EP. 32 How to Get Clients off LinkedIn & Are you Asking Yourself the Right Questions to Lift Your Biz to the Next Level? Flynanced’s Cinneah El-Amin + Frenchie Ferenczi
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VIDEO BOOT CAMP!! EXCITING NEWS!
Are you a small business owner or professional and you’re not showing up enough for your business???
And you’re doing some video but not enough… and want to do more but don’t want to dance embarrassingly?
Kim is launching a small-group coaching course for business owners and professionals to grow their revenue with content! Click here for info & special early bird bonus & discount! You’ll learn secrets from a media insider on how to make awesome content, be better on camera and convert followers to clients!
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Want to use LinkedIn to get clients? Flynanced Founder Cinneah El-Amin show you how to optimize your LinkedIn profile, get seen by your ideal client and how to find paid speaking gigs off LinkedIn. Plus Frenchie Ferenczi, who worked at The Wing & Jet Black, has her top strategy and growth tips for mom business owners, whether you’re working 20 or 50 hours a week. We dive into whether we’re even asking the right questions to get us to the next level and how to break through our own ceilings and why we need to have a truthful relationship with time (something Kim admits to struggling with), and how to assess where we should invest our time and energy.
Lastly, Kim shares a story involving a mouse and her winter coat. Eek!
LISTEN BELOW! And don’t forget to ‘follow’ and leave a rating & review!
Show Takeaways:
How to get clients off LinkedIn
How to get paid speaking gigs off LinkedIn
How to grow your business strategically
How to ask the right questions as you scale your business
How to market your business effectively and have the right message
How to Get Clients off LinkedIn:
What’s in your headline? Linkedin primarily uses your headline and a few other minor details to really push your profile out when it comes to discovery. You can add a link in your bio.
Linkedin is spending a lot of money to develop their creator voice on their platform. Content that works really well on other platforms might work just as well on Linkedin.
Search those Keywords you’re considering and see what are the types of profiles that appear.
Are those the right types of people that you want to be associated with or not?
To find paid paid speaking gigs, search LinkedIn for paid speaking opportunities or talent requests. Find the talent coordinator or partnershipa manager and send pitches directly.
Business Growth Tips
Ask yourself: What is the goal of this? What results do I plan to see from this?
Make decisions! Don’t get stuck….Fear of failure sometimes makes us freeze.
Invest wisely - people are too frugal with their money and not frugal enough with their time.
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EPISODE LINKS:
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Kim Rittberg (00:01):
Today we get deep with business and growth strategist Frenchie Ferenczi. She gives the top three tips for mom run businesses to grow, whether you're working six hours a week or 40 and helps you break that ceiling in your business. Plus Cinneah El-Amin here she runs financed a community by women, four women teaching us how to line our pockets and kickstart our generational wealth building. Oh yeah, she has some amazing tips on how to find clients off of LinkedIn.
This is Mom's exit interview, the show for moms who want to craft the career and life they want. Each episode, you'll meet inspirational bombs across various industries and levels who are working and living life on their own terms, and they'll bring you actionable tips from finance to business development to happiness to crushing that imposter syndrome. I'm Kim Rittberg. I was a burnt out media executive at Netflix, US Weekly and in TV news. I wanted a career where I was fulfilled at work but present at home with my kids. So I started working for myself and I love it, but not every day was easy or is easy. I wanted to explore with all of you how other moms were creating careers on their own terms. They're carving out flex jobs, starting their own businesses, they're taking back control. Join me and make work, work for you instead of the other way around.
If you're a mom's exit interviewer and you are crafting the life you want and you're a business owner or professional, I will help you craft that life with awesome content today. You have to be putting yourself out there. If you run a business or you're a professional and you're trying to get clients, video in marketing shows 34% higher conversion rates and 80% of marketers say video helps them generate leads. So stats are there in this amazing five week bootcamp than I am launching on January 25th. I will give you a roadmap and I'll hold your hand through it. You could check out my website, kimrittberg.com to apply. I will teach you how to make awesome content without burning out. You don't have to spend all day on social media and you don't have to do silly dances. I'll also help you get better on camera and repurpose that content.
