Ep. 107/ LinkedIn Mastery Secrets: Marketer Brad Zomick

SHOW NOTES:

Please leave a rating and review for the show!

++++++++++++++++++

What types of businesses is LinkedIn good for? How do you get started with LinkedIn? Brad Zomick is here to answer all your LinkedIn questions. He has so much advice like how to start on LinkedIn, how to brainstorm and build your content calendar, what to post, what not to post, and who to bring in to actually help you get more visibility on your content.

In this episode you will learn:

The 3 C’s of LinkedIn: Connections, Commenting, and Content (2:49)
How to brainstorm and build your content calendar (7:13)
What to write in connection requests (32:45)
The importance of video (40:48)

Meet Brad Zomick: Brad is a B2B SaaS marketer turned entrepreneur, helping CEOs grow their LinkedIn branded pipeline. Previously he helped B2B SaaS companies propel marketing to the next phase. He's experienced in scaling from Seed to D-round, pre-revenue to $50M+ ARR, and he led marketing through two exits.

1. Take a screenshot and share it to your IG stories. Tag me @kimrittberg

2. Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!

LISTEN BELOW! And don’t forget to ‘follow’ and leave a rating & review!

Click below to Follow, Review & Give a 5-star rating to Mom’s Exit Interview Podcast.

SPOTIFY PODCASTS

APPLE PODCASTS

In this episode you will learn:

The 3 C’s of LinkedIn: Connections, Commenting, and Content (2:49)

How to brainstorm and build your content calendar (7:13)
What to write in connection requests (32:45)
The importance of video (40:48)

Quotes from our guest:

“Commenting is great because number one, you start flexing the muscles, spending time on the platform, signaling algorithmically that you're engaged. But by commenting on people in your audience, it'll probably give you a lot of ideas on what to write about.”
“Video is really powerful and LinkedIn is kind of playing with how to integrate it more.”
“If it resonates with you, feel free to leave a comment.”

Subscribe to Kim's YouTube Channel to Make Better Videos that Convert

FREE DOWNLOAD: Top 5 Tips To Be Confident on Camera Click Here

Follow host Kim Rittberg on Instagram & Subscribe to Kim's YouTube Channel to Make Better Videos that Convert

BRAD’S LINKS:

Follow Brad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bzomick/

Get Brad’s Free 7-Day LinkedIn Influence Course: https://spectamur.ck.page/

Kim (00:02):

If you're looking to grow your following on LinkedIn, this is the perfect episode for you. Brad Zomick helps CEOs build their brand and their pipeline on LinkedIn, and he has so much advice like how to start on LinkedIn, how to brainstorm and build your content calendar, what to post, what not to post, who to bring in to actually help you get more visibility on your content. It's an amazing episode. Make sure to listen.

(00:25):

Welcome to the Exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Do you work for yourself and want to supercharge your business while still having fun? Well, this is your go-to podcast part MBA Part Cheer Squad. Every week I'll be joined by top business owners who share the secrets to their success. After I found myself working during childbirth true story, I quit my executive media job to bet on myself fighting the fear and imposter syndrome to eventually earn six awards, an in-demand speaking career and features in Fast Company and Business Insider. Now I'm here to celebrate all you rock stars betting on yourself, and I want to help you win. Tune in every Wednesday to hear from remarkable founders and don't miss our Solo Friday episodes, a treasure trove of video and podcasting mini masterclasses with me. Exit the grind, enter success on your own terms. Don't forget to subscribe today and grab my free video tips at my website, kimrittberg.com.

(01:26):

Alright, I'm super excited to bring in Brad, so I'll read his bio. But Brad Zomick and I both spoke at an event about how to be a thought leader through LinkedIn and there were five piece speakers, so we were two fifths of the speakers and I sat with Brad afterwards and I just felt he had such incredible energy, really positive energy, and I really liked what he sat on the stage. So I was like this guy, we're going to have so much in common, we're going to know each other. And so Brad and I connected, we connected further, and then he just participated in my Thought leader accelerator and I've just loved getting to know Brad and so I'm really, really excited for everyone who's listening to know Brad first. I'll do the whole bio read. Okay, here's this bio. Brad Zomick is a B2B SaaS marketer turn entrepreneur, helping CEOs grow their LinkedIn branded pipeline. Previously he helped B2B SaaS companies propel marketing to the next phase he's experienced in scaling from seed to D round, pre-revenue to $50 million plus a RR, and he led marketing through two exits. Brad, thank you so much for joining us.

Brad (02:25):

Thank you for having me here, Kim, it's great to be here and thanks for the warm intro.

Kim (02:30):

So normally I do a little bit of the backstory, but I'll be honest, I feel like so many people want to know what, so I want to dive right in about LinkedIn. I know that you have a system that when you work with clients, when you do for yourself called the three Cs. Talk to me about the three Cs to grow on LinkedIn.

Brad (02:49):

Sure. The three Cs are my framework for growth on LinkedIn and the three Cs stand for content connections and commenting. You can shuffle the order makes more sense to you, but essentially actually maybe we'll start with connections. Probably the simplest connections are who you can connect to. And the beauty of a connection on LinkedIn is that it's two way. So unlike following somebody on Twitter where you're just kind of passively seeing whatever they're saying and you can engage with them. So when you expand your connections, you're expanding who can see your content, which leads me to the next step. Your content. The content is your ideas. My framework for LinkedIn is really for people who are trying to sell something typically B2B, a founder with a high a CV sale, so that way they don't need to connect to a ton of people to get their ideas in front of people in a powerful way that gets 'em to want to buy something.

(03:40):

And the content is a mix of things When you're talking about your product, it's like how to do better work around what your product does, but it's also your personality. I think what's cool about LinkedIn these days, you can be more personal. It's not just about business. I talk about being a parent, being a Phish fan, my experience traveling to China, my ups and downs and good founders, founders who are doing this right or even B2B executives with an audience, they kind of let it all hang out. It's just not like, Hey, I got this cool product or software or service or agency that you should buy from. It's like, hey, I'm a real person, here are some of my ideas. And that builds trust and credibility. That's probably I would say the lion's share of where I help my clients. And then there's the third leg, which is commenting.

