Tracy Enos on Mastering LinkedIn

Tracy Enos

Nigel Rawlins: Hi, Tracy, welcome to the Wisepreneurs podcast. Can you tell us where you are and something about yourself and my listeners?

Tracy Enos: Yes, hi Nigel. Thanks for having me today. Well, I'm located in the States right smack in the middle in Kansas City, Missouri. And, tell me a little bit about me. Well, I have lots and lots of stories, but the most fun one is I didn't grow up in Kansas City, I grew up in San Jose, California back in the eighties.

So I'm aging myself now for your listeners. But I grew up in San Jose, which is the bay area of Silicon Valley. So way back in tech. But I didn't like growing up there because when I grew up in San Jose, we had farms, like city limits, like when next door neighbors had horses and they had a big old barn , and by the time I was a senior in high school, that became a concrete jungle.

They took away all the orchards, they put up strip malls and movie theaters and it was just all concrete. And I lived up in the foothills, beautiful as it was up there, you could just see the haze over the city. You know, from up where we were. So, I went in the military for a short stint, and I never looked back.

I have not gone back to California, and I found my groove here in Kansas City, and I love it. And we even have, Big Tech. It's one of the top ten cities for new tech. So, I really love that. So I'm kind of in the thick of it, as you could say, but back in the day, I, you know, I lost two jobs in four years.

Corporate America laid me off twice. I have a mortgage and real estate background. And, and then the second job I got laid off from a nutrition company out of California. And they blew through investor money in a matter of three months and they laid off the whole workforce out in the field.

And I was one of those folks. So I didn't know what I was going to do. So I started playing in LinkedIn. Actually, I started playing in LinkedIn, ever since 2009. Just here and there, you know, nobody knew. I don't think a lot of people still know how to use LinkedIn. Okay, I'm here, now what? Right? And that was me back from 2009 to 2011.

And, you know, I purchased myself a course. I don't know if anybody out there has purchased themselves an how to course like a do it yourself marketing course or something like that. Well, my very first LinkedIn course was called Linked Influence. And some of you might know the gentleman by the name of Lewis Howes.

And I spent a whole 97 dollars on this thing. And that really is what got me started. So while I was working that nutrition, for the nutrition company, while everybody went out partying, cause we did a lot of traveling, I stayed back in my hotel room and I was in the trenches playing in LinkedIn. And that's what I did.

So I kind of learned by doing. And eventually when I got laid off, you know, I thought about starting a gig and I was kind of doing some gig work, mostly on Facebook, helping people with their background banners and graphics and stuff. And I knew that eventually I wanted to work for myself. I always had this entrepreneurial spirit, especially being in real estate. So I decided after I got laid off a second time, it was time to start my own business. I really didn't have a choice. Was a single mom, I had two young boys in elementary school. It was time to go. It was go time. It was now or never. And on the advice of my sister who was a very successful self made artist, she worked for a big advertising firm in San Francisco, but because she didn't have the piece of paper, you know, the college degree, she wasn't getting promoted.

So she left the advertising firm and started her own freelance graphics company and made more money doing that than she ever did working for the you know, corporate America. And then eventually she started painting and sold her paintings all over the world. Even had her own gallery in San Jose. So I took the advice from her.

She sat me down before she passed away. She had brain cancer and she gave me these dog tags that said Impossible, but with an apostrophe after I am. So it was I'm possible. Those were her dog tags. And then she gave those to me and she says, you just need to do it. Start your own marketing agency. You have the skill, just do it.

And it was because of those words, her last words to me. And that's what I did. Now, I did not start off doing LinkedIn, although I loved it. Uh, I don't know if anybody, you know, any of your listeners have gone to or still do go to networking events, you know, like Chamber of Commerce meetings, BNI meetings.

Now it's even Zoom networking meetings and stuff. I wasn't getting any clients in my own backyard. And back then, like, my prices were like $300. Really cheap. No one would hire me. And so I took to LinkedIn. I started finding my clients in LinkedIn and by networking on LinkedIn and building relationships and trust in LinkedIn.

And eventually those clients started turning around and going, how are you doing this? Can you do it for us? Or Can you teach us how to do it? And then that was the dawn of the LinkedIn consulting firm.

Nigel Rawlins: Hmm. There you go. And over what period of time did that sort of grow?

Tracy Enos: Well, technically, I was getting paid in 2013. And so out of all the networking groups, I met a gentleman in November of 2012 named Bob Lovely, who has passed away. Became one of my best colleagues or best friends here in Kansas City. And, we met him on LinkedIn. He reached out to me and he gave me my very first LinkedIn client.

We did a profile for a new tech company here in Kansas City, a biotech company. And that was awesome. I was like, you know, just elated that I got this client. And when I got the client for LinkedIn, even though I was doing the other digital marketing services for these businesses, I had the passion for this.

I didn't have the passion to build WordPress websites or do reputation management or do, you know, building out business directories and all the Google business and all that. You know what, the fulfillment was just not exciting for me. I could sell it all day long. I just didn't like doing the work that went with it.

But LinkedIn, I can still sell it. And I still love doing the work. I had found my passion

Nigel Rawlins: So what was it about LinkedIn that you really enjoyed? Was it the sort of people that are on LinkedIn?

Tracy Enos: It was the people. Yeah, well, not just the people. I think I could really manage my time being a single mom, two active little kids, they're both in sports, and, you know, I didn't, I don't think I could ever have worked a traditional job. You know, I did for a little bit, but, you know, kids go to school at a certain time, kids have doctor's appointments, kids get sick, kids have sports after school, extracurricular activities, they have friends.

