The Competitive Advantage

March 1, 2022

What should you post on LinkedIn? Hint: it’s not about you!

When you look at the LinkedIn posts made by most professionals and most firms in our industry, they generally fall into three categories:

1. Promoting their content – a recent blog or an invitation to a webinar
2. Office news – a company anniversary or the hiring of a new employee
3. Or a sales pitch!

And because most firms aren’t producing content very often or haven’t hired someone in a while, they’re left with selling. Far too much. Of all the things you can do on LinkedIn, selling should be the lowest priority. One rule of thumb I’ve heard says that, ‘Only one in five social posts should be a sales pitch.’ Frankly, even that is too often. Social media is – first and foremost – a ‘social’ platform. It’s about connecting with people and building relationships. Sharing will help you do that… selling will not.

October 19, 2021

The Marketing Trifecta: The 3 Tactics You Need to Achieve Your Marketing Goals

In my last post, I wrote about a few different things I would recommend to help you in preparing for putting together your 2022 Sales & Marketing plan. I’ll assume you’ve done all those things (wink-wink), so now, I want to explore the implementation of your plan, particularly on the Marketing side; we’ll talk about Sales implementation in the next post.

Look around… there are a thousand different ways – especially in light of all the technology available to everyone these days – to implement your marketing. But I want to simplify it for you. In fact, not just simplify it, but let you know that this can be done for no (or almost no) cost!

October 15, 2019

Part 2: Hard selling inside of LinkedIn? Stop it, stop it, stop it!

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on how NOT to use LinkedIn in your sales efforts (read it here). It was one of our most popular posts all year. Evidently, I’m not the only one who hates hard-sell pitches on LinkedIn.

In a happy coincidence, I was telling a client contact about this post… and she told me a story about how she is using LinkedIn in a friendly, non-salesy and effective way. Here’s what she’s doing…

September 17, 2019

Hard selling inside of LinkedIn? Stop it, stop it, stop it!

I love LinkedIn… and I hate it!

It is, by far, the best platform for connecting, communicating and sharing information in the B2B environment. It is also abused far too often and by far too many people. Let me share with you a recent true story of how NOT to use LinkedIn.

December 11, 2018

Marketing & Sales for ‘Old’ Business Owners, Part 2

“Do I really need to be on social media?”

Spoiler alert… “Yes!” Yes, you do need to be on social media.

When I talk to oldsters (I can say that… I’m 60), their feelings about social media are generally like this: LinkedIn is just for job-hunting… Facebook is for looking at pictures of friends & family… and they don’t have any idea what Twitter is about.

Allow me to simplify and make the case for all three of them. Social media platforms are marketing channels through which you can communicate to clients and prospective clients. By doing so on a regular basis, social media allows you to build and maintain a level of awareness in the markets you serve, develop connections and engage with those buyers, and position yourself as a Subject Matter Expert or Thought Leader.

Let’s do a quick review of each of the platforms…

November 21, 2016

Planning for revenue growth in 2017: Part 3 of 6

5 Ways to Spruce up your LinkedIn Profile

In the first two weeks of this 6-week series on getting ready for growth in 2017, we discussed:

• Reaching out to past clients
• Blogging

Today, we tackle social media… specifically – how to improve and enhance your LinkedIn profile.

Our research shows that the first action a prospective client will take when conducting their due diligence on new suppliers is to go to their websites. No surprise. The second thing? They visit the LinkedIn profiles of the firm’s key executives and the ‘sales rep.’

So, it’s critical that your LinkedIn profiles are as up-to-date and complete as possible. To that end, here are 5 tips for sprucing yours up…

May 24, 2016

Don’t like social media? Too bad… get over it!

I was meeting with a group of senior leaders at one of my clients last month, talking about various marketing strategies and tactics. One of the items we discussed was the use of social media marketing… specifically that these key leaders be active on LinkedIn and Twitter.

One of my contacts (by the way, not a technology luddite) literally rolled his eyes at the prospect of actively using social media.

My response to him… “I understand your hesitation… but GET OVER IT! It doesn’t really matter want you want… it only matters what your clients and prospects want.”

June 9, 2015

8 ‘Lazy’ LinkedIn Mistakes Too Many Users Make

We all know about LinkedIn – THE social network for businesspeople. Rarely do I come across a client, prospect or vendor who is not on it. I am not a ‘power user’ (I still take advantage of a free account), but I am an active user – connecting often, posting frequently and participating in online conversations.

And as an active user, I see way too many mistakes made by way too many users – all of which happen simply because they are too lazy to take a few minutes to “do it right.” Here are the most egregious of the LinkedIn mistakes (in no particular order)…