Turn LinkedIn Into a Lead Magnet with Daniel Alfon | #116

Unlock the full potential of your LinkedIn profile with insights from the platform's guru, Daniel Alfon. Prepare to transform your online persona into a magnet for business opportunities as Daniel shares his metamorphosis from a dedicated sales professional to a LinkedIn virtuoso. Our enlightening discussion reveals why this social network is a goldmine for connecting with industry leaders and how a well-honed LinkedIn strategy can be the linchpin for lead generation and business expansion.

Navigate the LinkedIn landscape with finesse as we uncover the art of networking that prioritizes depth over breadth. Learn why chasing meaningful connections triumphs over amassing followers and how tailored engagement can fast-track you to high-value contracts. Daniel shares his insider knowledge on dodging the pitfalls of automated messaging and the perks of recycling standout content, providing you with actionable tips to harness LinkedIn for prospecting and amplifying your online presence.

Finally, we examine how AI is changing the game for entrepreneurs on LinkedIn, without overshadowing the indispensable human element. I'll share how a sharp LinkedIn strategy and personal profiles are increasingly vital for attracting leads, and how AI aids but does not replace the human touch in content creation and building relationships. Join us for this episode full of practical wisdom to not only elevate your LinkedIn visibility but also to propel your business to new heights of success.  

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

All right, welcome everyone to a new episode of the Evolving Business Minds podcast. If you own a business and want to learn how to turn your LinkedIn into a lead magnet, then today's episode is for you. Today's guest is the author of Build a LinkedIn Profile for Business Success. He's been on LinkedIn since February 2004, and he's helped thousands of business owners and entrepreneurs grow their businesses by using the platform. I want to welcome Daniel Alphon.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Andy, thank you very much for having me on the Evolving Business podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Absolutely. Yeah. So you know, we were just talking off camera. We've actually been trying to figure out how to get you on the podcast since it was the Resourceful Agent Radio Show, you know, a couple of years ago. So I'm glad to have you on. So, before we get too deep into the podcast, why don't you kind of give everyone an overview of what you do and how they can connect with you if they're interested in your service?

Speaker 2: 1:09

Thank you very much, andy. I help business owners leverage the LinkedIn platform and I offer courses, coaching and guides on my website, and that's danielalfoncom.

Speaker 1: 1:23

Okay, awesome. So I'd like to kind of dive into your background first. Um, you know how did you get started on this whole path of linkedin?

Speaker 2: 1:34

you know training and and consulting wow, andy, I wish I could tell you that. You know, growing up I wanted to become a LinkedIn trainer.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:46

But it was a lie. It happened sort of by chance. I was playing with LinkedIn when I was a quota-carrying salesperson and back then LinkedIn simply helped me slash my sales cycle because I knew the name of the person I needed to reach out to within the organization and I saw what's under the hood. It was interesting and then it became an essential tool. Friends started asking for help and then they asked me to train their sales force and at one point I decided I want to specialize.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Okay, so I'm curious and I think I've brought this up to you before. You know, I've never been a huge LinkedIn fan, but I am starting to read like I was just going through and cleaning up my whole profile and starting to use it to connect with more business owners. As I mentioned, you know, off camera I've kind of switched career paths and so as I'm stepping out of real estate into the space of helping people you know business owners with client retention, it seems like the obvious place to be for where all the other business owners are. But I'm curious what your opinion is with all the other social media platforms to choose from. Why are you such a proponent of LinkedIn?

Speaker 2: 3:00

LinkedIn is not user-friendly, but it's where business happens. I have a long list of improvements that could be made to the platform, but I don't know any of another platform where there is a billion users three signing up every second, and most of them being business owners or decision makers within the corporation. So you could play with youtube and facebook, but business happens on linkedin, and that's one of the reason that business owners should understand the linkedin platform and make it serve them instead of them serving the platform Right.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Which is how most platforms are right. If it's free, we're the product, and there's still advertisements and stuff on LinkedIn, but it is you make a good point like Instagram, facebook and all these other platforms. You know you don't necessarily see CEOs on those platforms and if they are, they may not be interacting very much on those platforms. And if they are, they may not be interacting very much. So what I've noticed is, yeah, you can reach a different or higher level CEO or individual on LinkedIn where you maybe couldn't do that on other platforms.

Speaker 2: 4:15

You're absolutely right. It's a way. When you Google any business owner's name full name you will see that their LinkedIn profile is often the very first results. Yeah, and we're speaking of people in the seven figures TED speakers, authors everyone their LinkedIn profile will top the list. So it's time to own it and not let any LinkedIn algorithm manage it for us.