(04:29):

I would say previously when LinkedIn started getting popular, you go back five, 10 years ago, you could just write a lot and it was like the people would come. It's become a lot more like Twitter that you have to give to get. So commenting is aligned to the connection strategy. You want to build an audience of people who could presumably I guess buy whatever you're selling or support you in some way. The commenting is finding those people that are posting on LinkedIn and engaging in their stuff. And a good comment would be essentially, I guess commenting on what they said, adding your own 2 cents, asking a question to start a conversation. Believe it or not, that could be kind of challenging, commenting. The truth is the long tail of people on LinkedIn, the lion's share, probably 90% of people don't post or maybe even 95% don't post more than once a week. So I think it takes some time to build a list of people who are actively active on LinkedIn and the people you want to focus your energies on from a commentated perspective

Kim (05:27):

Because you pop in and you're commenting on someone and they're like dormant. And so all your work is kind of for nothing. So you really got to be working with people who are active.

Brad (05:34):

Yeah, exactly. Especially in the big corporate world, these big Fortune 500 companies, people come on actually you never really know. Some people maybe log on once a month, other people maybe post once or post never, but they're on their everyday lurking. You'd be shocked. Obviously the signal of somebody commenting or liking or sharing your stuff is a obvious indicator that someone is engaging with your content. But all the time I have people that I know or have met that I'll see at an event and I don't remember that. I don't think they engage, but they say, Hey, I saw your post the other day. That was really awesome. It really resonated with me. So I would say if you're getting started and you don't see those engagement signals, I wouldn't worry about it. I would just keep on going.

Kim (06:19):

I think that that's such a good point. And I tell people, I remember last year someone that I knew from college, which was two years ago, just kidding, which was decades ago, and he reached out and he is like, Hey Kim, I saw you once some awards for your video. Do you want to come in and talk to my company about possibly working with us? I mean haven't talked to this person since college. We're fond of each other, but it's not somebody that I'm still in touch with. And so I think it can rele old relationships as well as build new ones, but this is not someone who ever commented or liked to post or anything like that. So I love your point of don't get discouraged just because people aren't cheering you on and a lot of people are at companies where they can't necessarily comment or whatever because maybe their team is watching them, but you're still in their zeitgeist, you're still being seen and all of that. So I'll ask you, what do you think between the three Cs, the content, the connections and the commenting, what do you see when people start? They struggle with the most?

Brad (07:13):

The content is the probably most overwhelming area. I think that's because at least with the people I work with, they're typically some sort of executive, like a founder, CEO, maybe a subject matter expert, somebody in sales, they have a full-time job. And I think the idea of putting together content strategy to post regularly and finding the time to post is probably one of the hardest things. So obviously people who work with me have me to help them through that. That's great. But for people who are out there who want to do something, I have a few ideas to help you get started. I think number one is to start the small, but don't say I'm going to post seven days a week. Right away you're going to probably get overwhelmed and maybe even burn out and not really make it and give up. But I would set the goalposts short.

(07:59):

I would actually spend some time going out and commenting first. And commenting is great because number one, you start flexing the muscles, spending time on the platform, signaling algorithmically that you're engaged. But by commenting on people in your audience, it'll probably give you a lot of ideas on what to write about. Yeah, so would actually before I start getting with the content, I would get in the habit of just maxing out my connection requests. And I think right now you can do probably a couple hundred a week. I think it's one to 200, but connecting to people in your network or I guess if you're selling capacity, who could buy from you the ICP ideal client persona, commenting on those people, starting to build a list of people you want to comment on regularly. Sometimes it's just easier to have a list of a hundred people and maybe hit 10 people a day.

(08:42):

But through that commenting, you'll get a lot of ideas. I think the next thing is where do ideas come from? And again, they can come from LinkedIn, but what I advocate for with my executive clientele is that they're actually everywhere. They're all around in front of us. You just need to know where to look. And they are happening in the team meetings. You have a hot debate internally, they're happening with your prospects. The questions that they ask you all the time when you're trying to sell them or do business with them and then your customers that you're trying to support, I guess giving them customer success if you will. They're asking a lot of questions. So between all of that, there's a lot of fodder and what I'll call thought leadership comes in many forms. It's not just the fully baked results like, hey, we did this experiment and this is what worked.

(09:34):

It's like the good, the bad, and the ugly. So it's the good stories where something worked in a case study, if you will, but it's also, Hey, I tried to do this. I failed. This is what I learned. So it's like the failed experiments, it's the convictions, it's the things that you're thinking about and maybe debating internally. Yeah, I would say that's a good start. I think between all those meetings you're having and you just got to need to think of it more holistically. It doesn't need to be a fully polished story. It can be things that are work in progress, and that's called building in public and people like that, that shows the human side of who you are and you're not just some puppet that is programmed by your PR team or something like

Kim (10:20):

That. It's interesting. So I had some follow-ups because what I love, by the way, what I love just in general about what you do and what I do is it's very aligned and overlapped and all that stuff. But I have a couple of follow-ups from this. So number one of the things that is recommended, so I teach people how to grow their following LinkedIn, Instagram, especially with video. So one of the things a lot of people recommend for Instagram is comment not just on your ideal clients but also on peers. So as you're in the comments on posts by your peers, you're kind of able to connect with ideal clients with other collaborators. Would you recommend the same thing for LinkedIn that yes, comment on your ideal client, but also comment on other peers in your industry because the people in the commenting pool are people whose radar you want to be on. Yeah,

Brad (11:05):

Exactly. That is a fantastic point. So I mentioned before that if you're just focusing on the audience, it'll be a lot harder to aggregate that list of people you can repeatedly engage on. They're too busy working and a lot of them they'll post all the time. Now what you're referring to is, what I would say in B2B is you can, I guess it's a combination of influencers, but it's also the people that you could co-market and co-sell with. So complimentary. If you're a software company, complimentary software companies in the same ecosystem, agencies that all sell to the same customer, that is great. Those people are all on there doing the same thing. And those are key relationships, especially in a B2B context, it's great and what a lot of the lists look like when they're fully baked. The mix of people who are practitioners maybe work at a company that are active, somewhat active, but I would say maybe anywhere from 40 to 60% could be other people who are in the ecosystem that probably have the same goals as you do.

