Rocking Your Business Pivot with LinkedIn with Viveka Von Rosen

0:28Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? pursuits, inspiring transformative journeys in others. In today's Foundation, we'll talk about embracing change. We'll talk about rebranding your professional identity on LinkedIn, a new content strategy for your brand direction, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Vivica and our sponsors. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy, and more importantly, make it work.

1:00A recent episode all about how Liquid IV is using marketing to shake up the beverage world dives deep into the strategies that have propelled Liquid IV to remarkable success. A must listen. Listen to Marketing Makes Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.

1:33Vivica, say what's up to Fire Nation and share what you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Well, you know, I love the do what you say and the money will follow. But I feel like a lot of people, you know, sit and meditation and dream about abundance. but action is absolutely taken. I, or it needs to be taken, I believe in order to create the, the abundance, the lifestyle that we need. And I was talking to a coach friend of mine the other day and he's like, so how are you feeling around abundance? And I said, Oh, I'm, I'm good. You know, I'm, I'm saying, you know, I'm open to abundance.

2:18I'm open to good. And he's like, do you have a lot of good and abundance in your life? I'm like, yeah. He's like, how's the money? I'm like, oh, and he's like, are you asking for the money when you're when you're doing your meditation, when you're doing your, you know, when you're doing your affirmations? Are you asking for money? And I'm like, no, I'm not. And so, you know, it's not only a matter of you have to set the intention. You have to ask for exactly what you want. I want more money. I want more clients. I want more besides just good in abundance, which I love all that stuff. I love good in abundance, but show me the money, show me the clients.

2:59And then you actually have to take action. A couple hours later, I had two people reach out to me through LinkedIn and another person reach out to me on email, all amazing opportunities, paid opportunities. And I was just kind of like, okay, ask for the money, do the work. You said the magical phrase LinkedIn, and we're talking today, Fire Nation, about rocking your business pivot with LinkedIn. And one thing that Fire Nation is very aware of, that's our listeners, Vivica, is that change and embracing change is part of being an entrepreneur. So let's dive into the art of business pivoting. Perfect.

3:41I love it. And you know, the first thing before we make any changes to LinkedIn, before we reach out to anybody, before we call our network, the first thing is mindset. And I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but a lot of people, when they make the pivot from executive to entrepreneur, when they make a pivot within their own entrepreneurial journey, a lot of times they're just like, okay, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to go into LinkedIn. I'm going to add, an experience section. But before doing that, I'd say, stop, go deep, not only so you can really think about, do you have the same ICP, ideal customer profile?

4:21Do you have the same message? What's different? Go deep and make sure that you've made that shift within because you're not going to be able to do a successful shift without going inside first, without doing that mindset shift first. And that really hit home to me. I did a huge shift in November. And at first, I was like, la, la, la, I'm going to go change my LinkedIn URL back into my name. I've been LinkedIn expert for the past, what, 17 years. And so I was, you know, la, la, la. And I realized, no, this is like a momentous occasion. And I need to be really, really present with the transition that's happening right now, because it's not just about transitioning and pivoting my work.

5:09It was literally about transitioning and pivoting who I am in the world. And so I would invite everybody who's making that pivot, like before you ever do anything on the outside, make sure you do that pivot on the inside first. Fire Nation, what are you doing for work on the inside right now? Ask yourself that question. And if you come up a little lighter empty, you know, maybe it's time for a shift there. And a lot of us, Vivica, and I mean, a lot of us are not using LinkedIn correctly. And we haven't been for years, frankly. So how can we go about the specific rebranding of our professional identity on LinkedIn?

5:46Absolutely. So as I mentioned, you know, your URL, maybe you used your company name and now you want to use your own name. Maybe you used your own name and now you want to use your company name, but there's something very symbolic about making that shift. Also, it affects your findability. And so if you were in an old industry, an old job, an old company, and you're shifting into something new, be findable for that. So the customized URL, like such a simple thing, but don't forget to do it. The background image, obviously, if you're changing your branding, get some new background images and it's not one and done.

