LinkedIn Tip #15 - Recognition!

Everyone loves to receive recognition, whether for their work or for their ideas.

When was the last time someone recognized you for something at work, at home or in the community?

Have you worked hard to accomplish a major goal only to have someone at work take the credit? How did that make you feel? Probably not a positive thought, huh!

Years ago when I was in high school, I wanted to be a cheer leader. (We had a cheer leading squad for our basketball team.) In order to be on the cheer leading squad, we had to "try out". So I practiced and worked hard at kicking high and doing the splits, jumping in rhythm and chanting different cheers.

When that fateful day arrived, we were asked to run through the routines we had prepared. There were some requirements that had to be included in our performance.  I was able to meet all the requirements and make the squad!

But it was not fair!

When I did the splits, I did a complete straight legged front and back light bump on the floor. I was the only one that did the complete splits. Everyone else had a straight front leg and a bent back leg. They only did a partial split.

After that, I endured snide comments about my splits and high kicks, because I could kick a full straight-legged split, kicking one leg up in front of me while standing as well. I received no recognition or "oohs and ahs". The room was dead silent! A couple of the other girls got recognition for their ability instead.

How do you think that made me feel?

I have long since gotten over this, but thought it would help illustrate my point here.

How do you feel when you receive a birthday greeting or a congratulations on your anniversary?

It is especially great to receive a bit of recognition from your business associates, and be recognized for something special, if only for your birthday. It means that someone is thinking of someone other than themselves.

Being successful in life is all about taking your eyes off yourself and focusing on what you can do to boost someone else and help them in some way.

Tip # 15:

When you see someone in your connections has a work anniversary or birthday or a new job, congratulate them. You will make their day and open up a dialogue with them that could turn into business.

Also, when someone endorses you, accept their endorsements and thank them as often as you can.

It is always nice to recognize the recognizer. :-)

When was the last time you recognized someone?

If you are looking for help with how to give recognition on LinkedIn, Join us on Tuesday, February 9th from 7:00pm to 9:00pm MST.

https://linkedinptbutter.eventbrite.ca

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

1-780-904-9557

Where is YOUR Ladder Leaning?

When climbing the "ladder of success" know on which building your ladder leans.

In 2004 I attended a conference where John Maxwell was speaking. He was speaking on leadership and how to motivate your staff by setting a great example as a leader.

What he said that day made me stop dead and think!

He spoke about having a plan to help your team succeed.

Up to this point in my life I had thought that employees just did what they were told and avoided making mistakes, put their heads down and worked hard. I also thought that employees did not have any say in what the business was doing. When you worked for someone, you just kept adjusting your work to whatever was handed to you. If you spoke up about an issue, you stood the risk of losing your job.

I never even ventured a thought about how I might be pointed in the wrong direction somehow.

John said that many people just get a good job, and go to work every day with their heads down and nose to the grindstone, figuratively speaking. They never ask questions or make a plan of where they want to end up in the process.

Then one day they wake up only to find that the ladder they were climbing was leaning against the wrong building!

Imagine that! Working hard all your life in a dead-end job only to find at retirement that you are not where you thought you would be. You end up very unhappy thinking thoughts like, "I wish I could'a, would'a, should'a!" But by then it is too late and you are stuck in the rut of life that you blindly followed for all your working years.

Is this you? Are you stuck in a rut?

With our Canadian economy in crisis, thousands of people have been laid off because of the oil prices being so low. It has halted many company plans in the oil patch causing thousands upon thousands of lay-offs.

These employees who have been laid off are suddenly finding that their "ladder was leaning against the wrong building". What they thought would see them through to retirement, just isn't there anymore.

A great many of these x-employees are over 50 years old. The chances of them getting rehired in the oil patch are slim.

What do you think is happening?

You guessed it! People are diversifying.

Last summer I checked to see how many people were on LinkedIn in the Edmonton area, and there were something like 318,000+. Today when I checked, there were 375,772 people using LinkedIn in the Edmonton area.

Look at those numbers!

It used to be that there were few oil patch-related people using LinkedIn. I have noticed that there are a lot more getting online with LinkedIn.

Do you think it might be because people are searching for other ways to market themselves? 

Do you think it might be because people are being laid off and they are starting businesses of their own?