Kim (12:06):

And you touched a little bit about this before. So when people are talking about content for LinkedIn, so what I see is totally what you said. It's like people, especially when you're at a company and you have a CEO, but a lot of people are just posting that press release not enough. So when we're talking about content for people to be a thought leader on LinkedIn, so we're talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly that you said before, your experience growing in public, growing your business, the more personal side of the business world. What are some of the other things you recommend people create for content?

Brad (12:34):

Maybe I'll just finish a loop on the brainstorming. So number one, the ideas are everywhere. Number two, you need to make a little bit of time in your day to capture the ideas. Some people are already doing 15 minutes after a debrief with a client or a prospect where you're like, what did they ask me? But if it's not that, it's like at the end of the day, what did I learn? Who did I talk to? What were the interesting conversations that I have? And just having some sort of running note app maybe at its simplest is a Google doc or if you're on the run at your, what is it, the Apple notes. Number two is actually carving out a separate time. So you have that list of ideas maybe day to day as you're adding to it, you do a little prioritization. So when you show up, you have a separate time for writing essentially.

(13:16):

That way you just show up and there's something to write. And during that time you're just writing, you're not editing. Sometimes you might feel like you need to polish it while you're doing it, you should just kind of brain dump it, get it out of your head, and maybe you write a handful of posts, maybe you write one. I think if you're getting started slowly, one is probably enough and then you make a separate time to come back and edit. So if you sleep on it, it's way easier to come back and edit. You're less in the weeds of it or in your head. Yeah, like I said, at that point you come back, clean it up and then you can go and publish it or schedule it to publish. Now I guess the question back to your question was what other things can I write about?

Kim (13:50):

Yeah, exactly. What are the other areas? I know that one of the things you recommend is yes, people should post about their personal life in ways that they want to connect with. I know your fans love hearing about Phish.

Brad (14:05):

That's funny. My other friends who are fish fans, most of my fans probably don't care about fish, but

Kim (14:13):

So for the listeners, one of the videos we did for Brad's thought Leadership accelerator video day was he talked about how he posted about Phish, but nobody responds to his fish post. And so it ended up just being a joke that we kept laughing about, make sure to post about your hobbies like fish, which nobody cares about except for my seven fish heads.

Brad (14:31):

So I would say I like to think of the funnel, or I like to think of it as a funnel and the top of the funnel is the most widely interesting things. And at the top is your personal life, that what you do when you're not working, what you're passionate about. It could be hobbies and whatnot. Alex Lieberman, who talks a lot about posting on social media, his passion is Legos. He and I are in the same camp that you can dedicate probably 10% of the bandwidth, the more of five to 10% of passion things that just like you care about a lot, you want to mix things up and share your point of view, but it's also maybe you're passionate about being productive. And I think in the founder world, there's a whole lane of content around the founder, I guess household content, all the stuff.

(15:22):

Well, I think it's really interesting, at least other founders think it's great, all the experiments that you're doing, the learnings, what worked, what didn't. People love tactical advice, whether it's building a business or it's like if you're in a software company supporting a strategy. So maybe it's like you have an HR software company and you're talking about tactics within the HR profession. People love that stuff. That's the middle of the funnel. But at the top of the funnel, it's like more of your interests and passions and your personal life. And again, I mentioned the example is sometimes I'll post about my family. I went to go visit my college this weekend. I went to Cornell undergrad and brought my family there. So I'm going to do a post later today about coming full circle, having my kids there, which was really interesting. So that's the top of the funnel.

(16:04):

And then the middle of funnel is what I call the on-ramp. And typically when you talk about marketing, the middle of funnel really starts with the more abstract content in the world of whatever you're selling. But to me, this is more of a personal funnel. In the middle of funnel, you start talking about what the business does, but it's more of a higher funnel, less in the weeds approach. And that is talking around the pains of the industry and typically around the pain of what your solution solves and how to do better, not necessarily with your solution as likely how to do better. Most softwares are a algorithmic implementation of an analog process. So talking about the pain and the solution content, talking about trends in the industry, how to do better work around whatever the software and strategy. So that's that tactical content. So that all works amazingly well at the middle of funnel, and that's where you could talk more about what's going on in the business world that your product or service covers. And now at the bottom of funnel is what I call I guess more of the sales content. And that is when you're in a sales cycle, the questions that people ask all the time and the, I guess stories around use cases or case studies, real stories of how you can help people do better work with a partnership of them using your product or service.

Kim (17:26):

I love that. So a couple of followups I hear sometimes I'm such a, because I work in marketing online as well, I consume so much content about advice about how to do things. The tactical advice piece, do you recommend storytelling? The advice, or sometimes it can be like, here's something I learned and here's my advice for you. Sometimes I'll read, people will be like, don't say three ways to optimize your product story through it. And I'd feel mixed about it. Sometimes. I'm like, if you have three great takeaways, just share it. Sometimes if it's one big learning from a moment you had story tell it. I personally think there's just different ways to do the same thing. What are your thoughts on how to story tell the tactical advice in the content?

Brad (18:05):

I think it depends on whatever you're talking about. If you have a personal anecdote, I don't think there's a right or wrong way. I mean, listicles are a classically easy way to break down complex tactical advice. And they also or historically did very well in content marketing. And SEO storytelling really works for I guess trying to create an emotional connection, a little bit of building trust and credibility. It may not necessarily go hand in hand. And I think also storytelling is really good for then and now type of posts like this is what we used to do and I went through all, we did things the hard way back in the day, but now things are different and we could do things better, faster, cheaper with new fancy tools. So I think it depends on the situation. And the truth is the beauty of LinkedIn is I would say a LinkedIn post has a lifecycle that's longer than a tweet, which is, I don't know, 30 minutes. LinkedIn post could last a couple of weeks. So that means in 30, 60, 90 days you can go back and take the same posts and spin it a different way. So if it didn't work, try it again. Add some storytelling and whatnot.