That's a lot of work, especially for one parent. Right? And so this allowed me the flexibility, and that's what I love the most. The people were great. I've met people all over the world, but it was the flexibility that I think I loved more than anything else. And I love learning. I'm an info junkie. So it's really neat to see how LinkedIn has grown up over the last 20 years, and what used to be to what is now.

And being in the trenches, like, you know, the kids go to bed, I can go play in LinkedIn,

Nigel Rawlins: Hmm.

Tracy Enos: or finish, you know, working at two o'clock in the morning if I wish. That's what I really liked about it.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, that's amazing. What you're actually saying there is it's, it's a lifestyle job that you can fit around having a family. I guess why a lot of people are shifting to freelancing today is so that they've got that control, so it's not like a nine to five job and you've got that flexibility.

Well, that's amazing that you did that. That's great. Well, let's talk a little bit about LinkedIn. Who's LinkedIn for, would you say?

Tracy Enos: I think LinkedIn still today is primarily a business to business platform. I am seeing some business to customer, starting to grow on LinkedIn, but I don't think it's quite there yet. I think some can be successful. It just takes a little bit longer. So for example, if you're a real estate agent and you're looking for your next buyer or seller, that's not what it's for.

You should be looking for referral partners, people that are in different industries, that could send you potential clients, such as maybe mortgage brokers, business or developers, hard money lenders, private money lenders, depending on what sector you work in whether you're commercial or residential, you could network with other agents across the country for relocation.

So, if you have a client that's relocating, I did a lot of that back in the day, in Joplin Missouri, there was a company called Leggett & Platt, and we actually ended up walking into that company as being their team of choice. So, we got all their relocations to and from, moving in and out. So, you could work with companies doing that.

Go find companies that don't have an agent or a team that can help their employees, you know, seamlessly move in and out, you know, and so the opportunity is great there. It really is. And and I still think that it's being underutilized and it's overwhelming for a lot of folks. It's unlike any other social media platform.

There's a lot of bells and whistles to it That you don't have to use them all to make a great income in LinkedIn, but you should add them as time goes on. But I do think the overwhelm sometimes people will just go, you know what? I just, I can't figure this thing out. I just can't do it. And then they quit.

LinkedIn is all about consistency. They will reward you for being consistent. And I'm not talking about content. Yes, they will reward you for being consistent on posting content. But I'm talking about your activities, your daily activities in LinkedIn. They reward you.

Nigel Rawlins: So let's talk about, say, some of my clients and some potential clients. In Australia we don't have this layoff you hear a lot about in America. I think most people stay in a job for a long time or they might shift and we don't hear so much about layoffs unless the company goes broke, and then everybody loses their job. Maybe in America it's a different stress to look to work for yourself. But I think what we're seeing is a lot of women in their 50s are starting to think, well, not getting anywhere at work anymore. They might have some talent. And so they might shift to work for themselves.

So what advice would you give to them? You know, they may have a listing on LinkedIn, but to then start working for themselves, what should they do?

Tracy Enos: Look, I think the one thing that most people neglect to do on LinkedIn is really sit down and define what their business objectives and goals are for using LinkedIn. We don't want to just get on LinkedIn and go, okay, I'm here now. What? And then just do, you know, activities that are sporadic. We want to have a plan, right?

So, what's the saying? If you fail to plan, you plan to fail or something like that. It's very true in LinkedIn too. And I think what 95 percent of the people that I run into on LinkedIn have an opportunity to use their profile and do it well. Once you've sat down and defined out what your business goals and objectives are, because if you don't define who you're going to connect with, how you're going to build a relationship, what's the end result of that and what time frame do you want that to happen?

We're getting a little techie here, but you know, what KPIs, you know, you got to sit there and key point indicators and that's all your analytics stuff. Little too techie. Most people don't worry about that in the beginning, but it all starts with the profile. 95 percent of the people's profiles on LinkedIn Suck. They really do. I think, you know, LinkedIn is 20 years old and I still see people, I call it, it's so 2011, I still see people using their profile as their resume. And if you've ever looked at a paper resume, that doesn't really tell anything about you, does it? No, absolutely. Now, you're going to have some of those you know, key successes and your work experience in your profile.

Absolutely. But there's other things in the profile, the other sections of profile that, that LinkedIn allows for that really shows more about who you are, what you do, you know, who do you help? How do you help them? Right? What kind of outcomes results can you get for those folks and the human side of you?

So we have our little system called the HEAT system. So that is human, expertise, authority, and trust. And this is just the 21st century version of cold calling, right? Instead of getting on a phone and trying to get past the gatekeeper and get them on the phone, you're using LinkedIn to reach out to those people one to one.

You're not reaching out to the secretary or to whoever answers the phone. You are reaching out with that decision maker, right? And so that's the person that you want to connect with and build that relationship with. Well, if your profile looks like garbage, if it doesn't speak to your, you know, your expertise and the authority, and if they don't feel like they like you or trust you, you're not going to get a connection request acceptance.

You're not going to get the response to your in mail or your message. You know, and your efforts are going to go down the drain. Now, is anybody and everybody going to connect with you? No, they're not. But you're going to improve your chances by filling out that profile in a way that it speaks to your ideal audience. But people don't take the time to do this. They will spend 20, 30 minutes and then just fill out some of the, I would say the key sections, but forget about the rest. Oh, I hear these people now saying, Oh, nobody reads the profile. I can tell you how many instances on more than my two hands and two feet, how many times that my clients and myself.