I heard from a financial planner speaking last night that today in Canada most bankruptcies are with seniors! Here they are at the end of their lives with no money to live out their lives in the style they have been accustomed to.

These seniors are desperately looking for ways to earn extra income. They cannot work a regular job, so what are they doing?

They are starting small, home-based businesses.

Since 2012, 1/3 of the new businesses being started in Canada are by people over 50! Did you know that?

Do you know someone who needs help understanding how to market themselves through social media? If so, tell them that The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress can help.

Register for LinkedIn 101 - Stuck in LinkedIn Peanut Butter on Tuesday, February 9th from 7:00pm to 9:00pm MST.  https://linkedinptbutter.eventbrite.ca

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

Who is YOUR BEST Salesman?

From 1987 to 1992, the Government of Canada sponsored the "Business Owner Development Program".

This was a program to help small businesses become stronger and more profitable. Each business that registered for this program only had to pay 1/3 of the registration fee for two people to attend. The Canadian Government picked up the rest of the tab.

It was my privilege to have the opportunity of first taking part in this program as a business owner, and later as a business consultant.

As a business consultant I had 32 different businesses to work with each year for the ten month program. It was my responsibility to meet with each of these 32 businesses once a month for two hours helping them implement the things they were learning in the program into their business.

It was the most challenging work I had ever done up to that point in my life!

Some of the things that the small businesses learned were: time management, cash flow and money management, taxation, selling from the inside out, marketing, how to hire great employees and train and keep them, organization, how to target your market, and many other keys to managing a small business.

A small business was classed as any business with 99 or less employees. I don't know about you, but in my imagination 99 employees seemed like a BIG business to me at that time.

The month we had the sales training I was shocked to say the least at some of the responses I would receive from 'my' businesses.

The first month as we were getting started with our monthly sessions, we worked with simple cash flow projections. These cash flow projections helped me have a better idea of how I could help each of the businesses in my care.

With my assistance, each business set up a 12 month cash flow projection spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. It was amazing to watch them as we progressed through the months plugging in the numbers based on past sales and expenses.

Many of the businesses would see their bottom line getting deeper and deeper into the "red" and they would exclaim, "I gotta get me a good salesperson!!!"

I explained to them that the moment they signed their name on the dotted line as the owner of their business, THEY BECAME THEIR OWN BEST SALESMAN. It was up to them to figure out how to sell their own products, or they would be unable to train any salesperson how to do it.

If they could not sell their own products and hired a salesperson, said salesperson would bring their own habits into the business...good and bad. Probably mostly bad.

The new sales person would have to sell enough product to cover the present bottom line, plus cover their own wages. There would need to be more product sold just to cover these two things

.

It was interesting to watch their faces as they digested what I said.

Thus began our 10 months together.

How are your sales? Are you, your company's own best sales person?

Social media is one way to market to your target audience. How is your social media working for you?

Need some help?

Attend my LinkedIn 101 - Stuck in LinkedIn Peanut Butter webinar  Tuesday, February 9th from 7:00pm to 9:00pm MST.

Register today: https://linkedinptbutter.eventbrite.ca

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

1-780-904-9557

Two Lessons from the Old Iron Pot.

You know how some people can "beat" you into submission with a look and a twitch of an eyebrow?

That was my Grandmother! 

Not only was she the best storyteller in the whole wide world, she was also the best disciplinarian.

Know what? She never touched us! If looks could kill...

Don't get me wrong. Grandma loved us and we knew it because she would give us hugs and kisses and bake bread and cookies for us. But...we had to abide by her rules. It is amazing how she could encourage us to eliminate misbehaviour in a glance.

We all knew that look! Nobody ever dared to cross that look. We never knew what would happen if we disobeyed, and we didn't want to find out either.

Know what I mean?

Oh! And she would use our first and second names when we were in trouble. Yes, she incorporated all our senses. Somehow we knew how it would feel if she ever had to apply something physical, like a licking on the buttocks.

From the time we were very young, we learned obedience, work ethic, and self-discipline. 

Grandma would let me go outside to play, but after I took off walking for a mile into a pasture coulee where nobody could find me, boundaries were enforced. 

Grandma, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, the hired men and anyone within earshot on the ranch was commandeered to find me. 

The pasture I had wandered into was muddy, and I got stuck in the mud along a hillside directly above a dam that my Dad had built to capture and save water for livestock. 

