2116 - Leveraging LinkedIn Effectively with PICA's Liz Steblay

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments.

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1:05With us right now, it's Liz Steble. Liz, you are the founder and chief advocate with PICA, Professional Independent Consultants of America. You are also the author of the book, Succeeding as a Solopreneur, Six Keys to Taking the Leap, Winning Clients and Building Wealth. Your website is sixkeys.info. Liz, it's great to have you. Hi, yes. Very excited to be here. Yeah. Well, listen, tell us what you do. Obviously, tell us about Pika and so forth. Well, okay. The very short version is I fell into being an independent consultant or solopreneur 20 years ago before the word was ever invented. Figured out how to make it work, how to make more money, work fewer hours, have more quality time with my kid, and lower my effective tax rate.

1:53And figured it out. Started my first business in 2009. Grew that into a multimillion-dollar business. I was getting asked out to coffee a lot. People had questions about being self-employed. And then I decided to start the Professional Independent Consultants of America to help people launch and grow their own businesses. And then I realized, shoot, maybe I should write a book and help even more people. Yeah. Well, Liz, we need to share this website because this is exceptionally valuable. And I know that there are a lot of folks in the consulting world that are kind of part of our world or this podcast and stuff.

2:28So the website is picanetwork.org. Liz, would you mind maybe sharing a little bit more about PICA and like who should be a part? Why? I mean, what's the value you get from your association? Just give us the whole, I don't want to say elevator pitch, but give us the whole presentation on this three-minute overview. Sure. Well, an easier URL to remember is independentconsulting.org, although that's harder to spell. So, yes, Pika is created as an educational organization and community to help people launch and grow their own businesses. It doesn't necessarily need to be consulting. We have a lot of executive coaches and some financial planners, too.

3:08So basically, they're all solopreneurs. And, wow, basically, if you have questions, Pika is the place to go. We have a huge library of templates and articles and best practices. and I hold office hours once a week for our members and people drop in just like in college when you go talk to your professor. And sometimes people would drop in just because they're feeling alone. They're like, okay, I just needed to talk something through with somebody or I'm feeling just a little bit out there and adrift. And so, yeah, it's a wonderful community. And most people I would say are in the second half of their careers for sure, 45 years older.

3:51that audience. Yes. Love that. Love that group has so much combined wisdom available. Yes, absolutely. And we have a handful of members too, that are just didn't want to retire. They're in their seventies. They love what they do. And they're like, I just want to do this, but I want to do it in a smart way. And yeah, so it's, it's a lot of really smart, wonderful people. I'm very proud of it. Well, give us a lay of the land. Like, you know, here we are, and now we're in 2025. Liz, what is the state of the union for independent consultants today? I still think it's encouraging. There's still some legal hurdles.

4:33Like the government still hasn't realized that most workers don't, well, I wouldn't say most workers, but a lot of workers prefer to be self-employed and do not need the social protections of being members of a union or full-time employees or paid on a W-2. Our government hasn't caught up with that thinking. On the other hand, the demand for part-time workers, knowledge workers is increasing. Every year, the numbers go up by the millions. And now there's a new fraction of spinning off called fractional executives. And that's really gaining a lot of popularity too, particularly with high growth companies and middle market companies.

5:10Yeah. So, you know, when we think about, can I ask you, like, just regarding policy out there, what are some of the big things like that maybe let's just get a little centric about, you know, here being in the United States and talking about this? If you were to let's say that you were to advise those who make decisions, I want to be careful to stay clear of politics and that sort of thing. But if you were to recommend a couple of changes, either to tax policy or any other policy out there, what are some of the things that you think that, hey, if we did this in the United States, this would be really good, not just for consultants.

5:51This would be really good for the economy. Yeah, well, one thing that would be really good for consultants or solopreneurs, of course, would be a portable health care. Ah, dang right. Yes, that your health care is tied to your employer is like an antiquated notion. Oh, please. It started in the 1940s. So, yes, that's definitely one huge problem. It's maddening. It really is, Liz. It's maddening that that's the logic of ours. I mean, there's so many problems with health insurance, which maybe we won't get into. Right. There are certainly one of them. I agree with you. I'm sorry. I interrupted because it's like preach, preach, Liz, preach.

6:32Yes, it resonates with everybody who's self-employed. And the other big one is this whole thing about mitigating co-employment risk or risk of lawsuits by paying people on a temporary W-2 basis through a third party. It doesn't fully mitigate the company's risk and is super bad for self-employed people because when you're paid on a W-2, you can't take advantage of your self-employed business owner tax deductions and or your retirement contributions are limited by like a 25%, right? You can save a lot more to retirement when you're paid on a 1099 and run your own business. So I feel strongly about this.