When somebody goes and reads something in your profile, and then they send you a message and go, Oh wow, I didn't realize that you were in the military. Well, if I hadn't put that in the profile, or exactly what I did in the military, they like you already, right? That's a warm lead. That is not a cold lead anymore, right?

That's going to be a warm conversation.

Nigel Rawlins: I think I do the opposite of that. I just, I try and connect with people who I find interesting, like the authors of the books I read and, um, you know, academics who might be studying an area that I'm interested in and want to find out a bit more. I'm probably not as transactional.

Tracy Enos: That's your objective for using LinkedIn, right? But I'd say for the audience that your listeners here that maybe are transitioning out of maybe a high executive position and may moving into the freelance or creating their own small company.

It's important to figure out why you want to go connect with this person, right? I see you, Nigel, you're probably connecting with folks that you could possibly interview.

Nigel Rawlins: Yes, I do generally

Tracy Enos: It's your business objective, right?

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, well, it seems to be becoming that, I just thought I'd see what happens this year that that's why I'm writing a couple of articles a week. It's just basically me putting my ideas down on paper and trying to find my writer's voice. I set myself a goal of writing two articles a week, and I'm just doing that.

I have no idea where that's gonna go. Uh, but I'm interested to see what response I get and see which articles people might respond to.

Tracy Enos: I first started on LinkedIn, I connected with anybody and everybody. Not just U.S., like all over the world. That got me in trouble. I got suspended from LinkedIn, in 2012, in June of 2012. That was back when LinkedIn would send you an email and go, you're being suspended for five days, and here's why.

They don't do that anymore. They just, you get the 404 screen. It says, Hey, guess what? You're suspended. We think there's some strange activity going on, you know, and so we're going to suspend you for a few days, and then three times you're out. But I didn't even figure out who I wanted to, I mean, it was an anybody and everybody, it was a spray and pray type of campaign. You know, real estate marketing and marketing on LinkedIn to other business owners is very different. I think the strategies are the same. I just didn't know how to speak to them or understand their problems or understand their deepest desires. And I had to figure out who I really wanted to help.

And I've worked with the gamut. I've worked with hundreds of industries from the solo entrepreneur to the $50 million SAAS company, so Fortune 50 company, and I found my sweet spot. But it took me a minute to figure that out. That's why I can give advice. Cause I was the spray and pray

Nigel Rawlins: It takes time, doesn't it? And I guess that's, that's what expertise means is that the more you do this, the more patterns you see and the better knowledge that you gain from that. All right, well let's go a little bit more then. When you say interacting, that, LinkedIn rewards you.

Like, for example, I put my two articles religiously every Wednesday, every Friday. But you're saying it's other stuff as well that LinkedIn rewards you for. So what's that stuff?

Tracy Enos: So LinkedIn has a little system called the social selling index. And I'm not sure if you've ever seen yours, and there's four different things there that will tell you how well you're doing in LinkedIn and they're going to give you from a zero to a 100. Never seen a 100. Best I've ever gotten was like 92.

But that's only because I was doing a lot of content way back in the day. When content was a little easier than it is today, but they reward your activities. They log everything that you do from how many connection requests you're sending out to how many are accepting those How many conversations you're having in the inbox and how many people are responding to those. Obviously the content and how are you building business? How many connection requests? Again, like I just said, and how many are accepting? And then not just that, but how many of those new connections that you're actually having conversations with? So they're going to see your activity, and they're also going to look at your, not just you posting content, but are you engaging with other people's content in the newsfeed?

And so with those four items, that's how they determine your score. Now, I used to think it was hogwash. But now that I see that my score has gone down because I'm not consistent with my content, so I'm back like in the 78 –80 kind of fluctuate kind of in there. I'm in LinkedIn every day, so I'm having those conversations, but I'm not doing the engaging and posting of the content that they really want to do so they drop a score.

Nigel Rawlins: Wow.

Tracy Enos: I'm still one one percent in my whole network though. I got a pretty sizable network

Nigel Rawlins: Well, that's what I noticed. Some people have got lots of followers and lots of connections. And I'll be honest, I was very careful about accepting connections because sometimes I accept them and then I've got a thing in the inbox straight away saying, Oh, buy this. Or do you want 50 new clients or something like that?

Tracy Enos: Oh I get that every day.

Every day, it is annoying and because there's a feature called InMail. And there's two types of InMail. There's Sponsored InMail, which goes through the ad platform through a company page. And then there's an InMail for people who are using a tool that LinkedIn has called Sales Navigator, sorry. And you can find people with open profiles which is, is back in your privacy settings. And unless you turn it off, you're open. And you can message anybody that is in a group with you for free. So, that's where you get these messages. Like, I don't know these people. They come from a group that you belong to and anybody, doesn't matter whether you're a free or a premium or a sales navigator, subscription, anybody can message anybody if they have a group in common.

So, you're going to get the spam and I think the worst offenders are overseas. Most definitely. So, I get them all the time. I get them all the time. I think you can shut off the sponsored InMails, that come from company pages, but I don't think you can shut off the, the InMails. As long as you're in a group with somebody, you're fair game.

Nigel Rawlins: So, is it worth trying to chase lots of followers and lots of connections? Because some people have got hundreds of them.

Tracy Enos: Well, some people took years and recently, a lot of people are getting the followers and I'm doing air quotes here. And those people you can't have a real conversation with because they are, they just follow you and can only see your content, in the news feed. But you cannot message each other in the inbox and have real conversations unless either one of you go out and send a connection request, right?