Kim (19:16):

I love that. By the way, I didn't mean to say ugh about hustle culture. What I like actually a lot of content around productivity and stuff, I really don't like though that when CEOs or people are online are like to win, you got to wake up at 5:00 AM go for a run, then say good morning to your kids, then go for another run, then work for 12 hours straight, then eat a bowl of rice. And I'm like, oh my God, what? I just think some of the hustle culture stuff, I think it's just unrealistic for humans. But I love the, I agree with you about, so I didn't mean to, I was explaining why the word hustle culture. I was like, oh, but I agree. I love the productivity advice. I love how I am building this business and what it's looking like and how I'm managing. I actually love that content, but I do feel like I have this automatic reaction, these, and maybe it's not fair to say, but sometimes there's that hustle bro culture online that's like you just need to create an extra nine hours in the day and that's when you're going to journal on Mount Kilimanjaro and then you're going to come down and also post on LinkedIn. Anyway, that was just me explaining. I didn't mean to gag in the middle of someone's interview.

Brad (20:18):

I agree with that a little bit, and I kind of alluded to it with the comment tussle culture, but I think the truth is a lot of that stuff is ized all the stories. A lot of the stories you hear on LinkedIn, the tip of the iceberg, there's a lot of trail and error and wrong directions that are taken. And I think at least my approach is when you're going to share this stuff, you share the way you arrived there that it's like, all right, this isn't easy. I'm still working on it. And I think even myself with productivity, it's like this kind of ebb and flow. Sometimes things are going great and I'm feeling really productive on top of my calendar. Other times I'm not. I'm working after hours and

Kim (21:05):

Totally

Brad (21:06):

Not sleeping much. But I think the truth is every person starting their own business experiences a lot of that. Right? Especially if they have kids.

Kim (21:15):

Yes, totally. Oh my god, and I want to get back to that after. I want to dive into the more personal stuff and a few minutes I want to wrap up my LinkedIn questions because listeners, Brad is such an expert that I'm like squeezing, what is it I like to say for content, squeeze all the juice out of the orange. So I'm making the most delicious, fresh pulp free orange juice with Brad right now. Obviously no pulp, obviously no pulp because pulp gets in your mouth. Talk to me about, do you recommend people getting into a sort of engagement group so that people are commenting and getting more visibility on your posts, especially when you start out?

Brad (21:45):

So that's a controversial topic. Engagement pods. So I think there's a spectrum of engagement pods. So on the bad side, there are literally software tools that you could pay 10 bucks a month and attach a Chrome extension and basically have hundreds of people comment on your posts that don't even look at your profile. And some of those comments are AI driven. That is, I mean, I did a lot of research on this. I thought it was kind of interesting. I think the truth is marketers on the internet tend to abuse everything to the extreme, and that is I would say a bastardized implementation of maybe what a more benign I guess approach would be if you have some friends who are interested in similar things. Maybe you have a WhatsApp group or a Slack group where, hey, I just posted this. What do you guys think?

(22:37):

If it resonates with you, feel free to leave a comment. So I've heard of groups like that that are, I think friendly and I think even more upstream from that is like, Hey, I like Kim. We're aligned on a lot of the same things. I'm just going to go and comment on her stuff all the time. And then people kind of pick up on that and they'll try to return the favor. So I think that's the best way to go it. If you have people that you really enjoy their content or people that your friends who are doing it comment on their stuff, they'll most likely start to reciprocate. Having a chat group I think is pretty innocent for the most part, but if you're in a chat group with a thousand people who are just trying to get more views on LinkedIn, maybe that's gaming the system.

(23:18):

I mean, the truth is, at least from what I can see on that algorithmic stuff, it doesn't really have that much of an impact or I don't know. It is hard to say, but I think if anything, it's like maybe psychological, all these big number accounts show up on the post and someone's like, oh, I should read this one. It's a popular one. But I hear a lot of stories about people have to, once they turn it off, that software engagement pods that they're nothing. So if you started on that, get hooked on it, there's really nothing to it. It's kind of smoke and mirrors and I don't do any of that or advocate for it with my clients.

Kim (23:56):

Got it. So a human-based engagement group of real true, like-minded people wanting to support each other, fine, you're not going to get punished by the platform. And also it's fine, but outside software, it's like that. It's a faucet, turn it on, it's on, turn it off. There's nothing. So you're not building those real connections. I mean, I like the idea, truly I do. I have people that we mutually support each other, but we're kind of in the same sphere in a good way. Because I also think when you have people and you're in really different areas, it's hard to come up with a comment that makes sense. You're like, yes, I agree with your neurological assessment of neurology in the northwest of America. It's like I don't have anything to comment that's intelligent on it, and also their followers and my followers are not going to be engaged in aligned. But that's helpful to hear your point of view about what's good.

Brad (24:43):

I think for those people you can just like it. Now, one thing I'll add too, if you're an executive at a company or a founder, the first line of distribution is your internal team. If you're paying to distribute posts on Google, you're probably paying 50 a hundred dollars A CPM. When you have a bunch of employees who interface and are connected with their clients, it just makes a lot of sense for you to have the internal team share it and that, I mean, maybe people can call that an engagement pod, but I actually think I advocate for all my clients that they should use their internal team as a first line of distribution. I love that, especially in an age where every channel is very crowded, and if you can give an initial boost with the people on your team, it's great. And what I do advocate for is so when you click the share link on your LinkedIn post, it'll come out of there, you copy paste it with a UTM parameter, it's kind of tracking parameters. I would remove that. It's like everything after the question mark at the end of the URL, and that'll kind of remove the signal. People know that if you share that link with the or, I would say LinkedIn knows that if you use that link and a lot of people click on it at once, maybe there's some tracking involved. And wait,

Kim (25:56):

So what part of the website do you have to take off when you reshare a post the

Brad (26:00):

URL? So it's called the UTM tracking parameter. I tend to remove that when I share. So let's say I'm working with a client, they have a Slack group with all their sales and marketing and customer success team in there that are connected to clients. Before I'll cut and paste a link from the post. I'll remove the UTM, which is a question mark, UTM, and then it has a bunch of code string. I remove that and then I share that.

