Why you NEED to change your LinkedIn profile.

If you are currently B2B, that is, you predominantly do business with other businesses then you need a LinkedIn profile that speaks to your customers.

WHY?

Because, like the majority of our clients were before we started working with them, you could be currently paying a lot of money for leads or funding elaborate advertising campaigns aimed at finding, engaging, and converting cold leads into customers.

Perhaps you employ a salesperson to pick up the phone and ‘cold call’ potential prospects. Invariably they will spend most of their time speaking to receptionists and other gatekeepers who are given specific instructions not to allow any sales calls through.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A LOT OF UNECESARY EFFORT ON YOUR PART…

…Especially when you are already using a FREE alternative that does the job better.

LinkedIn is the biggest social media platform in the world that has a specific focus on business. If your business success relies on making positive connections with other business owners, then surely leveraging the power of this platform and furthermore, the search function that puts you in direct contact with the people you want to do business with (NOT the secretaries) is a preferable strategy.

The first stage in attracting and then converting your ideal clients on LinkedIn is to make sure your profile is client-facing.

The trouble with most LinkedIn profiles today (and perhaps yours).

Back in 2003 when my daughter was born, LinkedIn was also brought into the world, and it was intended as a convenient way of connecting employers to potential employees. This is why over 90% of today’s LinkedIn profiles read more like an online C.V. or resumé. This does very little to attract and engage prospects who are looking for a commercial answer to their problems.

The very nature of a C.V. is that it speaks predominantly about the person for whom the profile was written. And, like a badly written ‘About Us’ web page, the LinkedIn profile rabbits on about themselves, and their accolades (no matter how irrelevant) with no attempt to really connect with a prospective client. In the second or two that the potential client may spend on the LinkrdIn C.V. profile, there is no engagement, and they leave.

Change your profile and start to build relationships.

Imagine a prospective client landed on your profile and in a few seconds became instantly excited because FINALLY, they had stumbled across an individual or business that existed purely to solve their problems and help them achieve their greatest desires. They’d want to know more… wouldn’t you?

Go through your own LinkedIn profile and ask yourself:

“Does my current LinkedIn profile speak directly to my clients – outlining the ways in which my product or service will help them make more money, save time, make their life easier and solve their problems?”

If not, then don’t worry this guide is here to help.

Self-promotion bit:

I should mention at this point that if you don’t want to do it all yourself then we have a simple cost-effective solution:

For a one-off payment of £75 we will have your LinkedIn profile rewritten within 24 hours. You also get our FREE eBook ‘LinkedIn Marketing Cheat Sheet’ and a FREE 30-minute Zoom call where we personalise your marketing efforts into a winning LinkedIn client acquisition formula tailored around your business.

Click this link if you’d like it done for you and me or one of my team will be in touch to discuss what you need for your LinkedIn profile.

Let’s build your LinkedIn profile.

Your LinkedIn profile photograph.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so your photograph needs to be inviting, friendly and appealing to your prospective clients.

And before you say:

“I hate having my photograph taken.”

…then qualify that statement with a plethora of reasons as to why you don’t want to smile or look at the camera, you are going to have to get over that. There has been far too much research done to prove that a smile associates YOUR product or the service with positive emotions: health, optimism, and success – all the attributes you want clients to associate with YOUR brand.

Remember also, that your clients are connecting with you (another human being). Would you find it easy to connect with someone who didn’t smile and shielded their eyes behind a hand or pair of dark shades? If you (like just about everybody on LinkedIn) only spent a couple of seconds to decide whether or not you wanted to connect, then I’m guessing you would have moved on and not given the person a second thought.

What should I wear for my LinkedIn profile photograph?

Whatever you would wear if you were meeting a client out here in the real world. Something that would give them every confidence that you care enough about your appearance and therefore care enough about their impression of you to actually make an effort – subliminally saying that just as much care and attention will go into your service to them… also, something that compliments your lovely eyes and smile.

What should your LinkedIn banner look like?

Behind the photograph is a banner that spans the width of the page (1584 pixels wide x 396 pixels tall to be exact). I’ve stopped marvelling at the number of people who waste this valuable space with generic non-descript images. Your banner (like a good website banner) is the ideal place to draw your profile visitors in and show them what you do, or perhaps display some social proof.

This is mine. It states very clearly what I do and inspires the reader to read further down my profile to find out more.

There are a variety of different tactics that can be employed with your LinkedIn banner. You can:

Outline the service/product you provide.
Talk about the audiences you serve.
The benefits that you bring to your customers.
Or social proof “As featured in Horse and Hound”.

The professional LinkedIn title.

Next to your photograph, your title is perhaps the most important part of your LinkedIn profile. In just 120 characters you can let your ideal client know that your very reason for ‘being’ is to serve their needs, and also to say how you do it.

This is precisely the reason why you should not waste this opportunity by having a title that reads something like:

John Smith

CEO Random Company Ltd.

I don’t see a single client benefit in the above title. It tells me NOTHING about how he will help solve my problems and make my dreams come true.

This is mine:

My ideal client is someone who has an underperforming website and wants their website to rank high on Google, whilst at the same time generating so many client conversions that they can stop paying for expensive lead generation people/tools. So, I simply state that on my profile title.