6:24Get a couple. See if you get any feedback. Do something that really is potentially disruptive and grabs people's attentions. You want to start that attention. You want to start that conversation. Obviously, your headline needs to shift and the first hundred characters of that 220 characters really needs to focus on your new audience and what their points of pain are and then how you can solve that point of pain. And you can do that in 220 characters. But you want to make sure that your profile, yes, you're shifting it for you and your brand and your pivot, but you want it to focus on who your buyer persona is.

7:05And like in my case, my buyer persona shifted 100%, 180 degrees from a very B2B, B2B corporate world to women's empowerment and women's entrepreneurship. And so the languaging on my entire profile needed to shift. So think about that. And then my buyers shifted, obviously. So I needed to think about them. What's her pain? What's her confusion? What's her need? And how can I solve for that? You're going to have new media that you want to put into the featured section. We're all pretty much above the fold still. And so you're going to want to pull that new media in your new blog posts. If you don't have any blog posts yet, I didn't have anything when I when I made my big transition, because I just made it, I just started it.

7:59But I had one podcast I was on, where I talked about what was new. And so I deleted pretty much everything that I had in my featured section, and had that one podcast, and that really stood out. And then I started to add more content as I created more content. And then the other thing, since you're all entrepreneurs, I'm guessing a lot of you are creators. Turn that creator mode on because it brings with it some pretty cool little features like the ability to create a customized hyperlink. The only place on LinkedIn that it'll go straight to that hyperlink without the LinkedIn warning, you're leaving LinkedIn, you're leaving LinkedIn.

8:40So if you want to drive traffic, that's one of the best places to do it. And that's like, that's just above the fold. Obviously, then add your new company. And here's a ninja trick. When you add your new company, you want to alert your network to it. And what happens is you get a lot of, oh, congratulations on your new job. Don't just like, oh, yeah, whatever. Oh, my God, what a pain in the butt. Delete, delete, delete. No, these are opportunities for conversation. anybody who says, hey, congratulations on your new job. If they are a potential client for you, if they're a potential referral partner, if they're a potential strategic partner, if they're a potential vendor, if they can potentially bring you business or support your business in any way, shape or form, by all means, reach out, tell them about what's new and send them your calendar link.

9:34Get on a call with them. It is one of the most powerful ways to kickstart your new business and your new brand. Fire Nation, I hope that you are getting excited about what 2024 could bring to you in the world of LinkedIn. There's a lot of cool things going on. Vivica's sharing with you some gold here, and we have some more to talk about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Things change fast in the online business space, and when you have a team to manage and a business to run, it can be tough to keep up with all the latest and greatest marketing trends. That's why HubSpot created the 2024 State of Marketing Report to pull together the top marketing trends that you need to perfect your marketing strategy this year.

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12:41Find out how much your home could be worth at airbnb.com slash host. We're back, and before the break, we talked a lot about rebranding our professional identity on LinkedIn. You kind of brushed upon a content strategy, but I want to really dive deep now on Fire Nation adopting a specific content strategy for a new brand direction with what we have going on here on LinkedIn. What does that look like? Talk to us about this strategy. Yeah. So you've got your one-to-one strategy, which we just talked about. Someone congratulates you on your new job. For sure, you want to send a message and book some time with them.

13:21Um, but you know, the one to many, the, the top of the funnel type strategy, um, where you're sharing content, first of all, you want to get as many eyes as possible. And what happens is, as I've discovered, when you do a big shift, um, especially everything from, from your audience to your industry, LinkedIn is going to go, okay, is this real even? So you will notice, you might notice at first that your content is not getting as many views. So it's really, really important to share content that gets as many views as possible. There are some things to be aware of. Number one, polls. I freaking love polls.

14:06And the reason I love polls is, A, they get more engagement than almost any other content on LinkedIn. in, but also you can ask a question where every answer can elicit an engagement. So if I said, you know, um, what's your favorite color, blue, red, green, or other. And, and, you know, my blues, I'm like, I can reach out to each person say, Oh, I love blue too. You know, what was the last thing? What was the last piece of blue clothing you wore? Obviously I'm giving a really silly example right now. My yellows, I can reach out and go, oh, I never wear yellow. Tell me a little bit more about yellow and why you like yellow.