So the follower to connection ratio is often far off, but I'm going to tell you, look, it doesn't take a lot. I mentioned my friend Bob Lovely, and before he passed away, he only, he had under 2, 000 connections. Now, mind you, we met, I met him in November of 2012. He had less than a thousand and at the time, I think I had like 1200 or something like that connections.

My network just grew exponentially, but he was a career coach and he got laid off in his sixties, from a vice president position here in Kansas City from a firm that he'd been with for, what I did say, 30 years or something like that. What's he going to do next? Well, he was already in career coaching.

That was kind of this, what this company did. And so all he did was use LinkedIn articles. He used his Gmail, and he used his profile and he built a six figure business. He didn't have a website. He had a Mac computer. He didn't even have a smartphone. I'm not lying guys, I swear. He didn't even have a smartphone and he didn't even have a camera on his Mac. So eventually he got one so he could do Zoom calls because he did most of his in person. He was a master networker and he was really good at what he did.

Nigel Rawlins: Hmm.

Tracy Enos: Eventually, all that his network did was send him referrals. He got some new clients, but the January before the lockdown, so January 2020, he called me one day and we always chat.

I said, how, how was business this month? You know, and he goes, I had a record business. He was sick with, I can't think of the disease. It's where your immune system attacks your body.

Nigel Rawlins: Hmm.

Tracy Enos: And it starts with a G, like Guillaume's or Guillaume's disease or something like that. Land him in the hospital. It took him 18 months to come out.

So, when he was about 80–85 percent back, that was his first full month back. And he said, I made $19, 000 from LinkedIn.

Nigel Rawlins: That's pretty good.

Tracy Enos: I know, and like I said, it was just articles, which are today called newsletters. It's articles. He used the power of Gmail and created his contact list in Gmail and LinkedIn and having conversations in the inbox.

And then, of course, created that referral base. So it can be accomplished. It really can. And you don't need to start off with a bunch of fancy tools or software or equipment. The only thing I recommend that you get that's paid right now is Zoom.

You're going to have a lot of meetings.

Nigel Rawlins: I think you're right, because what you're saying there is he obviously had a service that people needed help with, and they were able to find him and connect with him, and obviously he knew how to price his services, to make that sort of money.

And it's interesting what you're saying there is you don't need a whole lot of digital technology, especially websites like, my business in the past, and still is a bit, I've built 50 WordPress websites, and now I'm building a range of other ones, and I still do that, and I manage 18 websites. But LinkedIn is showing up in search results, often ahead of websites now.

So that's an interesting thing that's happening.

Tracy Enos: Nigel, it's so funny that you mentioned that because I have a gentleman that's conversing in my inbox and he just out of the blue sent me a connection quest and said, I would like your advice on something. And it was about how his messaging, he had like 18, 000 connections and he wanted to message the HR professionals in his first degree connections.

And. I'm nice. Normally I charge people for that, but that was fine. And he goes, Oh, by the way, I found you in Google search for LinkedIn marketing expert. And my profile showed up.

Nigel Rawlins: Wow.

Tracy Enos: So Google does index your profile. It will index your articles and it will index your posts. A couple years ago, I had a post that a young lady found in Google. Now I don't see the posts as much anymore, but the articles definitely will. So make sure your articles are keyword rich. I had an article called LinkedIn productivity hacks and it was about Evernote and LinkedIn. They used to sync at one point and my article was indexed on page one for a year and a half.

And the first several months my article was above, Richard Branson. I was like, yes, I'd be, I have a screenshot of it somewhere cause my computer crashed. I think I recovered it, but it was amazing. I'm like, I'm above Richard Branson. This is awesome.

Nigel Rawlins: That was, that was an interesting thing because I've been putting my articles onto LinkedIn, then I put them into my website and I, and because I look into SEO and all that stuff as well for my clients and do a lot of writing. I've suddenly realised, well, if LinkedIn articles are being put on Google, and I'm putting the similar article, though I'm changing them now, on my website, are they cross interfering, or are they just not getting indexed on Google because they're, doubled up?

And that's an interesting issue too.

Tracy Enos: So that's a little SEO trick that by the way, as, as this, as we're doing this interview, it currently works. Your LinkedIn articles is not considered duplicate content by LinkedIn if it's also on your website.

I say best practice though is to do a hyperlink that refers back to where the original article is, and vice versa, you could try to do like a little blog post and say, oh, our here's a little snippet of the article, but here's where the original article lives on LinkedIn. So now you'll have some backlinks that'll go back and forth and try doing that. But I think you have to go into either another browser or incognito in order to see if that is actually working for you.

But they don't ding you for, for the same article on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is considered an authority site with Google.

Nigel Rawlins: I've been changing the article that I put on the website now. I changed the URL and I do a lot more work on the SEO there. So, but then again, the areas I'm writing in are probably not highly searched for. It's about knowledge management and freelance consulting and stuff like that. They're not heavily searched for at this stage.

But I do think that the freelance is a revolution and I think there's a couple of people out there that are really, supporting it, Matthew Mottola, he's really, really quite big and there's quite a few other people now on LinkedIn who are promoting it. So, it's definitely a growing trend. Well, what are some of the other trends that you're seeing on LinkedIn now?

Tracy Enos: Well, I'm seeing some, like I said, the bad actors. And they're using LinkedIn Sales Navigator software to spray and pray. Like we talked about. And that's unfortunate. So what I'm seeing now is. a big reduction in responses in the inbox because this is happening. And so how we're combating it is we're trying to do pattern interrupts.