Speaker 1: 4:47

Right, so I don't want to get too in the weeds on this question, but I am curious. It looked like for a while LinkedIn was trying to follow the course of Instagram and do stories and stuff like that, and then they removed some of those features. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 5:06

I think it's good or bad I was sad to see it go not specifically the stories, but it was a cover story like a short video that you could have a profile photo and that would enable you to speak directly with your audience. And each time time I get a message from LinkedIn saying we help our members, come first, I know that the ending is going to be now we're going to discontinue this service that you liked so much.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Yeah, so you mentioned you think all business owners should be on the platform. What about creators? We're obviously going into this. While we've kind of been in this creator era and it's only getting larger, should content creators, podcast hosts or just creators in general use the platform as well?

Speaker 2: 5:58

And the excellent question. Let me ask you another question Is the creator's audience on linkedin or not? And some creators will say, no, I'm catering to you know, uh, twins or like 12 years old, then you don't have to own linkedin, sure. But if your audience is on linkedin, then it would be a pity not to leverage it okay, hey everyone.

Speaker 1: 6:21

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Speaker 1: 6:52

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Speaker 2: 7:36

That's the only valuable piece of information that we see before even visiting your profile. So most people will say simply, no, I'm CEO XYZ. But looking at your own profile headline, you help us understand why we need to click and see more. It says strategic client retention. Specialists focused on boosting business revenue and podcast hosts evolving business minds podcast. There's no mention of Olive Branch bookkeeping. There's no mention of anything else, because what's interesting for clients is the value we can bring them. Once we discover that, then we will probably go to your website and maybe book a call. But the way to tempt us in is not by saying I'm co-founder and I'm vp. Whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 8:30

It's how you serve your community so, with use in mind as an example, is that a good use of the of the headline, or is it something that I should modify?

Speaker 2: 8:41

no, it's excellent. It's excellent because I think you tweaked it in a way that suits your business needs and, more importantly the most important, our profiles are not for us, Andy. It's built for our ideal readers. So if a business owner say I'm a business owner and I bump into your profile, the way you could help me is what could bring me to discover a bit more about you. It's an excellent example.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Okay, well, good, because I'm not like I said. I haven't used LinkedIn much and so I've been trying to go back through all my profiles and kind of revamp them, and LinkedIn was the one that was the messiest, I think, just from lack of using it. So what are some practical tips listeners can use to start generating leads for their business on the platform? Most business owners it's great to be able to connect with other people and network, but at the end of the day, everybody's trying to grow their business and increase revenue. So what tips would you give them to generate leads?

Speaker 2: 9:48

cool. So maybe one quick tip would be to treat their own profile as a landing page, not as a cv. In other words, your ideal client and you are less interested in, in realizing whether you know exp or or EXP or Keller Williams was something you did in 2021 or 2022., but the way you can help them is more important. So the simplest exercise would be to ask someone who's a prospect to look at your profile and tell you what they think when they read it.

Speaker 2: 10:24

Okay profile and tell you what they think when they read it. Okay, and sometimes they will say something that will make you think about the words you used or the way it's crafted, and their feedback is more important than our own thoughts Because, again, our profile is not made for us. That will be tip number one. We can go into tip number two whenever you'd like.

Speaker 1: 10:44

Yeah, yeah, let's dive deep into it, because I think the more people understand how to use it and generate leads, the more positive impacts they can have on their business.

Speaker 2: 10:53

Cool. So if we speak about business, I'd like to focus on the metrics. Okay, and the metrics, believe it or not, are not LinkedIn metrics. In other words, I don't believe you need to grow your connections, I believe you need to grow your business. And why do I say that, andy? Because connections are a means to an end. There are five free ways to leverage LinkedIn platform without advertising and you don't have to keep growing your network. If you work in a service-based industry and if you want referrals, then you should have a closely knit network of people you actually know.

Speaker 2: 11:41

When I look at your profile, I see that we share one mutual connection Alex Sanfilippo. This discussion actually happens thanks to Alex's venture, thanks to Podmatch. Imagine, I would want to reach out to Alex and I saw that you were our mutual connections. Then I could speak with Alex and say should I speak with Andy? Because I want his advice about A, b and C, about client retention. And if Alex says, yes, daniel, you need to speak with Andy, then our discussion will be a lot easier. Okay, it's not a hard sale. I would come almost pre-sold. I would be less price sensitive. I would trust you a bit more because someone I trust has said yes, you need to speak with Andy.