No sooner had I begun to realize that I was in trouble, than I saw a big, grey dog flash by around the side of the hill and disappear. 

Just then, my Grandma and Mom found me!

Grandma yelled, "The coyotes were going to get you!" That was what I saw disappear around the hill! 

Well, to say that I was frightened of coyotes is an understatement, somehow I found my footing, pulled my feet from the mud and ran as fast as my little legs could carry me, mud clods flying, to the arms of my Grandma and my Mom. 

Yup! I got the "LOOK"! I never did that again!

Many great things came from Grandma's "iron pot" besides great stories and her wonderful home made baked beans. Lessons of courage, integrity, honesty, being true to your word, respect, love and honour, to name a few. It was not just stories that were pulled from Grandma's iron pot, but love and life's experiences were also found there.

So, what were the two lessons that I learned from my Grandma's iron pot?

1. To always do what my parents and Grandparents told me, because that protected me from possible harm and helped me for the future.

2. To never question authority or be sassy back because life and living in this world is a privilege and not a right. 

Yes, I learned to be polite to my elders and everyone I met and to accept the tasks that were given me. I learned never to complain when my back hurt from hoeing the garden. 

Grandma taught me how to raise my own kids by her great example of hard work and integrity. 

I really miss my Grandma!

These lessons I apply to my own business today. I have a huge work ethic and respect for others.

What are the lessons you learned from your childhood.

Have you thought of automating your social media?

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

LI: /christinetill

FB:/themarketingmentress

FB Bus: /themarketingmentress

Twitter: @mktgmentress

LinkedIn Tip # 14 - Searching for Commercial Use

Why do I see a message about commercial use limit on search?

We've recently improved the LinkedIn people search experience. You can now view the full names and profiles of anyone in your extended network (1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree), regardless of whether you're connected or have a Premium account.

This improved network visibility includes a limit based on search usage. If you reach the commercial use limit, your activity on LinkedIn indicates that you're likely using LinkedIn for commercial use, like hiring or prospecting. This limit is calculated based on your search activity since the first of the calendar month.

A progress bar appears in your search results when 30% of your searches are left, and continues to remind you in 5% increments. After you've reached the limit, you can continue to search, but will see a limited number of results. Your free monthly usage resets at midnight PST on the 1st of each calendar month.

Learn how the use of 3rd party tools to search for or view LinkedIn profiles can impact the limit.

The limit doesn't affect your ability to search 1st degree connections. Even if you've encountered the limit, you may always search your 1st degree connections on your

 connections page.

Note: We're not able to display the exact number of searches you have left and we also cannot lift the limit upon request. Also note the warnings may not display if you run through the full amount of searches too quickly.

You can always upgrade to one of the below Premium account plans for unlimited searching:

1. Business Plus
2.  Recruiter
3.  Sales Navigator

If you choose to cancel your premium subscription, you will no longer have unlimited searches and your search limit will not be reset upon cancellation.

Note: Our Job Seeker plan doesn't have unlimited searches. Learn more about the commercial use limit for search.

This post is quoted directly from LinkedIn, as a reminder of the new changes on LinkedIn.

Remember that if you are using the free platform, your number of searches/page views is considerably less. In my experience, the free platform can only complete a maximum of 300-400 searches/page views per day. These include sending messages, accepting and sending connection requests and just viewing people who have viewed your profile. Each is counted as a page view. We do not realize how quickly these can add up.

Give us a call and we will fill you in on all the details.

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Have you been looking to automate your Social Media?

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

LI: /christinetill

FB:/themarketingmentress

FB Bus: /themarketingmentress

Twitter: @mktgmentress

LinkedIn Tip #13 - It is all about the Money!

Millions of the members on LinkedIn are utilizing the FREE platform.

The percentage of people on a paid platform is small by comparison. Looking through LinkedIn's eyes, what would you do?

Here is what LinkedIn did:

1. They completely revamped the groups to the point that we can no longer message people in the groups without being connected to them. Now, the only way we can message people in the groups without being connected to them is if we are on a paid platform, and purchase "Inmail". Inmail allows you to send messages to anyone on LinkedIn that you are not connected to. Various paid platforms allow certain limits to Inmails you can send. 

Actually, this is a good thing. It cuts down on all the spammy emails we get through LinkedIn.