So you want to stand out in the inbox. So, a lot of people are using automation software to send out the connection requests and then follow up with, you know, strategic messaging much like your Constant Contact or a MailChimp kind of would do those automated messages. However, and I'm not against automation as long as it's used strategically and lightly.

I like more manual. But it does do some of the heavy lifting. Like if I'm sending out 20, 30 connection requests a day, I got software that does that. Now it does violate LinkedIn's Terms of Service, so use very responsibly and sparingly. However, I like to get back in and do a manual follow up message once they reply to me.

Right? Now you have some of the software that will actually track that now, when way back in the day it didn't. And so you would look really silly if you sent a follow up message after your software already did it. And so, and if it was not, if it didn't relate to what their message was, because some people in the minute they can connect with you will message you. Right? And you don't want to have a follow up message that doesn't follow that, you know, to respond to that. So you just kind of lose opportunity for doing that. So we like to get, just get in there and do something different. And I don't mean just set up a GIF or anything like that. You can use your mobile phone and do either a quick video.

And you can't do it on desktop or laptop, but you can do it on your mobile. A quick video saying hello and introducing yourself. Or you could do an audio, if you wish to do that. Or, AI can come into play and do this. And there's a really cool tool that I'm starting to play with called BHuman. And what it does, it's B, the letter B human dot AI.

And what it does, it allows you to go in, and it actually connects with LinkedIn, your inbox, too. It allows you to go in and you can create one video for anybody, right? And then it, it will take your voice and then you just type in the name of each person and it will send it out to them.

So it'll look like it's more of a personalized video than you're just sending out general blanket videos. I'm not saying I'll do a lot of this right away. I think it's just going to be fun with it, but how we really stand out in the inbox is go look at the person that you've connected with. Go look at their profile.

If they got something on their website, if they have a website, go look at their other social. I had one gentleman that connected with me today and it doesn't have to be a drawn out, long drawn out thing. He is from Calgary, Canada and I happened to visit Calgary, Canada back when I was 15 years old.

And I have a little story and I loved it. I fell off a glacier. Well, I fell down a glacier, not off a glacier, but I went to go see the Calgary Stampede. Oh, the chuck wagon races were amazing and watch the hot air balloon race up. So I could start with a conversation like that. Hey, I love the fact that you live in Calgary.

I was there when I was 15 and both my kids in sixth grade got an A plus because they did report on A to Z for Calgary. That's starting a conversation. I didn't make it about me selling anything to him. Cause people aren't dumb on LinkedIn. They know that you have an agenda.

Why are you reaching out to them? Right? They know at some point you're going to have an ask or whatever that looks like for you. Come to my, you know, webinar, go get my free checklist, get on a meeting with me, kind of thing. They know, eventually that's coming, right? Just stand out, just do something different, and you're gonna improve your chances of getting a response.

And then you can lead into those open ended questions that leads into whatever that ask is for you. And then you're more than likely to get a yes. Let's go ahead and do that.

Nigel Rawlins: That's a really nice way of putting it because, you know, some of them are just straight out. Buy this or do you want to get this. There's no relationship.

Tracy Enos: No, I look, I've been on there, what, since 2009, and I'm, I'm still seeing the spray and pray method.

Nigel Rawlins: mm, mm,

Tracy Enos: I've done the spray and pray method, and I still do, but it's an advanced strategy, and it's something I just mentioned with the groups and using Sales Navigator, but that's another conversation for another day.

It is effective, but if you want to blow through a lot of messages, You know, you could do 40 of them a day,

Nigel Rawlins: So that's one thing I would like to ask you about. I'm a professional member, so I pay, I think, 60 US a month or something like that. Do you need to pay for the extra? And what are the benefits ?

Tracy Enos: Sales Navigator is a relationship and prospecting tool.

It's fantastic. I've been a member or I've been using it since 2013. So I'm grandfathered in at the old price. Um, as long as I don't get rid of it then, but it's about a hundred bucks a month. And for the core version or the pro version, which would be most probably freelancers who don't have like a team of 10 or more, it's perfect for, and we use it for organization, we use it for creating lead lists. You can put notes in there. You can do deep research, if you're looking for certain accounts like companies and you're looking for the decision makers, they have account maps, relationship maps in there.

They have insights. They have all sorts of things that can break the ice with people . And LinkedIn tells you, hey, this company just got awarded, VC money or something like that.

You could go in there and say, hey, Joe, and if he was the CFO and that's who you're trying to target is CFOs of certain size companies, just saw that your company was awarded blah, blah, blah, money from whatever, congratulations. What do you plan on using it for?

Nigel Rawlins: Mm.

Tracy Enos: And that's an open ended question. Just leave it like that.

Nigel Rawlins: That's really about, targeting, if you want to bring in a lot of clients. But if you only need one or two, well, for some people, they can only handle so many clients a year.

Tracy Enos: Then look, the free version, unfortunately, you're going to lose some features. For example, you can see the only five people in the last 90 days that have viewed your profile. Whereas if you're a business premium or sales navigator, you get 365 days of everybody because there's, I'm telling you there's gold.

And who's viewed your profile and there's gold in there. I just got a client from there

Nigel Rawlins: I look at mine and it's obviously the people who are trying to target me for selling stuff, so I don't always see a lot of people looking at me. Sometimes I do. So what, if somebody does view you, what do you do with it?