Speaker 1: 12:33

Yeah, it's like warming up leads right, you get them warmed up to you, similar to making content when they watch your content over and over.

Speaker 2: 12:45

Absolutely and basically. The question is do you want to be the most connected or the best connected? Most connected brings exposure. So if you have 40K followers, then many people will see the content. You would be to stick to people you know, because the dead zone is somewhere in between. If I grow my network and now I would have 6 000 connections but I wouldn't know most of them then I don't get a lot of extra exposure and, on the other hand, I polluted the quality of my network it's interesting because I think, uh, it's difficult.

Speaker 1: 13:35

It's difficult to wrap my mind around that because on most platforms everybody is trying to grow a bigger following. So to hear that maybe you know, I know in some of your other stuff you had mentioned exposure is overrated on LinkedIn, which is what you're talking about. It just seems counterintuitive to what we're all used to doing on everything else. But it makes sense. But it makes sense.

Speaker 2: 14:01

I appreciate you saying that I think LinkedIn is very counterintuitive, and I could talk about that or link in the show notes about specific ways that are mind-blowing, because when, whenever, we think the right thing to do would be x, it's often something else. And LinkedIn is counterintuitive because LinkedIn keeps pushing us to grow our network. But, as as business owners, instead of saying hey, now I have 2,000 impressions or now I have 10 likes, we'd rather say hey, now I just landed a contract with a customer that could bring us $500,000. And revenues without connections may be better than connections without revenues.

Speaker 2: 14:53

As simple as that.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Yeah, that makes sense. I think one of the most frustrating parts that I have faced by using the platform is the amount of spam messages we get on there. It's usually from people who've clearly not read my profile and most of the time it feels like a spam or like a bot message that's just automated. Um, do you think people should continue to try to automate messaging on linkedin or or just engage one-on-one with the people that they know?

Speaker 2: 15:21

so the answer is I don't believe automation is good on linkedin specifically, not for messaging. The automation, the only automation I think that could work, is content scheduling, if you like. In other words, if you have many blog posts and you would like to schedule them for every other weekday, then that's fine, but messaging and everything else should not be automated, because the price you would pay is much higher than the benefit you would gain. It doesn't matter that you can instantly message 10,000 people if your brand is hurt by that action.

Speaker 1: 16:02

Yeah, it's very obvious too when you get those messages. Like I said, a lot of times it's coming from someone selling a product or service that doesn't even align with what I have or what company I run, and then most of the time you can just tell they just feel very prescripted, you know, doesn't feel like an actual connection, but I have. I do want to say a positive thing about that is like I've seen lately as I'm getting new connections. They're sending me personal messages asking me hey, how did you get into this? Or what prompted you know? So they're actually looking at my profile and asking me something that's engaging, about something that I've posted on there.

Speaker 2: 16:44

It may be more and more difficult to understand and decipher whether that's AI or a real person's thoughts with time, because right now I think intuitively you know, but maybe you know, in a couple of months AI will become so well groomed that it will take you time to understand whether that's a real person reading your profile, because they would have the right terms right, they would say hi, and. And the next stage would be to understand that hey, you, you were in idaho and now you're in arizona, so how did you? And then that that means someone has actually read read between between the lines and has some meaningful questions for you yeah, what are your.

Speaker 1: 17:32

So what are some other tips you have for people to use the platform as a prospecting tool? Um, you know, it's a lot of times we hear about social media. It's just posting content and engaging with others, but is that, is that what you would tell somebody to do if they wanted?

Speaker 2: 17:46

to grow their business.

Speaker 1: 17:49

Is that what you would?

Speaker 2: 17:50

tell somebody to do if they wanted to grow their business specifically by using LinkedIn. Can we simplify lives for business owners? Can we? What? Can we simplify the answer for business owners? Can I answer quickly? You don't have to. In other words, andy, if you produce high-quality content, then repurposing that content for LinkedIn would be a good idea, but I don't believe you need to create content for the sake of LinkedIn. In other words, do look at your presence, do look at your website, do look at your social channels and if you've got a great video, then, yes, it could be worthwhile sharing that specifically in one or two ways on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is probably the single platform where you could succeed without sharing. Think about it. You know, guess, what's the number one action that LinkedIn users perform once they log in? Yes, what is the? Based on LinkedIn stats, what is the most frequent action people do when they are on LinkedIn?

Speaker 1: 18:59

Check their notifications.

Speaker 2: 19:02

That's a good question. That's a good answer. But to another question, sorry, okay, based on LinkedIn stats it's visiting other people's profiles okay, now you you mentioned facebook and and instagram.