14:46My greens, I can say, green is the color of money. Tell me what you're doing to create more abundance in your life. Other, great. Tell me a little bit more about what your favorite color is and how I can help you get more of that color in your life. So it's every single vote that people give you, every single engagement that people give you in the comment section can literally lead to a conversation that can lead to more business for you. And yes, it takes a little bit of effort, but quite frankly, I'd rather do that than some of the other stuff out there. And you don't want to ever automate anything on LinkedIn for various reasons.

15:28First of all, I have never come across an automation system that didn't make mistakes. Dear name, dear sir, I'm a woman. You know, noticed you're in construction and cleaning supplies. No, no, I'm not. Anyway, don't use automation. Also, LinkedIn really frowns upon it. So if they find out that you're using automation, it's about quality, not quantity. And so, yes, doing polls and keeping an eye on those responses and trying to get engagement with each and every one of those individuals might seem work intensive, but you're going to get better engagement than even just launching a big automated campaign.

16:19Other types of content is good, too. You know, you can upload an e-book in the form of a PDF. PDF. You can obviously use personal images do pretty well on LinkedIn. You can do infographics. Of course, you can do these long form posts. I would say if you're going to share a link, you can play around a little bit with it. If you're going to share a link, you probably want to pop it into comments and you want to pop it into comments after someone's already commented on your content. That means you'll get, you're more likely to get more visibility and more shares from LinkedIn. And if you do have something that goes viral, every single person who is a prospect for you or who can potentially help you in your business in some way, shape or form, every single one of those people who engages on your post, you need to reach out to and send a message to.

17:16You can just pray for something to go viral because that can actually lead to, you know, tens, if not hundreds of conversations. And that can literally be a game changer for your business. And most people are like, I got a hundred thousand views. I got 50, you know, 500 comments. And then they're like, yay, pat on the back. But no, that is like one of the richest ways where you can start those conversations that can lead to business. Fire Nation, a lot of things to think about, a lot of things to try. And this kind of goes back That's what Vivica said at the beginning of the episode. Action, take action.

17:54You're not really sure what's going to stick until you try it. But if we're going to pivot, Vivica, and really put some time and energy into this thing, we need a supportive network. How the heck do we build one of those? Yeah, well, first of all, you probably already have a pretty good network. And so I'm going to contradict myself a little bit here because one of the things that you're going to want to do, which is both a internal and an external action is you're going to want to delete some of the people who are just 100 % no longer relevant. Don't delete your family. But if there are people who are not relevant to you anymore, go ahead and remove them from LinkedIn.

18:37They're not going to get notified by LinkedIn or anything like that. All of a sudden, it'll just be your second level connections, not first level connections. And then I'll kind of turn that on its head in just a second. But the reason you do that is because the more relevant and strategic your network is, the more they're likely to engage on your content, the more likely it is to go viral. So that's, it's bigger is not better. Again, it's quality over quantity. That being said, once you have got that nicely refined network, you can start looking at your connections, seeing who they're connected to.

19:15You can literally in LinkedIn search, you can sort by connections of. So I'm like, okay, I'm connected to JLD. He knows like literally everybody. I'm going to look for CEOs in Colorado, in the health industry who know John. I can literally sort connections through you. And so then I'm, I don't necessarily have to bother John with everybody. Hey, John, can you introduce me to those, these 468 people? No, you don't want to do that, but you can be like, you know, are, you know, do you, do you looks like you are friends with John? I'm sure you listened to the podcast. I love the last episode and the summit that he's doing right now, it seems like we should be connected.

20:04What do you think about that? Right. And so it's a great opportunity to use that person you have in common to ask for an invitation to connect. And then, of course, if there's someone really that you want to get that intro to, then by all means, you know, ask your person in common. But don't please don't abuse that. And And please don't use John as your like introducer of all things. I apologize ahead of time if you get like 90 ,000 requests for introductions. Oh, Fire Nation knows better than that. And one thing that they do worry about, and by that, talking about the listeners, Fire Nation, is that they're scared of sending messages that they feel might be looked at as spam.

20:50They don't want to be spammy. They really want to make sure they're doing things the right way. So how can we create effective messaging without becoming a spam machine? Yes. Thank you for that. Excellent question. You know, we can all go into our inbox right now and see somewhere between, you know, five and 5 ,000 spam messages, unfortunately. And again, we're going back to that automation. It's usually people automated. They don't even know that this is being done in their name. They just signed up somewhere for, you know, get leads, get great lead generation. And so you want to do less to do more.