Tracy Enos: If they fit my customer profile, then I'll go and I'll reach out and send a connection request that says, Hey, I'm not going to be creepy and go, I just saw that you checked out my profile. Be a little less creepy there, but you know, use your personality. Been seeing you around LinkedIn, thought it might be great to connect.

Nigel Rawlins: That's a good idea.

Tracy Enos: And start that conversation there. It could be a potential referral partner. I still work in the real estate side of things. I have a partner that does private lending and he works with multi millions of dollars.

And so, I still connect with those people because I make introductions to him. And so I'm not just connecting with business owners and freelancers and coaches and consultants and stuff. I'm also connecting with real estate developers, investors and such, so that I can make introductions and build out networks that way, because I have an investing business on the side as well.

Those, I don't even use Sales Navigator for. I just strictly go into my real estate groups, and I see somebody that has an ask, I go introduce myself, I send them a connection request, and I said, hey, I've got this amazing introduction for you. And he was a client of mine. So I don't even say he's my partner. I say he's my client, and he's 40 years in the investing and private lending business. I would love to make an introduction. Here's his profile, and I do the profile link in there, and they come back, and he right now has, I don't know, over 600 million dollars in the hopper just because of that. And I'm not using fancy sales navigator for that. I'm just clearly making the introduction. Once they say yes, I send them a connection request and then I get their email address and I make the professional introduction that way off of LinkedIn.

Nigel Rawlins: So you're being helpful.

Tracy Enos: Correct? Yes.

Nigel Rawlins: So, groups.

Tracy Enos: Groups are garbage. They're not like Facebook groups. There's low functionality, low features. They have thousands and thousands of people, but you want to know what? Groups are great if it's a group where your ideal client's there.

And then I use the filters in Sales Navigator for business premium and the free people use to filter out and find the right people.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay, so you are saying there's a technical use of the filters if you're paying for the professional versions in your groups. So rather than just looking at the group as a mass of people.

Tracy Enos: It would be a mess of people unless you knew that person's name.

Nigel Rawlins: Mm-Hmm,

Tracy Enos: Good luck, especially if there's thousands and thousands of people in that group.

Nigel Rawlins: So there's an awful lot to learn about LinkedIn. So, tell us what do people do? They find you, you're a LinkedIn expert. They connect with you, what do they want?

Tracy Enos: Same thing they want from you, buy my thing.

Now, I do have some who, I mean, genuinely want to build a relationship and hang out, whatever, and they could be an ideal client, but maybe they're not ready. Most of the time they're trying to sell me something, and a lot of times they're my ideal customer.

But I'm not going to sell them right now. If they're strictly selling me something right away, I want them to see some of my activity. So what I do is I give them an offer. I give them something for free. Hey, look, this is what I do. Here is what I give to my paying clients to get them started in really utilizing LinkedIn.

And it starts with your profile.

Nigel Rawlins: Mm-Hmm.

Tracy Enos: And I've converted some of those people into paying clients. And a lot of those people will probably end up, because now I have all their information, it's an ask campaign. Hey, would you like it? You know, okay, yeah, I'd like it. Well, give me your best email and I will go ahead and send it to you off of LinkedIn from my personal email address, so that it's not coming from Constant Contact or MailChimp, which by the way, you can't put people in there because it does not follow the GDPR and you'll get flagged for it and possibly get your account shut down for spam.

So folks, don't download your list of LinkedIn connections and upload them into Constant Contact or MailChimp. I still get those all the time and it does happen. So, I just ask them, hey, do you want it? Yes, if you don't, no worries. I don't care, there's a billion people on LinkedIn.

Nigel Rawlins: Yep.

Tracy Enos: I don't need to work with a billion people.

Nigel Rawlins: One of my clients might say, look, I need some expert advice on LinkedIn and I send them to you. What would you do with them?

Tracy Enos: it starts with a conversation. I always do a 20 to 30 minute call. I look at their profile and then I ask them questions about them. Not about what I have to offer, about them. Ask them about their business. What their goals and are for using LinkedIn, what their objectives are, why are they there? Who are they trying to target?

What kind of assets do they have? What are they trying to sell? What's the cost of it? You know, I ask him a lot of questions. Any marketing person would do is ask him a lot of questions. And then I go, look, here's some areas I think you can improve. At least it's starting with the profile because that's just phase one.

And I might, I might prescribe them more than one phase. Like phase one, look, we got to get your branding, your company page and your profile on point because you're going to be losing opportunity if you don't look the part and if your messaging is off from your profile. You can't sell somebody real estate services if your profile says financial services.

And it doesn't say anything about real estate services, right? So, you have to look the part there as well. And you gotta have that likability. Second part is, alright, now the profile's done. What do we do next? And then, we create a plan form. And it's usually, we call it our basic marketing plan, which is a direct outreach campaign.

And a lot of times, depending on the network, like this fella that was looking for the HR people. He starts with his first degree network and a lot of people have that. Hey, let's go use Sales Navigator and let's go filter out and start with our warm market. Let's see if we can get some low hanging fruit, right?

And then we start creating a cold outreach campaign and lists. And then the next phase with that is, all right, now we got that going. How do we get them off of LinkedIn and into other marketing channels so that we are touching them, not just in LinkedIn, but they're maybe their email, or you can use a piece of software like, Go High Level, which has ringless voicemail, or even SMS marketing or text marketing as well. That's called a multi channel campaign, right? Not everybody's in LinkedIn every day. Not everybody is checking their email every day or maybe your email landed in their spam box, right?