Basically how to do more with less. That is my life mantra. More life, more life, more time for you to be out there living your life. Plus it will be fun. And today on the show, we are talking to business and growth strategists, Frenchie Ferenczi. A few things I love from this conversation that we dug into. She and I both talk about finding the courage to do what we want and asking ourselves the right question, which I think is really applicable because sometimes we answer a question out loud, but actually it's for a different question. Frenchie and I talk about what's holding us back. Why are we not reaching higher, asking the right questions to get there, to get through that ceiling. Frenchie worked at Jet Black, the Wing, and she has some super solid tips on growing your business and she offers the top three tips to help moms running their businesses, whether you're spending six hours a week on it or 40 hours a week. Frenchie, I am really excited to have you here and why I'm so excited to have you here is because for the audience listening, Frenchie and I had lunch. We met through another friend, hi car, Pearl Hart <laugh>, amazing social media, Wiz Frenchie, and I sat down for lunch. I was stressing about my new live course. Frenchie gave me advice after advice that was so smart. I wrote it down and even told my husband later. So Frenchie, I'm so happy to have you here.
Frenchie Ferenczi (03:41):
I'm so happy to be here and thank you for the kind words.
Kim Rittberg (03:45):
I was like, this is fantastic. And people always say, oh, don't, don't give away free advice. But I was thinking actually, now I know Frenchie's a genius and I want to have her on my show and recommend her to people. So you can give away free advice.
Frenchie Ferenczi (03:57):
Aw, thank you.
Kim Rittberg (03:59):
So talk to me a little bit about I'm, I'm going to tell the audience, Frenchie is a growth and marketing strategist for overwhelmed, but seriously ambitious experts and creatives. You keep small business owners close to the money, you help us stay close to the money and on the path to revenue growth. Tell me a little bit about your path. So now you work for yourself, talk to me about when you were in corporate, what'd you study, all of that good stuff.
Frenchie Ferenczi (04:23):
So I studied international development, which I had no interest in. And then especially, so I went to McGill and they came, career services came one day and they were like, with this degree, you can be an immigration agent or something like that. And I was like, that's not very compelling, not that there's anything wrong with that, but also not my dream to do that. But anyway, I also had a food blog when I was in college and that kind of got me into the hospitality game. And so I started in restaurants, started in hospitality, and then from there I was like, no restaurants no more for me, but I like hospitality. And so I started to move into less conventional hospitality. I opened Noia House, which is a co-working space in Gramercy. I was the sixth employee there. Then I went to open the William Vale Hotel in Williamsburg and I was overseeing all of their event marketing.
And then I left there and I started at The Wing as the head of community. And The Wing was just such a massive undertaking and also such an exciting opportunity when I was in it. And then The Wing went through a lot in 2020. And along these kind of journey in startups, I had this feeling that I should have my own business one day, but I assumed that the people I was kind of surrounded by, I was going to be a founder and I was waiting for my million dollar idea to just parachute into my brain, which never really happened, which is a great thing because then 2020 came around and after being in startups and being a little bit, or being a lot burnt out by the whole startup world, having had my first baby not too long before and just feeling like it's crazy.
I always thought that when people were like, oh, have a baby and your career's going to change forever. And I was like, what does that mean? And then it happened and I was like, oh, I get it. Just logistically, I can't be here until eight 30 or 9:00 PM I can't be in the room. My FaceTime has greatly decreased and that's going to kind of hinder my ambition and I'm not really willing to let my ambition be defined by somebody else's expectations of my physical presence. And I was like, I got to do it. I got to go out and do my own thing because if I keep trying to grow this way, it's going to feel like an uphill battle that's not motivating. That's really demotivating. And so fall 2020 came around and I was interviewing a job, so I was like, no way. I can't do it.
I'm done. And I was like, well, what am I going to do? And I was like, wait a minute. I've been helping these businesses grow and scale for the past 10 years. I can do this for smaller business owners and I think I can do it in a way that's going to be more mutually beneficial. It's going to feel rewarding to me because instead of working to help VCs make more money, I can help the business owners make more money directly and it'll be beneficial to them because I can bring all of this experience, all the mistakes I've seen and help people learn it the easy way. So that's kind of how I got here in my mini journey. <laugh>
Kim Rittberg (07:10):
Frenchie, one thing you said that totally resonated with me because I feel like I came from a similar place in that I was an executive producer of video and branded content at big places like Pop Sugar and US Weekly and Netflix. But when it came time to working for myself, it definitely took me a longer time to realize, a, I can make a living serving small business owners, and B, why wouldn't I want to share that knowledge? I think it's kind of made me realize, I started teaching some classes seminars at NYU and Syracuse and the students were so excited and I'm like, I'm an extrovert. I love teaching people and I love talking to people. Why wouldn't I bring those skills to people? And then I think about it for myself, I'm running my business, there's all this business stuff that I don't know, but I know content really, really well.