Kim (26:23):

Why does removing that part help? What does it matter?

Brad (26:26):

I've heard in LinkedIn circles that that's a signal that LinkedIn may interpret as if you're sharing this type of link and a bunch of people are clicking this at once, that there may be something kosher going on just to be safe. I don't actually haven't tested it too closely, but it's just kind of like a best practice that I do.

Kim (26:49):

Well, I don't want anything on kosher, no pork. Okay. Talk to me about, I'm really, first of all, thank you. I loved hearing all your LinkedIn advice and my very last question, have you been noticing, I actually do notice that the more personal content ends up performing better basically when people are sharing personal content. I just see that's my anecdotal, I actually just see that those are doing better. They appear more in my feed rather than the more official posts.

Brad (27:12):

I see this across a lot of my clients. The personal stuff gets, it's just more relatable. I would say it's just maybe the number side of things, right? If you're selling a software that's like, for example, QR codes for e-commerce, and I started talking about that stuff like the addressable audience in my orbit of network, it's just smaller than if I'm posting about being a dad. A lot of people can relate to that. And what I see is that people get more personal, tend to get a lot more engagement in those posts. And the way it works is, let's say I have 10,000 connections slash followers. It's kind of the same thing from LinkedIn standpoint. When those people connect and comment or when they comment or my connections on those 10,000 people maybe comment and it allows that extended network of theirs, their connections that are first degree that are not mine.

(28:05):

And in that case, there could be 3 million people in that audience and getting people to and engage, bring those people into. If one of those second degree connections comments, then I'm like, oh, okay, now this person's interested in what I'm doing. Maybe I'll send 'em a note thanking them for commenting and saying, Hey, we should be friends. I think the more personal content just tends to lend itself well to reaching more people. Whereas when you start talking about my healthcare software that saves spinal doctors from spending all this time analyzing X-rays and MRIs, I would say there's a smaller amount of people in your network that'll probably relate to that, so that's why that works. But well, what I will say is that people who post pictures and video selfies, that type of content or pictures of you or you with your team or pictures of people, those do really well. One of the things I like to say is people influence people, and the second part of that is conversation drives commerce, but the pictures of people are very relatable. It takes this thing that's like a digital interaction and it makes it more human again. And I think you see a lot of that in LinkedIn. Those type of posts do very well.

Kim (29:19):

That's super interesting. My question about the personal content, I was just having this very interesting conversation with one of my clients who came through my video bootcamp class. She has an interesting backstory. She came from China and she went to high school in England, and then she and I just offline, I was like, oh, yeah, I told her something about how I studied abroad Spain and that I backpack for a year. And she's like, oh, I'd love to hear more about that. I'm like, oh yeah, I post about every once in a while, but not that often. And then I was thinking about it. I feel like for me personally, I'm not really sure how much I need to tie it back to my professional work. I'm like, I backpacked for a year. It was an amazing experience. I met so many amazing people and I felt like it really made me deeper as a human. But in terms of how does it impact my business and how do I tie it back to my business, I'm never really sure how much I need that tie back or is it, Hey, here's me with a backpack in Cambodia from 20 years ago. You know what I mean? How much do you need to tie the professional to the personal?

Brad (30:14):

That's a good question. I would say number one, don't force it, right? You don't tell a story about how you're shopping for diapers and how it helps you sell software better or something like that. I think those stories, if you could find a way to relate it to something, obviously backpacking is a great experience and world travel people enjoy hearing those type of stories. And if there's some way to tie it naturally to what you're working on, great. But if not, I wouldn't go out of my way to point to my work and say, Hey, now you should buy something from me. That's terrible.

Kim (30:52):

Anyways, it's interesting. I was just more like sometimes you see people's personal posts, it's like, do you need to tie it back to like, Hey, I traveled for a year. It was so impactful. And one thing my client came up with the idea of I've met so many people and I always love connecting with people, and that's led me to now I coach people and I get to work with people from around the country virtually, and it's really rewarding. So I feel like there is kind of that tie, but the truth is I'm like, oh no, I just wanted to live my own life for a year and backpack and just see the world. But when you think about tying it back, it just pushes you. It really pushes you to ask those questions of yourself.

Brad (31:24):

It's easier for some people. So I have a friend of mine who he serves a higher ed space and he talks about he did a study abroad or teach abroad in Japan, and I think there's a natural correlation or relationship there with study abroad programs in college these days. So that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, if you're pushing, you have the crazy beautiful mind like chart of things on the wall with red string connecting everything trying to that level of connection, I think you could probably end the posts with just a cool story. And I will say, so in terms of the proportion of these different personal stuff versus middle bottom of funnel, I guess maybe a simple way to approach it is one third of each, but the way I kind of tend to do it is the weekend is for the more personal stuff, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then the four days Monday to Thursday are always a little bit more business upfront. Party in the back.

Kim (32:24):

Oh, I was like, oh, I was just about to post a picture me bungee jumping. Maybe I'll save that for Saturday. Maybe I won't. I'll live on the edge, Brad. I don't know. We'll see. And then you were talking about connections. What do you recommend people saying in the notes that's not just like, Hey, to meet you, let me be a resource. How do you get them from being, Hey, I'm connection, cool to let's hop on the phone and see if we can connect.

Brad (32:45):

Yeah, so with connections, there's a couple of different ways to approach this. So well, number one, if you're using LinkedIn premium, which if you really are serious about growing your network, I would, they have a really powerful feature who's viewed me, where you can see who's viewing and that's, or people who are commenting and liking on your posts, maybe that's the first place to start. So if you're posting actively and people and engage, it's really easy for you to basically say something like, Hey, I really appreciate the support. Thanks for liking commenting. Or you could even if they comment, you can reference their comment. If it's substantive, we think similarly, let's be friends and that's productive. But you can just say, we're aligned on this. Let's be connected. And then when you're connected, those people can see more of your stuff. The people who are like, who's viewed me?