Or whatever. We are touching and if they are really your ideal client, then you will set up a system to follow up with these people, even if they don't reply to you right away. And then for the ones that do, how do we set up a follow up campaign so we stay top of mind with them so that when they are ready, we're the first name that rolls off their tongue.

Nigel Rawlins: That's great. So really, how long does that take to start getting to roll along and start getting results?

Tracy Enos: Well, LinkedIn has activity limits, so you cannot go gangbusters in LinkedIn and think that it's unlimited. It's not. You're, you're going to get yourself in some hot water. You're going to get suspended for three to five days, your first round, maybe it's 24 hours, depending on how bad they think you offended them or whatever.

But, I can do some advanced campaigns and add a thousand people to my, my list that get my free thing in a matter of a few months, you know, two or three months. But the, the whole key to that is following up with them, right? How do I put them into a follow up campaign or reach out to them?

A lot of times I'll just go into my Gmail and I'll just send them a personal message. You can create templates in Gmail. It's going to be the same thing for all of them, right? But I can just, you know, Hey, how did you like the checklist? Have you been working on your profile? Anything you want me to review for you? Stuff like that. There will be people that will be ready to work with you. You have the right person at the right time with the right problem and you have the solution. But for the majority of them, you have to nurture them.

Nigel Rawlins: So what you're saying there is to have a system. Now, for example, if somebody comes to me and they want to set up their business and all that, and want a website. The website is going to take a while before it gets any response on on Google. And I don't know how relevant Google is going to be with AI and everything out there at the moment.

So LinkedIn to me is coming across as probably the best place to start marketing your business. I think you still need the digital presence as well in terms of a website to give more detail, but LinkedIn seems to me to be the quickest way to get going if you decide you want to freelance or become an independent consultant.

Tracy Enos: This is how I started. I had a full time job and I was traveling, and I had two kids. Everybody has their thing and I get that and it's okay, but you got to really define your goals and how long to take to achieve your goals and maybe you cut out some things, out of your life that would allow you some of the time to start using LinkedIn to market. Maybe that's the one hour TV after the kids go to bed. Maybe you can DVR that, that show and then go spend an hour in LinkedIn.

You know, do that a few times a week and just start building that. You don't have to have everything perfect and I'm, I'm the queen of perfectionism over here.

I've been trying to to launch my digital course for two years now, and I still haven't done it.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh yeah.

Tracy Enos: I know when you have a thing that says, Oh my God, I have so many videos to create. It's overwhelmed with everything else that I'm doing. And I'm like, I'm pulling my hair out. And so, you know, just get in there and make it a point to get started.

It doesn't have to be perfect. Your website doesn't have to have done, by the way, I took my website down from WordPress I'm doing it over in Go High Level just because I was having too many issues with it. I don't even have a website right now, but when I first got started, I didn't have a website for 10 years.

No one cared because everything that I had was in my profile. Now, did I have like landing pages with funnels and stuff? I did have that, but those are simple and they're not as comprehensive a website, but no one really cared. Someone's like, well, you don't have a website. I'm not gonna work with you. Well, maybe a couple people said that, but I overcame that with, you know, what's the website really going to tell you that my profile doesn't? Actually, my profile probably tells you more. You know, and my activity, then, then website. So don't have to be perfect. Just get in and get started and it's okay. You get 30, 000 lifetime connections on LinkedIn. Even if you connect with what you think are the wrong people, it's okay. You can remove them at some point later, but it looks good to have a network.

People, it is a social proof thing to have more than a thousand connections.

Nigel Rawlins: I'm very slow connecting out there. I'm very careful.

Tracy Enos: Nigel, it's okay. Remember how slow Bob grew his network and how much money he was bringing in? Don't even worry about that. I mean, but I'm just saying, if you are really serious about using LinkedIn to grow your business, then you're going to have to do that. But there are some tricks that you can grow your network in five minutes.

Nigel Rawlins: Do you care to tell us?

Tracy Enos: Oh, okay. I'll tell you. You twisted my arm.

You can go in there and you can connect your email address, and sync it with LinkedIn. Just go to the Manage My Network tab on the top menu, and on the left hand side, um, there'll be a little link down there that you can connect your email address.

And then once you give the permissions for that, then LinkedIn will go ahead, it'll pull everybody in, and then you can pick and choose who you want LinkedIn to send the invitation to. Now you don't get an opportunity to add a personal note, but that's okay. These people are probably already know you anyway.

And so they'll send that out on your behalf. And here's the good news with this. You're not subject to the hundred invites a week limit for doing that. And you could quickly grow your network 250, 500, 000 people by just doing that alone.

You could also sync your phone contacts too. And that's a little bit different, but, most everybody that's in my email address is in my contacts anyway. So, I wouldn't recommend people do that. Just do the emails first, and you can do more than one email too.

Nigel Rawlins: And what about on the mailing lists? If you've got 50 emails on the mailing list, can you add those too?

Tracy Enos: You can invite people by email in LinkedIn, and it's one at a time. Used to upload like a spreadsheet but people were abusing it, so they stopped that. But it has to be the email that they use for LinkedIn. That's the unfortunate part of that.

Nigel Rawlins: I'll invite them their way. But yes, I might try that Gmail one, because I use G Suite for my domain name. Now that sounds like a good idea.

Tracy Enos: Yeah, because here's the thing, what people don't realize is you're not just connecting with that person that you know by doing this. You now have access to their network. So that is your second and third degree connections from there. So that grows out your network. So if you were ever to use Sales Navigator, it expands out your opportunity of finding the right people and more people to work with.