2. The look of the groups is completely changed. Personally, I like it much better, now that I have had a chance to get accustomed to it.

3. Open groups have gone the way of the Dodo bird. We have to be accepted into all the groups, just like a closed group. ALL the groups are now closed groups.

4. The only places that you can send messages to the group members are in the "LION" groups. The people in LION groups have made a commitment to accept all people who ask them to connect. These people will not IDK (I Don't Know) you. They openly offer their email address, so anyone can connect with them. LinkedIn assumes that if you have someone's email, you know them well enough to connect with them.

Here's what you can do:

1. You can go to your own rolodex, contact lists, and shoe boxes full of business cards to invite them all to connect with you. You have their emails, and will never be IDK'd.

Sound daunting? If you have all these emails in a spreadsheet, you can just copy and past them into the special "Other" box to invite them to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Never - Never-Never!!! ask someone to connect with you if you do not know them or they are not in a LION group!!! You will eventually get sent to LinkedIn Jail. (Account Frozen) 

It happened to me when I first started using LinkedIn. I had invited all the connections I had to connect with me, and then I saw that LinkedIn was showing me all these people that "I May Know". I thought that LinkedIn was telling me to connect with them. So I sat at my desk clicking on people to send connection requests for hours on end. HAH! I got sent to jail!

I had to print out the terms of use for LinkedIn, sign them and scan them back to LinkedIn, along with a copy of my drivers license, so they knew that I was a real person. UGH! You do not want this to happen to you. You only need 5 people to IDK you and you will get your account frozen.

2. You can set up your own group and invite all your connections to join in your rousting discussion that you have started there. In your own group, once a week you can pitch to your group about your "stuff". You can also start tantalizing discussions as often as you wish. You can also reach out to the members of your group on an individual basis to ask them to connect with you. Once they have been in your group for a while and you have interacted with their discussions, they will even ask to connect with you themselves.

Remember that people want to be educated and informed before they want to be pitched to. It takes time to build relationships with people and we need to respect that. Remember to use the 'Rule of 10'.

3. Join up to 100 different groups. Be sure to join those groups that contain the people you want to know and do business with. Also, be sure to join groups with 10K or more members, because when you do searches through the groups, you will discover that your Boolean searches narrow down the number of people in the results considerably. 

For instance: You might be in a group of small business owners and do a search for 'training and the name of your city'. The group has 400K members, but when your Boolean search is applied, you might only have 50 people in your search that are your target market.

4. You can completely automate your LinkedIn marketing along with all your social media, using the services the LinkedIn Marketing Mentress team. 

We manage all your responses to connections, getting connections, searches and blog posts. We also help you to join the right groups for you and set up your own group, monitor that group and respond to discussions therein. How much are 200 leads a month worth to you?

Give us a call and we will fill you in on all the details.

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

LI: /christinetill

FB:/themarketingmentress

FB Bus: /themarketingmentress

Twitter: @mktgmentress

How Important is it for You to Automate Your Social Media?

Have you been struggling with your business searching for ways to automate some of your daily routines?

Here's the straight goods.

If you are not strategically using social media today, you can bet your boots that your competition is. If you own a business, you MUST be using every form of marketing available to you. Social media is the cheapest and best way to access your target audience and build your business the fastest way possible.

Let's say that you have not been using your social media.

What would you say that your average good client is worth to you over a year? I am guessing that an average client is worth $1,000 or more to you per year. In 2015, how many new clients did you actually get a month? Let's say that you got two per week. Now do the math. (2 x 52 = 104 customers in 2015) Now 104 x $1,000 = $104,000 for 2015.

Wow! You did very well! Oh! Let me guess...you only got 2 new clients a month. That would mean that you grossed $24,000 in 2015. Oops! Kind of makes you feel like up-chucking doesn't it.

See how the numbers never lie.

Let's say that you automate your social media and receive 200 leads a month, of which 20% convert into paying clients. That means you would have received 480 new paying clients last year!

Wow! You could have earned $480,000 in 2015!!!

Where did your gross earnings total at for 2015?

My question to you is, "If I could guarantee you 200 leads a month, how much would that be worth to you?"

If you are looking to automate your social media we need to talk.

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress

1-780-904-9557

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

LI: /christinetill

FB:/themarketingmentress

FB Bus: /themarketingmentress

Twitter: @mktgmentress