Like video podcasts on camera coaching. So I'm thinking, okay, just I might hire a business development helper just like I might hire an accountant, someone might hire me to teach them how to make content or for me to executive produce their content, albeit on a different scale. But it really took a big mindset shift for me. And I know that sounds so silly. Well if you've made all this great content branded content for bigger companies, why wouldn't small businesses want you to do that for them? It still took a while to really realize that. And separately, it took a while to realize that financially I can make a similar amount of money or more by serving more people at a lower price point that I would for a bigger corporate project. But anyway, all to say I feel like it's very analogous. I feel like your path is similar to mine in terms of helping small business owners and I loved your point of it makes me feel good. I feel like I'm really helping someone and I know I am. I'm helping these people actually unlock more money, which is exciting.
Frenchie Ferenczi (08:54):
Yeah, totally. Well, the thing that's really interesting is I do feel like, not to get political, but corporate structures are kind of designed to keep the employees feeling a little bit subordinate, which means terms, strategy and things like that sometimes kept behind a veil. And so they feel really daunting and overwhelming and they actually think sometimes the thing I've seen with a lot of people is that the biggest blocker to actually taking the leap and starting is not necessarily the doubt in the skills of your expertise, but the doubt in your overall business skills. Can I run a business? Do I have the skillset to do that? And what's funny is that then all of my clients have been in business for a while and most of 'em start to realize that they've hit their ceiling and that's when they come for help. But what that says to me is if you have a skillset, you can find ways to monetize it and when you hit that ceiling, you will know and then you can figure out how to get the right resources and support to shift into that.
Kim Rittberg (09:53):
I thought what you were just saying about the ceiling is interesting. Talk to me a little bit more about the ceiling and breaking through that
Frenchie Ferenczi (10:00):
Strategy is actually about change. And I think that sometimes we forget that strategy is about how you're going to take whatever your goal is and how you're going to get from point A to point B. And so when I think about breaking through the ceiling, the first thing to do is actually to keep with the analogy, you got to look through the ceiling, you got to know what's on the other side of it that you want to get to because otherwise you're just kind of going blindly and you don't know. You have to define success for yourself and you get to do that when you own your own business, which is really cool. But you have to define what you're trying to break through and then where you're trying to get with that. So whether it's revenue growth, whether it's how you generate your revenue, whether it's moving one-on-one to group stuff or things like that. But that's really what I think about in terms of just the overall ceiling.
Kim Rittberg (10:47):
I also think what's interesting about what you're saying is people who feel like they're at a ceiling, I also feel like I struggled with, I didn't even realize where the ceiling was or what else was out there. I couldn't even see the sunset or the sunrise. A lot of us are, we live in our four walls and whether you're coming from a corporate experience or you're coming from a non-corporate experience, but you're trying to grow your business, you actually don't realize what's out there. And I think that's something I valued from both mom's, exit interview, podcast, meeting, all of these amazing women and just in general networking for my business. There's all these other opportunities out there I didn't even think about before. It's not even like, oh, here's a stealing, how do I break through it? It was like, oh, that's a way to make money.
And it's like they're happy and I'm happy. The client's happy and I like it too. And it works on my schedule and they're growing and making more money. Cool. But I didn't even know that. So I feel like right. That's also some of it and I want some tips from that for you as well. But I wanted to go, I want to quickly go back to your aha moment of, okay, this isn't working for me. You said, was that when you had the kid and was when you had your first child, what was the thought process of yeah, this doesn't serve me anymore, I'm going to work for myself. Were you scared?
Frenchie Ferenczi (11:58):
What's really interesting is I had a rough exit from The Wing for a bunch of reasons, which you can read about online. The thing I was most scared about was actually the judgment of former colleagues. All the people who I kind of felt like were my naysayers or who thought that maybe I wasn't very smart or wasn't very talented, I was scared that their kind of negativity was going to come with me and that I would either get trolled or get negative feedback and none of that happened.
Kim Rittberg (12:28):
I think the more we talk about the things that are actually scaring us, it helps. I think once I started digging in and being like, oh my God, I'm worried that people will think I'm a failure, but I know I'm not a failure and I know that this is a conscious choice I'm making. And that's part of actually why I did mom's exit interview is because I would talk to colleagues that I knew from the industry and they'd send me job listings and I was like, is it that far in a concept that somebody might want to start their own business and also secondarily start their own business to have a better life for themself? My goal to make eight figures, I mean I'll take money if you don't give me money, but I'm not necessarily, that's not the only driving force in my life.