To start off with your professional title you might find the following template helpful:

I help [ insert your niched customer type here] achieve [benefit here] by [how you do it]

Don’t try to be too clever here. ALWAYS go for simplicity over jargon-filled intricacy. Steve Jobs (of Apple fame) once commented that if you cannot express what you do in very simple terms then you either don’t understand your product or your customers well enough.

I could have said on my profile:

I provide digital marketing, SEO, audio production and content writing/content marketing.

But, besides the above being an awful snooze fest, that is sure to be ignored alongside every other similar ad, how many people outside the marketing industry know exactly what goes into digital marketing? Or SEO, OR the intricacies of content writing?

It is much simpler and more effective to outline the benefits my potential clients will receive.

Why Niche your audience on LinkedIn?

To put it simply, you can’t be everything to everyone and if you try then you will create sales copy that is so generic that it appeals to no one.

I am aware that you may be scared of turning away clients that are not in your niche but:

The benefits of niching FAR OUTWEIGH the comparative bleak, baron wasteland of opportunities that lie ahead if you don’t.

Consider:

No two client types are the same and if you want a profile that stands out it cannot be a generic, vanilla, there to please everyone profile. It needs to immediately jump out to appeal to a specific type of profile visitor.

If you are marketing to your ideal client, then that is the client that will be frequenting your profile more than any other chance visitors. You are therefore making sure your profile appeals to the 99% of already ‘warm’ prospects that will be visiting rather than the 1% that happens to be there by chance.

Up to now, how many client conversions have you had on LinkedIn and of those how many were NOT your ideal customer?

Emojis and your LinkedIn profile.

Before we go into the content of your ‘About’ section I’ll address a question I’ve been asked quite a few times:

Should you have emojis on your LinkedIn profile?

Being in digital marketing for the past twenty years, my personal view is absolutely yes, provided they aren’t overused.

Psychologists say that emojis can help reinforce the meaning behind a message:

“I’ll see you later.”

Conveys a different tone and meaning, for example to:

“I’ll see you later.” 😃

According to Entrepeneur.com:

“Emojis are a great tool to make your brand seem more human and relatable. While social media cannot replicate the intimacy of face-to-face communication, emojis can fill in essential aspects of communication, such as facial expressions and body language.”

AND

Messages sent by a business that contains emojis are four times more likely to get a response from a customer.

Humans are naturally visual people, meaning they can process emojis faster than they can read and understand your sentences, so I would stand by my earlier statement and say emojis (provided they aren’t overused) are definitely something you should consider adding to your LinkedIn profile. They definitely add the ‘human’ into an otherwise digital conversation. 🤗

Jargon and your LinkedIn ‘About’ section.

Unless your clients (NOT YOU) commonly communicate by using industry-specific jargon I would advise staying away from it. It can tend to alienate potential clients when you should be reaching out to connect with them on an emotive level as well as practical. Human beings always react emotionally FIRST which means if you can reach them emotionally, then your potential customer WILL read on to support the buying decision they have ALREADY MADE.

Apple are masters at this. Check out any advertisement for the latest iGadget and you will find the sales language reaches you on such a personal and aspirational level that instead of dismissing the ridiculously priced status symbol, you try to figure out which of your children deserves to go without shoes and food for a year so you can afford to buy it.

I was once asked to look over an eBook written by financial advisors for their clients. It was filled with technical jargon and was not (to my eye) fit to give to anyone but another financial advisor to read – even then it should have come with a public health warning. I rewrote the eBook, removing most of the technical jargon, and instead concentrating on appealing to the wants and desires of their client base. The resulting eBook improved client engagement by over 80% compared to the previous version.

Your business website is your corporate platform, but your LinkedIn profile has to be more ‘human’. So, please avoid technical jargon in favour of appealing to your clients’ desires.

LinkedIn ‘About’ section

If your profile visitor has made it this far, that is a great sign. It means your profile picture, banner and LinkedIn title have compelled them to read on. Now you can go more in-depth with to HOW you can help them and what they must do to take advantage of what you have to offer.

Impress your visitors with an amazing ‘About’ section and your chances of them jumping feet first into your sales funnel are massively enhanced.

What is your LinkedIn ‘About’ section NOT?

This should go without saying but the biggest way to turn away an interested prospect is to stop talking about them and instead talk about yourself: how many years you have been doing your job, what university you went to, the professional qualifications you have etc… This is NOT a ‘show off’ at the expense of your customer section. This is a ‘what I do in as much as it will help my clients have an easier life section’.

So, start out by doing something like:

I help [niched audience] achieve [their goal] by [whatever you do to help them]

One of my clients has this:

I help healthcare businesses dominate their marketplace, save money, and become more efficient by implementing robust I.T. solutions.

Clear, focused and client-facing!

For the rest of the ‘About section try to include the following points:

What you do.
Who do you work with (target audience or industry type)?
Why your product or service is something they NEED.
Your USP (what makes you different).
Testimonials and social proof.
Your process (so they know what to expect).
Ready to talk? (How do they take the next step?)

In closing…

Thanks for reading. I hope this guide has helped.

If you would like to supercharge your LinkedIn profile but simply don’t have the time, then we do have a cost-effective solution that will help:

For a one-off payment of £75, we will have your LinkedIn profile rewritten within 24 hours. You also get our FREE eBook ‘LinkedIn Marketing Cheat Sheet’ and a FREE 30-minute Zoom call where we personalise your marketing efforts into a winning LinkedIn client acquisition formula tailored around your business.