(33:32):

If they haven't left a comment or those people, you can essentially say, I saw you stop by my profile. Let me know if I could be helpful in the connection requests. Happy to get on the phone, chat about anything, anytime. The last thing that I would do is, again, these are for people who really want to grow. They're selling a high-end product software. Maybe that's like $50,000 and above. Those are some of the clients that I work with. I help them use some automation. They'll feed in a list that they're already selling to. Most of these people are already doing cold email, which is the outbound sales motion, which doesn't work as well as it used to. And that's why a lot of why I decided to do what I'm doing today because all the old playbooks, like SEO and cold email, they don't work as well anymore.

(34:18):

Those channels are crowded. They have these enrichment tools that are spiting out lists of people that they're pummeling with email, but they also have the URL of their LinkedIn profile. And these tools are basically, the tools that I'm using are kind of a version of the outbound email, but I don't use them in that way. Anybody who's been an executive in a company probably knows someone requests you and then you get five automated dms from LinkedIn. These are the tools that do it, but the way I use it, it's more of a, hi, I'm Brad. I'm an expert in LinkedIn personal branding and growth here on LinkedIn. I write a lot of tactical advice on how to grow your profile. If that's ever interesting to you, let me know if I could be helpful. But in the meantime, I'm looking forward to learning from you and your network, like a short message. And when I do it through those automations, I actually don't put the message with a connection request that've done some testing that you do the connection request and then you share the message when they respond. And these automation tools let you just have that going in the background without a lot of proactive thought, and you can change the list out every few weeks.

Kim (35:27):

I love that. Oh my God, I feel like everyone's so lucky to be listening to Brad's advice. This is so robust. I love it. Okay. I'd love to hear a little bit about how you decided to become A CEO. You had a long, what do you call it, decorated. You had a long decorated marketing career. What made Decorated like a soldier? Yeah,

Brad (35:44):

I got the scars.

Kim (35:45):

You got the battle wounds to show. Talk to me about what made you go from being an in-house marketer to running your own business?

Brad (35:52):

It's a flashback. I would say, well, maybe going back to early part of my career, that's not even on my LinkedIn anymore. Out of college, I had a few roles in more corporate, and I was in FinTech before FinTech was cool. And if they dates me before Salesforce, everyone who Salesforce is CRM, I worked at this hedge fund, CRMI was a implementation manager, but I had some experiences and I had all these big shot finance clients that even on a good day where they were happy, I didn't feel very satisfied. And then I did something crazy and I decided to go work in China. I grabbed my career bull by the horns and lived in China for a few years, and that was a crazy experience, and I ended up coming back. But a lot of what I was doing was very China specific, so I kind of reinvented myself around marketing.

(36:44):

And one of my first, this is now I'm in my probably around 30 ish. My first role out the gate was in marketing. I studied marketing undergrad, but I kind of went away from it and I came back to it. I think the reason why I came back to it was because I started doing all these blogs while I was in Hawaii and China and people loved them, and they're like, oh, you should do blocking for a career. And that's what SEO and content marketing intersects with. That's where I started. And so my first roles were in startups, and I was very often an early hire next to the ceo, EO. I mean, I had a lot of success even in my first role or two out of the gate. And I always thought, oh, I want to have my own company. I should do a content, something content based, which I am now.

(37:28):

But I think at that time I wasn't confident enough. And so I did a few roles. I had some more success in the software service role. I had managed marketing teams, got exposure to all of the different aspects of marketing outside of content, product marketing, demand generation had the exits. And what happened was, I would say in the last few years, it was a pandemic thing. Content moved from the content, stopped working as well in SEO. And so I saw people were putting it on LinkedIn and I would be like this, this is 2017. I'm like banking the CEO e and the sales team, Hey, if you guys just put this content that I'm writing on your in a LinkedIn post, instead of sharing the link, I think it's going to do a lot better. I did the experiment say, look, I tweeted a sentence and a link.

(38:12):

I got this post, got 20 views. Here's a 200 word story version of that post that got 10,000 views. And at the time, people were like, yeah, but that's not me. I'm not one of those people who shares. And then during the pandemic, all these CEOs, they didn't have the events to go speak at. So all of a sudden the behavior of sharing their ideas publicly on LinkedIn got instantly accepted. And the way I like to tell CEOs now what it's like, it's like, Hey, this is just be on stage at the conference, one slide, one story at a time. So during the pandemic, I did a lot of tinkering and failed some, but I perfected the recipe in the last year or two. I think one of the biggest impacts, I perfected the recipe, but the thing that made the biggest difference was the last role or two, I was very, very close to the CEO and I would hear all their entrepreneurship stories, and one of them did a podcast where every week she was interviewing one or two entrepreneurs that could have been customers.

(39:08):

For her. I felt like I was spending all this time with people, their mind melted with mine, I guess. And it kind of reminds me of a podcast called Entrepreneur on Fire. This guy John Lee Dumas goes, this podcast is probably 10 years old now, but he used to say, you are the composite of the five people you spend the most time with. And I guess I was spending my time with all these entrepreneurs, one my boss, but also all the executives she was interviewing, and I finally had the certainty that, Hey, all these people can do it. They're failing. They're not figuring out right away, I think I'm ready. I have the certainty that I can do this. I have enough experience and skills that I can do this on my own. And sure enough, I am doing it on my own and it's working.

Kim (39:54):

That's so great. I think there's that point where you're like, no, I can do this. I struggled with, oh, I'm really good at these things, but I'm actually not sure how I do this in a way, in a new context. But now I've sort of realized where we are today, how people can use people like us marketers, content marketers, whether it's video or the written word or photo. There's a lot of need. And so I feel like I'm glad that I just realized I don't need to only be working for media companies or big companies, mid-size companies, small companies, actually a lot of individual business owners. There's a lot of need for all content marketing, and it just took me a little while to realize that. And so now I'm glad. Now I'm glad for it.