It's to grow up with my kids. It's to make memories with them, to have unstructured time where I know them and they want me to be with them. And I feel like those concepts, they're sort of in some think pieces sometimes, but people don't really talk about that. And something I love over the past year of Mom's Exit Interview is really meeting so many women like you, other people who are carving their own paths, but also acknowledging that there's a lot of scary stuff and negativity and fear we have to push through to even get there. And if we're not honest with ourselves or with each other, you're not answering the right questions. Cause sometimes people like, oh, I don't want to work for myself cause it's not that stable. That's the right answer. Is that really the reason though? Is it because you're worried you won't get clients and that it's not stable and that there's not health insurance or are you worried that people are going to think that you're unemployed?
Frenchie Ferenczi (13:59):
Totally. And it's funny because one of the things that I talk about a lot with my clients is if you don't get to the core of the problem, you're never going to find the right solution.
Kim Rittberg (14:09):
Totally.
Frenchie Ferenczi (14:11):
And it's very similar on personal as well as within a business, all of that.
Kim Rittberg (14:16):
Totally. Talk to me, speaking of, I had just mentioned health insurance, so how old are your kids? Tell me about your husband. I know he's a chef because I ate at his delicious restaurant mammo in New York City. Talk to me about how old your kids are, your husband and who, the health insurance situation, the financial situation, all of that stuff.
Frenchie Ferenczi (14:33):
So okay, my husband is a chef from Italy. We met in a, he looks like Ling Wei from Rat Tui, which is very funny and random, but it's true. And we have a one-year old and a three-year-old. So the three-year-old was born in 2019, so I guess pre pandemic. And then the little one was born in 2021, so kind of in the middle of it all. And as you mentioned, he's a chef he works a lot of hours, a lot of different times and all that. And the pandemic in particular really changed things for a period of time. He was furloughed for six months or eight months, and so he was really taking care of childcare. But in the fall of 2020 when I started this business, we were slowly starting to get some childcare help back. And so we had a part-time nanny for a period of time and then eventually we moved into full-time. And so that's been, I would say she's my number one business resource because without the time that I get with having this person, it would be impossible to do anything.
Kim Rittberg (15:38):
How is your income now as compared to before when you were working in for companies?
Frenchie Ferenczi (15:43):
Yeah, 2020, I did not make a lot of money or no, 2021. I guess that was my first full year and I also had a baby that year, so there's a lot going on. But then 2022, I was actually just reviewing the books and I like more than four x my revenue, which also took me past my corporate salary. So that was a really exciting milestone because I managed to really grow beyond what before I was saying in incorporate you kind of feel like, well maybe I'll get a 3% raise this year or whatever. So should just be able to increase your revenue to that level was huge.
Kim Rittberg (16:19):
Alright, Frenchie, I need your tips because I mentioned before guys, I sat down with Frenchie for lunch and she gave me so much amazing advice and even over what did we eat? Cheer me, Sue, I need to give the Mom's Exit Interview listeners more of your brilliance. I am very excited about this new video tool I'm using. As you may know, my day job is being an award-winning video and podcast strategist and executive producer for professionals and brands. And I am into this new, simple but impactful video product. It's a little video, I added it to my website, it's called Chip Bot. When you come to my site, my little head pops up and invites you around the space. Here's why I'm excited about it. It's a great way to get more leads and to convert visitors into customers and it's super easy. It's a little tiny plug-in, meaning there's no code involved.
People can also start a live chat. It's super easy to set up. You can have their folks on camera in the video introducing the website, or you can make your own personal video. Websites can feel static and it's a simpler way to make it become three-dimensional. Plus you can customize your video. So pages have different instructions. I did that people buy from people. So having that personal touch added to the site is a smart move. I'm excited about it because I work with a lot of professionals, real estate agents, lawyers, doctors, and small business owners, and this adds that extra layer of personalization to push conversions and drive sales. So check it out, go to chip bott.com and you'll get 50% off the first month on any plan when you add promo code Mom's exit. Frankie, talk to me about what are your top three tips to help moms grow a successful sustainable business no matter the size of their business or how many hours they're working?