Speaker 2: 19:20

We usually in any other platform. What drives us in the is the content. When we go YouTube, we want to watch that video or listen to that music the same for any other platform out there. But our prospects are not necessarily interested in what we shared. First and foremost, they're interested in seeing whether our specialty is something that could help them. So, instead of sharing to death, make sure that you have a clear strategy, and one simple way to do it would be to build a decent profile, run an advanced search, find every week two or three interesting prospect with whom you share a mutual connection and ask for an introduction. That could be done in less than 60 minutes and that could drive tens of thousands of dollars a month.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Now when you say create an invent search. Advanced sorry, oh, advanced okay.

Speaker 2: 20:22

There's search. There's so many depths within search that people don't so many depths within search that people are not familiar with, because they start running a search and then the LinkedIn algorithm often shows us something that we're not really interested in. So let's pick an example. Maybe a business owner you can think of, let's discuss their ideal client, maybe the ideal client would be a C-level executive in Phoenix, arizona. So you could run a search and run, say, ceo, and then two other three terms, and then, instead of using the autocomplete and going where LinkedIn shows us, you simply hit enter or search and that will make you discover a whole new top navigation bar and then you select people.

Speaker 2: 21:17

So far we only made two clicks and now we see a number. We see that we found 1,200 CEOs in Phoenix, in Greater Phoenix. Another click would be to go and see can we select only people with whom we share a mutual connection? Yes, we select the second, and then that limits the number maybe to 100 or maybe 80 people, and then out of those we pick the two or three most interesting prospects. For us this is advanced search, because most people will not. Everything I mentioned can be done in less than 45 seconds.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:57

But because LinkedIn auto-suggests something, then they will go elsewhere and they will not understand that they can run an advanced search, and search is one of the best best kept secrets in the LinkedIn platform. If you like, it's free to use. You only need to understand what you're looking for.

Speaker 1: 22:18

Okay, yeah, that's interesting. I didn't realize there was a feature like that. But again, I'm just getting back into it and getting into using it, into getting into using it. I do have a question around I've had some confusion on sorry. I'm getting a lot of feedback. I do have a question on company pages versus individual profiles. So we have a company page and we post to it, but should people be focusing on that or an individual profile?

Speaker 2: 22:52

An individual profile 99% of the time. Okay, again, that's counterintuitive because we think, as a company, your individual profile with a page of Olive Branch Bookkeeping then you will see that Olive Branch Bookkeeping has less followers than you, andy. And that would be the same thing would apply to 90% of business owners. Unless the business has thousands of employees, then you would have a company page. That's worth managing. But if you have, you know, 50 employees, 200 employees set it up, look at it every other month.

Speaker 2: 23:39

But lead generation will happen only on your individual profile and not the company page. Say, I followed your page. You, andy, as a page admin, you don't have access to my details, whereas if we connect, then you would have access to my email. Then you could take the conversation outside of LinkedIn. It's like if I order your book from Amazon, amazon has access to your details, I don't have. So one of the most important things to understand is that business happens outside of LinkedIn. We need to take that business outside of LinkedIn. Linkedin will serve us, the clients, but then we need to go and speak with them and that would be usually outside of the LinkedIn platform.

Speaker 1: 24:37

It makes sense. I heard somebody I don't remember where I saw it. It was on a piece of content, but they were talking about how corporations are trained to be more personal with their audience to generate business. Meanwhile, smaller, individual business owners are trying to look more like C-level executive or create company profiles, but really what resonates with people is the personal touch. The personal connection is what leads to business.

Speaker 2: 25:09

So it makes sense that we would focus on our personal profiles and make the connections one-on-one unless you know you're looking for a plumber and then in in call the nearest one to to your home. We are the brand and we are the business. Even when we work for fortune 200 company, we we need to think of ourselves and as business owners we may lend our great sales to the company, but it's our business. We need to behave like. This is our business.

Speaker 1: 25:44

Yeah, that makes sense. So I've got a couple questions before we get wrapped up, but I'm asking everybody this question since it's been such a large topic across everything lately. But what are your thoughts on AI and how do you think it's affected business owners and entrepreneurs currently and how do you think it will affect them in the future?