Brad (40:32):

Okay. Yeah, I would say one thing I'll add there too is that as my last CEO is getting very famous, a lot of people were like, who's doing this? I want to do that. And I realized that there was demand for it. LinkedIn in general is just kind of blowing up right now. So I'm like, this is the right time for me to do it, and I did it.

Kim (40:48):

And you said something interesting. I think we talked about not just today, but a different time about the power of video on LinkedIn actually noticed. I think video is very powerful, but it doesn't always necessarily get more viewed. So how do you see video in the landscape of LinkedIn?

Brad (41:02):

Yeah, so I think video is an important part of the mix. I would say it's one of the hardest things to do. I produced a lot of video and I'm working on it for myself, and it's way harder to do it for myself than it's for other people. But in the spectrum of status posts on LinkedIn, which is where I operate, not the blog post things that you could do, those don't get a lot of views. But the video is one of the, I don't know, top hand. I would say the best performing is static image with text, and then carousels and image collections after that is video. But video gets misreported. So if you look at it comparing apples to apples, impressions of views, oftentimes video will fall behind the pack. But the truth is if you put one minute video or even three minutes, five minutes, I think now you can do up to 14 minutes of video.

(41:52):

And if people are watching, even part of that 30 seconds of video is way more impactful than a static image. So there's a powerful brand imprinting that happens, especially for the people who are watching through to the end. So video is really powerful, and LinkedIn is kind of playing with how to integrate more. Some people have it right now, but there is a feature that is in beta that some people have, or I think I've seen it, but basically it's almost like a TikTok reel side of thing where if you watch a video quickly, you'll flip into some other videos as opposed to going back to your feed and scrolling more.

Kim (42:30):

Interesting.

Brad (42:32):

I think they're just taking the card out of tiktoks Playbook and Instagram. People get really hooked on video. And even myself during the pandemic, I kind of tried out TikTok and I saw it very quickly. I would get stuck in these holes of, yes,

Kim (42:45):

The black

Brad (42:47):

Cooking or I see what my daughters too, they're into YouTube and we're trying to clamp down on that. But the shorts is what really concerns me. They'll just put a short on and then I'll just go cycle through a bunch of them and they just kind of, I put my hand in front of their face, they don't see me. But yeah, I think video is a very compelling part of the mix for LinkedIn these days. And I would say, but there is a little bit larger hurdle on how to do it and where I'm migrating towards. So I've done some fits and starts and I did the video thing together to give me more confidence. But where I'm going is that rather than recording my face looking into a camera, I'm actually about to migrate over from Google Meet to Zoom, so I can take the videos from my conversations with people where I say the same things over and over again and I can export those out to a tool.

(43:36):

And I would say the bar for producing video is lower than ever too. You used to need Adobe Premier or Spark, I don't even remember what it was. But now with tools like the script, you can edit video by the sentence what people are saying, and then it's way easy to put into a tool like v.io or Cap cut and add it like annotations and make it look very professional. So yeah, video is I think a power play and it's a little more time consuming, but I think it's a great tool to use to market yourself.

Kim (44:07):

I teach people from all across the country at all different skill levels about video, and I agree with you. I think people are lucky and people don't realize it, but we're lucky that you used to need a camera crew. You used to need really good editing software. The software we have today, the apps that are available are so user-friendly, not a technologist. People are like, oh, you must know everything. I'm like, I don't know everything about cameras editing. I know everything about writing, directing strategy. When you think about TV and video, there's a team of people who make a video, but now we all have to do it ourselves. So I've had to do it for myself, but I agree with you. I think when we talk about the execution of video, start with your idea. Start with what kind of stuff you want to put out there.

(44:47):

Start with the vibe you want, the brand you want, and in terms of executing, there's a million ways to do it. It could be your face, it could be not your face, it could be a Zoom, it could be an audiogram, it could be you with your iPhone. But the idea is there's a lot of ways to do it. You just have to say, I'm going to do this and then move forward on it because people forget. We're lucky that we're in this era of really user-friendly shooting and editing tools. I remember I had to learn Final Cut, I had to learn Adobe. I've had to learn everything, and I'm not an amazing editor on any of these, but I'm good enough to make good social content.

Brad (45:18):

So no, I think it's a great point, and it doesn't need to be Netflix quality. I made a rap video of my old boss just with an iPhone and just cut it into a couple of these tools, and it was really well received. People thought it was hilarious, and it was one or two takes, right?

Kim (45:35):

Yeah. I always actually say, never do something more than three takes. You're actually losing your own energy. I have a three take rule. You lose the energy, you lose the enthusiasm. You actually start to get negative. If you're on take nine, you hate your own words. Anything you're saying, you're like, I'm going to burn this sheet of paper. So I do feel like there's a point at which if it's not today, turn it off, come back tomorrow. Otherwise get it by the third take. If you keep stumbling, you can always cut it up. Don't whatever. I know you participated in the Thought Leader Accelerator Day. I'd love to know what did you think of it?

Brad (46:06):

That was one of the cooler experiences that I had in life, I guess. So I thought it was awesome. So I wanted some video from my website. It happened to be a great timing that you were doing this, and we're going to roll that website out soon. Maybe by the time this podcast goes live. Fingers crossed. It was very professional. I showed up and there's two crews, one that's shooting kind of video, the other that's doing B roll. There were six people in each crew. There was someone who did my makeup, and I guess for me, that's putting some powder on my head so it doesn't shine. But yeah, I mean it was great. I felt very pampered that all of these people were there for me. The video came out amazing. I just so impressed with the experience, and I was actually thinking maybe in a future year business is going well, maybe I record some new video there.

Kim (46:58):

Yeah, I'd love

Brad (46:58):

That. Or even maybe I partner with you to kind sell it to my customers at some point, honestly. And the video looks amazing. It's like kind of Netflix documentary style. I look and sound very professional, and then we had fun on the shoot. I had some flubs. I was joking around and being funny, and you had me crack. We were cracking each other up. It was just all in all a cool experience. Everyone on the crew was super nice, and they were laughing at me sometimes. Yeah, it was just a fun experience. I'll have the mementos live on my website very soon. Excited for that.