7:12I actually trademarked the phrase friends don't let friends W-2. um i love it i love yes so that would if i could change one thing i would i would change that well listen uh anyone of influence who just listened to liz let's make that happen those are good ideas common sense liz i want to talk about your book succeeding as a solopreneur six keys to taking the leap winning clients and building wealth and and let's assume liz that the person that's listening to us right now, you know, they're not in high school and college. They've probably been doing what they're doing for a decade or two, a couple decades, a few decades perhaps.

7:54And what would you say would be some of the main theses, thesi of your book? Well, for most of the people in your audience, the beginning of the book probably isn't as relevant because it's six keys to taking the leap. And I suspect most people in your sphere already have. But the second or the last, well, I don't know, the other two-thirds of the book probably are relevant, particularly when it comes to business development and marketing. One of my favorite things in the book is about treating your LinkedIn profile as your storefront window, because LinkedIn is the first place people go to find out more about you.

8:34And a lot of people still have their LinkedIn profiles, solopreneurs, have them written as biographies. And really, they need to be written more as brochures to draw people in that. So it's not so much about what you've done in the past. It's about how you help people. Now, the problems that you solve, the difference that you make, how you work with clients, maybe you put a testimonial in there. One of my favorite tricks is to, um, in that big section that talks about who you are, what you do and say, if any of these things keep you up at night, we should at least have a conversation. And then you list four or five bullets.

9:06Oh, that's how you make it client facing. And the reason I call it a storefront window is because nobody's going to hire a solopreneur without first having a conversation. So you want to put your best merchandise in the window, your LinkedIn profile to draw people into a conversation. And then you can discover really what their issues and problems are. And that's how you start to build trust and credibility. Brilliant, Liz. I love that. So again, to someone who's like, wait, what did Josh get so excited about? Go ahead and rewind about 30, 45 seconds. Go listen to what Liz said before I started vocalizing my enthusiasm.

9:42Again, Liz, great idea. And you're absolutely right. Everyone is always like, if we're empathic to who the viewer is, right? So I think I agree with you. I think a lot of times like in websites, we do the same thing with our consultant websites, right? Is we treat it like our resume. And that's not customer facing. That's not guest facing. So your LinkedIn should be guest facing because everyone's looking at it thinking, what's in it for me? Okay, here's Josh's or Liz's LinkedIn profile. Why should I care? Or how can I get value out of this? That's just where our brains are. Yes, right. Well, that's why you should phrase it from their point of view.

10:26Let's be very clear about the problems you solve, the situations where you can make a difference. And so that's about thinking with a forward lens, not from everything that you've done in the past. Yeah, it is helpful to put your bona fides in there, right? I've been doing this work for 25 years. I won this award, whatever. Yeah, but that should go lower at the bottom. The top is to draw people in with the problems that you solve and how you make a difference. And don't bury the lead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What are some other elements of, can you talk maybe more generally about LinkedIn? Like, let's say someone, maybe they're not really using it in a way that they should.

11:06I agree with you. I think one of the best things you could do, because, you know, Liz, if someone is searching for your name or searching for me, I got to tell you that if your LinkedIn profile is well done, it's always going to appear on the first, well, most cases, it's going to appear on the first page of Google search results. Like if go ahead and search my name right now to our friend that's listening, Josh Elledge, I could probably guarantee that in that first page results, my LinkedIn profile is going to show up. I know that. I know that's going to show up for you. So I anticipate that.

11:38So now when you click through, because you also have to think about, well, who would want to look at that? And what's going on? Like, why would they do that? And so if we anticipate that as well, laying it list, I got a couple of ideas already from our conversation. I feel like it's pretty good, but I've got some new things I want to kind of look through it through that lens. That's brilliant. Is there any other element other than like what we were talking about is just having this presence, right, on LinkedIn? Is there any other activity that you like or encourage using LinkedIn? I use LinkedIn to the LinkedIn notifications.

12:16So I used to get this in an email, but now it's just a separate tab that's always open on my desk. and I skim this at least once a week. In fact, I have an hour set aside on my calendar every week to go through LinkedIn updates and I do outreach because keeping your network warm generates referrals. So when I look at those notifications, I see who's uploaded a new photo, who's gotten a new job, who's celebrating a work anniversary. And if there's a way that I can make a personal comment about that, not just clicking the de facto button that says congrats or whatever they're - Oh, don't do that.

12:50those are fake. We don't know what you're doing when you do that. You're taking the lazy way out. But keeping your network warm, keeping your relationships by just pinging people and celebrating their new photo, their promotion, or just reaching out. Or sometimes I just come across a name. I'm like, oh my gosh, what's been going on with that person? And I send a LinkedIn message because name recognition generates referrals, right? You have to keep your name fresh in people's minds. Yes. And Liz, talk about this too, because I think sometimes as consultants, we feel like we always have to be out there hustling, right?