21:30And I'm quoting my friend Bryn here. You, your first communication with the individual after you can, if they've invited you to connect is awesome, would love to connect. Tell me a little bit about, you know, why you want to connect with me. First of all, the automated spammers won't respond or they'll respond with an automated spammy message and you can just delete them. But people who are real, people who truly do want to connect and engage with you will respond and that can start in a conversation. When I worked at Vingresso, my previous company, we had something we called KLT. No, KLT is no, like, and trust.

22:13You definitely want to focus on that no, like, and trust. We had something we called PVC. always personalize to the individual. You always add value before you go for the ask. And your call to action when you first start reaching out to people should be more of a, you know, listen to my podcast, let me know what you think. Listen to, you know, download this checklist and let me know if it's useful. You do that three or four times over a period of one or two months, and eventually you earn the right to go for the ask. But unfortunately, people are trying to condense that engagement and it's just a huge fail because unless someone needs you at the very moment that they're opening that email or that message on LinkedIn, they're not, it's not gonna, A, they're not gonna hire you and B, it's not gonna feel good.

23:05And that's very rare that, you know, that kind of synchronicity happens that you send the exact message at the exact right time to the exact right person. But if you start to build that KLT, that know, like, and trust, you start to build that positive sentiment by doing a slower cadence of helpful information and then going for an ask, there's a lot more likelihood that you're going to get it. So that's, you know, that is absolutely key to engaging the right way. And then another thing is referrals, like asking for the referrals through LinkedIn. That's, we all know that's the best way to get business.

23:45Unfortunately, people aren't using that strategy. And if they are, they're like, hey, John, can you introduce me to a CEO of a big company? And like John JLD is like, no, I can't, right? So you need to know exactly who you wanna connect with, find one or two or three or four people who could potentially introduce you, ask them all if they're willing to introduce you, kind of go for your best yes, and then write the introduction for them. Make it as easy as possible on that individual. But using LinkedIn and having a powerful script, a powerful converting script that the introducer can use with the introducee, that's really going to make a big difference.

24:38And that's the right way to use LinkedIn. It's definitely not a spray and pray. Vivica, you've dropped value bombs about LinkedIn. So many things I know Fire Nation can go back and just improve their overall imprints when it comes to this platform. So give us one key takeaway that you really want to make sure we get from our conversation today. Then share a call to action for Fire Nation about how we can connect with you, what you have going on, and then we'll say goodbye. Perfect. Yes. So, I mean, obviously, we think LinkedIn is about us. It's not. It's about our audience. It's about our buyers.

25:17So in everything you do on LinkedIn, from your profile to the content that you share to the private messages that you send, always, always, always keep your buyer, keep your connection, keep your audience front of mind. And it's always about how can I serve you? It's not about what can I get out of you? And if you keep that in mind, then any communication, anything that you do on LinkedIn is likely to be more effective. So it's always, always, always about the buyer and their points of pain and how you can help to solve for that. And yeah, my most recent book, 101 Ways to Rock Change, just released.

26:00So you can go to www.get101book.com. That'll take you right to it on Amazon. And if you've got Kindle Unlimited, you can read it for free. Yay. And then, yeah, if you just, you can literally just Google my name, Vivica Von Rosen. My LinkedIn profile will show up. My new company, Beyond the Dream Board, will show up. And you can reach out to me in any, either of those places. I am more than happy to jump on a call. Definitely invite me to connect, but please let me know you're part of Fire Nation. I will absolutely say yes. And we can have a conversation if you've got any more questions. Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

26:44And hello, you've been hanging out with VVR and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Vivica in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up as well as an episode we did way back in the day. Listen to that, you'll get a kick out of it. And Vivica, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Thanks. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Vivica for sponsoring today's episode. And to Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs.

27:22And I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment, I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit uncommonsuccessbook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Marketing Made Simple, hosted by my friend, Dr. JJ Peterson, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy, and more importantly, make it work.

28:05A recent episode all about how Liquid IV is using marketing to shake up the beverage world, dives deep into the strategies that have propelled Liquid IV to remarkable success, a must listen. Listen to Marketing Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world and four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training, where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.