Kim (47:33):

I love that. I teach people how they can show up on camera, and you can make video on your iPhone, but I do, and it's hard to express to people. I do think we need so much content nowadays that you have to be able to do it on your own. The DIY of it all I think is very important. First of all, for your budget, but also just for the confidence. If you only shoot one video a year, you're not going to be very comfortable speaking on camera. You have to get more comfortable with your voice, with how you speak. But there is that importance of leveling up and showing people, here's who I am. I'm going to take the time to sit down and have a script. We write the scripts for you after an interview with you, but it's important to say, this is who I am.

(48:09):

This is my flag in the sand. Because there's so much content on social. So when you go to your website, you're like, okay, this is who this person is. Oh, that's their point of view. And so I think I'm such an advocate of the DIY quality, the DIY videos. I think it's really, really important because so much is expected for us to stay in the hamster, honestly, like the hamster wheel of content. You got to keep putting out a lot of content. When people go to your website or people to your About me on LinkedIn to have that high quality, well lit, really beautiful cinema, cinema to graphic content with truly an award-winning team. It does show, I take myself seriously. I'm real, and I took the time to sit down and tell you who I am and what I'm about.

Brad (48:53):

Yeah, I think exactly it will bring a lot of hef to my website and credibility, so I'm really excited for it. Yay.

Kim (49:02):

Okay. Before we wrap up, I'd love to know, I know you're a dad of two. Talk to me about running your business and being a dad. How do you balance it? What do you see balance as?

Brad (49:11):

What do I see balance as? So really to me balance is that I'm there for the times that matter the most. I'm actually running the morning operation. My wife gets out to work early or a few days a week. She's in the office. So that fact that I can do breakfast with 'em and take 'em to school and then on the flip side of the day when they come home or I can be there to have dinner with them and have important life moments. I just taught my 70-year-old daughter how to ride a bike last week. I don't know. That was a really cool experience to have and the fact that after dinner we can go out, ride around in the street and have fun. Now we're riding around the block after dinner and then be there for bedtime. I would say my daughters bring books home from school and we read stories to them.

(50:01):

So being there for that, and what that means is that I have pretty strict guidelines around when I start and end my workday and they're off to school around eight. They do an aftercare program and come back around five and I don't do any more work. And if I have to do more work, I come back at eight o'clock when they go to sleep. So that's balanced to me. And I would say since I started on my own too, I have more flexibility. So I've been able to go on vacation twice while doing this, and actually it's three times if it count this past weekend and I can set things up so I'm able to make my own schedule. I work a little bit harder so I can take off a few days and have some fun with my family. And so far it's working out great. I love it.

Kim (50:47):

I love that. Was it a part of the calculus to work for yourself or It's happened to be better balanced, but it wasn't a part of the driving force

Brad (50:53):

Actually. I guess maybe it wasn't part of the calculus, but it's like an unintended side effect. I always wanted to do something myself, but I guess a lot of people do work to control their schedule, so I'm enjoying that benefit a lot.

Kim (51:08):

I love that. Brett, I know before we wrap up, first of all, I want to make sure everybody knows that Brad has a free seven day email course on LinkedIn, personal branding and growth that you can grab. I'm going to make sure to put in the show notes. Brad, I know you have some really good advice for people on productivity. Talk to me about your best tips for other leaders or CEOs on being more productive.

Brad (51:28):

So actually I'll start with productivity. There's productivity and strategy, and specifically for marketing. A lot of people ask me different aspects of LinkedIn marketing, and I think they're missing one critical question, where's your audience? And before it was LinkedIn, it was other things. It's like, should I have a blog? Should I do a newsletter or whatever channel of the day? So I think the most important thing is if you're thinking about marketing channels, take a step back and ask yourself, who is my customer? Where are they spending their time? What are they struggling with? That's the stuff you'll write about. And if you don't know, you should go probably talk to a few of them and interview them and ask them where they spend most of their time online. If they say LinkedIn, that's great. Then you can come ask me some questions about LinkedIn.

(52:11):

In terms of productivity, running my own business where I used to be doing the marketing, all the marketing function, I'm doing everything now, and this is something I'm working through, but I now understand this. When previous bosses would talk to me about delegation, you should be focusing your energy on the highest leverage activities, delegating everything else. And I'm just starting to implement this for my business and it's actually freeing me up to do more important things. And so I now have a virtual assistant who's helping me with some of these lower value things. Some list building for my clients. There is a commenting aspect of my service that we work with clients to kind of get some baseline commenting in for them when they're really busy. And so I have now a team member who helped me out with that stuff. And I think there is a tendency to hold onto things for as long as possible, and I find myself working through some of that myself. But I find when I'm on the other side of it, it's like I feel lighter. So delegation is a power play as you are starting and growing a business.

Kim (53:17):

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Brad, this has been such an amazing chat. Where can people find you work with you? All of those good things?

Brad (53:24):

People can find me on LinkedIn. My name is Brad Zomick. My last name is spelled Z-O-M, as in man, I-C-K. And in my profile I have a link to that email course. And if you make your way over my profile, connect with me. Would love to be friends. And if you take my course, feel free to respond to the emails with questions or just you have questions about LinkedIn, connect to me, DM me, I'll be happy to respond.

Kim (53:51):

Amazing. Brad, this was so awesome. Thank

Brad (53:53):

You. Well, thank you. It was great being here. I loved sharing some of my story and advice for LinkedIn. Yeah, it was great. And I'll see you soon.

Kim (54:07):

Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to exit the grind and enter success on your own terms. This is the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Don't forget to grab my free download, how to Grow Your Business with Amazing video at kimrittberg.com and linked out in the show notes. I'd love to hear your feedback. Make sure to submit to me what you learned from the show and how you are crushing it on your own terms. Connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Kim Rittberg, R-I-T-T-B-E-R-G. And this show is edited by Jillian Grover and produced by Henry Street Media. I'm your host and executive producer Kim Rittberg.

Kim RittbergJune 26, 2024Comment