13:27And so we might feel this tendency to want to respond and also just kind of slide in a little sales message in there. What would you say to that? I'm not a fan of sliding in sales message because then you start coming across as desperate or a little bit slimy or no no just be authentic and be interested in what's going on in the other person's life uh i'll tell you i'll give you an example of this i again i am so happy for the person who's listening to this conversation right now um because i'll just tell you again from my perspective we all know what it feels like right i have this um person that comment, like they comment on my stuff, but every single comment, they throw a little, like a tag advertising their thing.

14:12And to me, I look at that, I go, you must be pretty early stage if you still need to do that. My perception, and, and, you know, again, I could be wrong on this, but I feel like eventually you went LinkedIn. I'm not going to speak specific. Let me talk about Facebook for a second. Cause it's a little bit different. It's a different culture for sure. The people that are always low key selling and promoting on Facebook, they strike me as being very, very early stage period. And I'm not alone in that. I've talked about this with other larger leaders. Now, if you're playing in the sandbox of brand new baby entrepreneurs and you're a newer entrepreneur and your clients and customers are newer entrepreneurs, cool.

14:59Cool. But if you do that in front of leaders, we kind of see that as someone. So I want to share. Let me put a positive reframe on this. Eventually, you will get to a point on social media where you just aren't going to need to sell anymore. Like you just don't need to do that. And I think the faster you can get to that, I think the faster you're going to enjoy social media, the faster you're going to see your engagement pick up quite a bit. And the faster you're going to see these relationships build. And when you keep building these relationships week after week, you know, Liz, your advice is so good, right?

15:36Because we're just, we're just reaching out and letting people know we appreciate them. Look, the other person knows what they want and need. They know maybe generally what we do good enough. Because I think the biggest goal today in social media engagement is evoking in the other person, oh, I want to buy your stuff. It's, oh, good. Now I have a friend who does what you do. Liz is my go-to person for all things consulting, et cetera. I'm sorry. I have taken up too much of your time, Liz. I'm just so inspired by what you're sharing because I love it. No, I'm 100 % in agreement with what you're saying.

16:13It's about building trust. Nobody wants to be sold something they don't need. And particularly if you're in consulting, people are worried that if they hire a consultant, then they're never going to get rid of the consultant. So trust is especially important. And one of the things going back to what you were saying about social media, my guiding principle is it sounds a little it's called APV. It sounds a little bit like a venereal disease, but it stands for always provide value. So when I'm looking to share that I was recently on a podcast, I try to figure out a way. How can how can I make this post provide value to the person that sees it?

16:54So it's not just, hey, look at me. I was on another podcast. but always provide value. I do that every time I try to reach out to reconnect with a person, or even in my out of office message, when I'm on vacation, I'll put PS, check out my latest blog. It's about blah, blah, blah. So always provide value. Yeah. I want to, okay. So your book, Succeeding as a Solopreneur, you can see this book. I want to encourage you to get this because there's a lot a lot of what we're talking about, Liz. I mean, we're taking just these little breadcrumbs here that we've been sharing. I'm just going to encourage our friend that's listening, if you like what you've been hearing, keep going down the rabbit hole.

17:36Liz, go, I'm going to have them go to your website, sixkeys.info. There's a link directly to Amazon. You could also if you want to snag a signed copy, you can get that as well. And then Liz, would you mind maybe just kind of giving kind of capping off everything here for us around the book. And then Pika, I just, to our friend that's listening, I just want to give them some next steps. Yeah. This next step would be go to sixkeys.info, not.org, because that URL is too expensive and you need to keep expenses low. So sixkeys.info. And actually, since we were just talking about LinkedIn, there's one chapter in particular with screenshots of good profiles and how, and literally how to do that.

18:19So for less than 20 bucks, you can revamp your image on LinkedIn. So it's worth its weight in gold right there. All right. Again, sixkeys.info. And what was the website for Pika, by the way? Yeah, it's either independentconsulting.org or Pika Network, P-I-C-A network.org. I love it. Liz, Deb Lane, founder. I'm going to interrupt because I want to say one more thing. Several times a month, I do free 15 minute ask me anything sessions. So and I love it. It's so fun. People come in prepared. They're like, OK, I have a question about whether I should set up an LLC or S Corp, or I have a question about LinkedIn, or can you look at my LinkedIn or whatever?

19:04I don't know. I don't know what they're going to ask. But in 15 minutes, we it's amazing how much we can plow through in 15 minutes. So I do those several times a month and they're free. Nice, nice. Awesome. SixKeys.info, Liz Stable, the author of Succeeding as a Solopreneur. Thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure, Josh. Hope to see you again soon.

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