So don't just think of it as, well, they're not the right person for my business, but you also never know who they know, right? If you start getting active in LinkedIn and they start seeing your activity, they're going to go, Oh yeah, Oh, um, I know a girl, her name's Tracy. I think she can help you with that. And that's how it rolls. It's a, it's a referral, but I can't tell you how many times I've sent over introductions and referrals and I don't work with these people. And probably never will work with these people, but I'm like, I have somebody in mind for you. Can I make the introduction? Like I'm in a couple networking groups that actually one of them is a paid group and there was this guy that did e commerce and one of my clients actually uses Clavio and does the email marketing for e commerce brands and he probably would have never met this guy.

And I said, Hey, I messaged him. I said, you have a guy that does the email marketing for your clients. And he goes, no, in fact, we don't have that. I said, I do. Would you like an introduction? And this guy that in my networking group is never going to be my client. And it happens all the time.

Nigel Rawlins: Mm hmm. Let's be helpful.

Tracy Enos: It is well, and look, what goes around comes around, right? Often people will reciprocate and they remember. Especially if you make somebody look like the hero.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah.

Tracy Enos: Right?

Nigel Rawlins: That's fantastic. And that, that shows your experience and the time that you've spent. And it seems to just come natural to you from the way you're explaining it.

Tracy Enos: When you've been in the trenches since 2011, I guess.

You just kind of, you just kind of learn along the way. I tell people I have a master's degree in LinkedIn.

Nigel Rawlins: It's deep knowledge. So where should people start, if they want to start learning about LinkedIn?

Tracy Enos: Why don't you first of all go ahead and find me on LinkedIn? I am Tracy Enos, spelled last name E N O S. Tracy spelled the right way, T R A C Y. I giggle with other girls named Tracy and we always talk about who has the best spelling, so. Um, and then I'm the girl with the purple background. In there and um, so we start there.

Send me a connection request and let me know that you heard me on Nigel's show. That'd be awesome and then, uh, why don't we send them to that free profile checklist because I've been touting that's where we gotta start, right? And you can go to theultimateprofilechecklist. com. And, Nigel, by the way, I'm going to give them a copy of my 2018 best selling book, which most of it is out of date, but it's in a PDF. And the whole first chapter is all about your profile.

Nigel Rawlins: That'll be really good. I will put all these in the show notes. All right, so, at this point, is there something else that you'd like to mention that we need to think about? Anything about LinkedIn.

Tracy Enos: I am on the LinkedIn advisory team. While I can't share a lot of stuff because I'm, I've been on the team since 2013, um, there's only like 1400 of us or so worldwide, give or take a little bit, because Bob was on the team too. I talk about Bob a lot. I miss him greatly. He was one of my best connections on LinkedIn.

I mean, he truly was the connector and, and he was just great. Anyway, so, um, I will say this. If you are really serious about using LinkedIn for your business, You have to use Sales Navigator. LinkedIn is really diving into the AI as well. I don't know if anybody has seen this, but like today I just posted a, uh, or scheduled an article from one of my clients and I did a short description and cause it'll post tomorrow morning and I just pressed the regenerate with AI button. It was kind of garbagey. I had to clean it up a little bit. I had to start with some of my own types. All I did was just copy and paste a little bit of what was in the article and put it in there to see what I would get. You don't have to use ChatGTP or BARD or Claude or one of those other ones.

Now if you want to, I think they have a better output. I think LinkedIn's need some work and it may be built on the ChatGTP 3. 5, but try using AI. The one thing I'm gonna recommend is don't use it for your profile. It's not really good, trust me. It's not. You're gonna want my profile checklist. But if you're really gonna be serious, serious about using LinkedIn for building your business or your sales team or your marketing team. You're going to want to use Sales Navigator and there's going to be some more AI enhancements like, it's called AutoIQ or something like that.

It's coming. It's in beta right now that I can tell you about because they announced it. So There's going to be some great enhancements with that and what LinkedIn is really trying to do is help you build those relationships and land more business.

Nigel Rawlins: Wow. So really what you're saying is. No matter what your business, you probably should be on Sales Navigator to expand your network so you've got more opportunities, to reach out to clients. Even though you might get an awful lot of people on your list, they might not all be clients, but they may refer you, or you may be able to reach out to them.

So I didn't think about that, is the expanding nature of all that. So it could be worth it. Rather than spending too much, like on somebody like me, to build a website, to spend money looking after their business if I'm altruistic. That, you know, that's probably the better way to go. Spend that money, spend a year, get good advice.

And that sounds to me, it's probably damn good advice. So yes,

Tracy Enos: It is. I'm going to just let you all know you're not going to be able to get away from AI. It's here to stay.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, definitely. Yeah, I use it multiple times a day and it's getting better and better, but I use the paid versions. People have got to play with it to, to, to learn how to use it and, and see where it fits in. And I, I think the best description of AI is to use it as an assistant.

Tracy Enos: Correct.

Nigel Rawlins: It's quite a handy one.

I'm just amazed how good it's getting. Though, like you said, you have to spend a lot of time editing and cleaning it up because it uses all sorts of flowery language that sounds stupid to me. Or it'll just put in gobbledygook that's hard to understand. You know, it can do that. All right, well Tracy, I think we've probably come to a good conclusion here.

You've made an offer, which is really good. So I'll put that in the show notes and promote that. So thank you very much for coming on my podcast.

Tracy Enos: Again, thanks for having me.