauce, there's no magical LinkedIn person, there's no I got a guy, there is work uh that you put in on a daily basis of being a human being on the platform and creating content and showing up for other people's content. Am I right?

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Well, that's the conditioning, right, Sebastian. I mean, like if I go in and I'm thanking every single person, and it takes time, right? Like this is why people hire us because we go in. Like if you get 200 likes, do you actually go in and actually send a personal DM to someone and say, hey, Sebastian, I saw you like my post. Just want to say thank you. When they get that consistently, people like to be able to get that again. They want to be thanked, especially when it comes from like, so one of our clients was Dan Sullivan. I don't know if you know Dan Sullivan, strategic coach. He's been on, you know, one of the older OGs of business coaching over the years, but doing that, right? Getting actually messages from Dan Sullivan or John Maxwell used to be one of our clients too. When you actually get that, hey, I just want to reach out and say thank you for liking my post, it changes people's life perspective because these influencers that are out there are not always thanking the people that have made them who they are. And this is our following. So when they do that, it changes. I mean, subventionally, I remember one time with Dan, we did this to someone. We we we said thank you. His message is one that will stick with me to the end of my days because it was like, Dan, thank you so much. You'll never know what this means to me. Today I planned on it being my last day. But by because you gave me hope, a new insight, appreciation for things that I didn't appreciate. Like liking your post gave me new hope for this world. Thank you. I'll continue on. Like this, all we did was say thank you for liking our post. And you know, sometimes we don't appreciate the little things in life, just want to be able to connect. And this guy was like, Man, you like he was talking about ending his life and said thank you. And then it was life-changing. And this is what we see. This is why I love what I do, because you never know how these little things in life can truly change someone's, you know, projection.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Sure. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, you know, there's no doubt in in my mind, and I talk about this constantly, that there is a calling on every single one of our lives. There is no doubt about that. The only question is, are you going to respond to that calling? And part of that calling is that you've got people assigned to you. And to me, that's a tremendous amount of responsibility. And that's in the business world, that's life in general. That's whatever you believe, and whatever you choose to believe and lean on is fine. But I thoroughly, uh, with every ounce of my being, believe that that is what life is truly all about, that each of us have a unique opportunity and a calling. And are we going to respond to that calling and are we going to respond to the people that are assigned to us as part of that calling? And I think that the work that you're doing and talking about just these little things like this, by being able to speak to somebody like they've never been spoken to before and be a glimmer of hope or light in into their world in this rapidly changing, uh, very, very noisy digital world.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah. So we we have to be able to do that. I mean, I felt like I had a hand in in monetizing all the traffic. Now I have to kind of be able to have that shift to be able to get back to the human side. And this is what it's all about, right? Being able to really, you know, all tides rise together, right? And that's the way we have to be able to do it. Each each of us are a ripple, but when we actually come together, we're a tidal wave that can truly change this world. Yeah. That's what I'm really excited about.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Absolutely. Uh I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. Joshua, this has been absolutely uh incredible. I think you're right. You're exactly right. Mini masterclass here. I'm gonna tell you right now that I'm gonna take this podcast episode and I'm gonna write me a LinkedIn article that's gonna have the embedded audio on it. We're gonna have some images, we'll have a screenshot. We're gonna put the whole kit and caboodle in this LinkedIn article on here. And I'm gonna start teaching this uh to our to our students here at the podcast launch lab on this. This is incredible information. I am so grateful that you and I had the opportunity to at least connect face to face, even if it's in a virtual space here. This has been a wealth of uh of knowledge and information. I sure do appreciate your time, and I'll have to have you come back on the show sometime soon.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Anytime, man. Always happy to be able to join in and have a good conversation around this.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Thanks again, Josh. I appreciate you, man. Yeah, no worries. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Be sure to appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.