Speaker 2: 26:07

It's a dangerous question to answer. Someone said it's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, so by the time this is released, it may become obsolete. I think we need to keep evaluating AI and understanding where we need to keep the human touch. If you like, I was listening to a previous episode you released with Mike Mull and at the end of that he gave one actionable advice about effective delegation. Yeah, about thinking or writing down everything you do and then having, I think, four columns and then thinking about delegation Right. So AI would mean that you, andy, need to focus on the most strategic, critical and revenue-creating activities that may be only 10% of our current time today, instead of automating stuff that could be delegated or deleted or given to someone else. It's tough to do because as human beings, we're not wired that way, but that is the right thing to do.

Speaker 1: 27:24

Right, human beings were not wired that way. But that's it. That is the right thing to do, right? It's uh, I mentioned on this on that podcast as well um, that for me it helps. It's a more of a brainstorming tool. We use it for a lot of different things uh, to automate certain tasks and just like I don't know, just helping us a lot with content, producing and summarizing show notes, stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 27:44

But I find that, um, there's a lot of times when I'm doing thought work whether it's creating new content, preparing for episodes or working on just my own services um, I can use it as a tool with feedback, if that makes sense, so I can put my input into the text and I can play around with things. I may not use the whatever I'm talking to it about, but I can use it to brainstorm my ideas and build on them, and I found that super interesting because a lot of people are afraid to use the platform and there's an. You know, I think there's pros and cons if we look to this 100 years down the road. Um, but it's an interesting tool that I can't. I can't get those features when I use google. I can't go on google and type in an idea, to try to brainstorm around it without getting a million different results that are irrelevant.

Speaker 2: 28:41

Wow, that's amazing. I think the method you suggested is excellent because it would keep the human elements and probably delegate some of the things that you could find them, but it would take you a lot of time and your ability is to look at that and improve it, and that's where your experience comes in. So even if AI gets faster and better and more accurate and more up-to-date, there's always the edge of things. You learn the hard way serving people and serving clients, and maybe it would change 10% today and 5% in three months and only 1% in a year's time. But it's that single percent, andy, that will make or break the proposal, the content or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Yeah, and I think the fear that everyone has is that you're going to be replaceable, and while that may be true, I still believe that most people want to do business with other people. I don't necessarily think that most of us want to be talking to a chatbot. We could talk to a person.

Speaker 2: 29:53

There's a quote saying that it's not that AI will replace people, but it will replace people who use AI will replace people who don't.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Yeah, I mean it can help with output, like I said, or just brainstorming. I struggle when I'm looking at a blank page and I think that's when the ADHD sets in, and then it's easy to check my phone and do other things if I'm having such a hard time to just generate whatever the idea is. So before I get to my last question, do you have any other tips on people, on how to use the platform for leads or anything that maybe we haven't covered so far?

Speaker 2: 30:35

Maybe one 30-second suggestion, if I may Absolutely Just visit the most interesting prospects you want publicly, and that means that they, in some cases, they will be able to see that andy has visited their profile, and then there would be one click away from going to your profile and hopefully visiting the website and then maybe scheduling a call, a visit or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 31:02

Okay, that's good advice. So I always ask one action item before we wrap up the show. If you could leave listeners with an actionable item that they could have a positive impact, that would have a positive impact on them today.

Speaker 2: 31:20

What would it be and why? It would be focusing on one business metric that is relevant for them and asking whether LinkedIn can increase that business metric yes or no instead of the other way around. So you could say that having a conversation with clients is maybe the first step and say you have 20 such calls on any given week and 10% will lead into sales. If you use LinkedIn, and LinkedIn will increase the number of conversations from 20 to 30 and your success rate from 50 to 70, then that's tangible. You can trace the impact of what you've done on LinkedIn and your bank account and your bank manager will see the result. It's the simplest business concept that we don't need to go into, but people forget about it and focus on all sorts of unicorns and parallel universes.

Speaker 1: 32:35

That's a funny way to end that, but yes, I get it. It seems like a great platform to use. I, uh, I just have to be. I have to be more disciplined to actually use it the right way, because I think, as you've explained through the show today, it's easy for most of us who have been on the other platforms, like facebook, instagram, to try to just focus on content and growing that way, but it may not be beneficial on there. Well, daniel thank you for being on the show today. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 33:13

I know, like I said mentioned earlier it's been a long time We've been trying to set this up.

Speaker 1: 33:18

So thank you again for all your time.

Speaker 2: 33:22

It's a pleasure to speak with you and thank you for the help you're providing business owners with the Evolving Business Minds podcast.

Speaker 1: 33:29

Thanks, Andy, and I want to thank everyone else who's listening today. If you enjoyed the show and felt like it provided you value, I'd love to hear in the comments what stuck out the most to you from today's episode. We'll see you on the next one.