Frenchie Ferenczi (18:05):
Okay, one thing that I think is just really important off the bat is that always double check why you're doing something. And when I say double check yourself, what is the goal of this? Do I need to spend my time here? Is this the best place to spend my time? What happens a lot is that we start to use basically a to-do list as our strategy rather than actually just consistently checking in with it. And it's like taking things off of it. Just be like, bye. I actually don't need to do that. Especially for moms who are running nap time businesses. That level of just being really discretionary about what you do is I think very, very, very essential. So that's one tip. And the easiest way to kind of do that is if your thing says, write an email to my list, ask yourself, why am I doing that?
What impact do I want it to have? What result do I plan to see from that? Is it because people you read that you should email your list or is it because most of your sales come from your list, for example? So that's my first one, and the more you make a practice of it, the less you have to stop and think about it. And the more you're just able to look at your list and you're zoom in on the most important thing. The other one is to make decisions. And I think this goes back to what we were saying about fear and what are you really afraid of, what are you not afraid of? What I see holding people back a lot of times from actually achieving their goal or getting closer to their goal is that they stay stuck in a decision without necessarily always realizing that they're stuck in a decision.
So I had a client, she was a copywriter and she was launching, she wanted to launch a new lead magnet and I was like, so where are you on the lead magnet? And she's like, well, I'm almost there, I just need to decide what lead magnet to me. She had two ideas and she's like, I don't know which one, my audience will more. And I was like, well, we have two ideas. We have a 50 50 chance that the first one is the right one, but if you don't put it out there, you're never really going to find out. So put it out there and then worst case you change it. But I think that fear of failure sometimes gets us to just freeze when actually I'm would much, much rather someone get it wrong and then get information about what's working and what's not working than stay frozen. Trying to guess without doing anything.
Kim Rittberg (20:23):
I think that's such a brilliant point because I see it a lot also in my business. When people are doing content, they're like, should I this? Should I? Then I'm put yourself on video because any step is better than no step. And B, we all get better by doing. And I think that that's a really, really good point. And I loved your point of making sure things are aligned. One thing I always do when I help my clients figure out their content strategy, I'm put a sticky note on your computer. Could be one goal or two goals. Anything you want to make has to align with that goal. If it doesn't align with that goal, you're not making it. And I do the sticky note for myself. I actually got a new laptop, but I have a sticky note and it says, why are you doing this? And it helps me remember, I am building this business because I want to have more time with my family and I want to help business owners with content. I want to have impact, but other than that, I don't want to. And number one is I want to have time with my kids. So that's an important thing is it's your business goals, it's also your life goals because as you grow your business, you could end up working 80 hours a week, but why'd you do that? Was that what you wanted? That's not what you wanted.
Frenchie Ferenczi (21:30):
Oh wait, Kim, I have a bonus tip.
Kim Rittberg (21:32):
I'm ready.
Frenchie Ferenczi (21:33):
The thing that we forget about a lot is just investing wisely. And I know the word investing we investing makes me want to bar and makes me think of investment bankers at an Upper East sidebar and Nantucket reds, that's not what I'm talking about. But we have resources like money and time and we need to be really thoughtful about where we spend them. I think that specifically what I find is that people are too frugal with their money and not frugal enough with their time, if that makes sense. And I think that, yeah, the first thing is that time-wise, your time is precious and it is limited. And I know people are like, time is this concept. No time is real. We live in a clock. And so when you're thinking about investing wisely, the really important thing to think about is whether you're spending your energy, your time or your money, how is you spending that supporting your strategy?
What's the end goal you have when you're spending that time? And then what result would feel good from that investment? One of the things that I was thinking about is a lot of my clients, one of their first business hires is home related ordering in food or getting kind of meal prep deliveries, things like that, that save them time. They know the return. I'm going to get more time back to invest into my business. Those are really valuable, but you need to be thoughtful about it. And specifically when it comes to time, because I think moms in particular tend to be time positive.
I think with time, always just be brutally honest with yourself about one, how much time you actually have to spend on your business. Even if it's only six hours a week, you can grow a business in six hours a week if you're realistic about the pace at which it's going to grow. And also if you're just realistic about what you can get done in that time. So be realistic about how much you have and how long things take you rather than holding yourself up to some artificial standard of 40 hours a week or anything like that, it's not going to help you. You get to build this on your terms, that's part of the excitement and really lean into that and maximize what you have and what you have to invest.
Kim Rittberg (23:37):
I love that. I have a very bad relationship with time. I'll be honest. If I tell you I can fit in three errands in the next hour in three different neighborhoods and my husband will be like Kim, that's just not realistic. And I like to think of an optimist. I'm an optimist, but that ends up hurting me. And so I'm trying to be more realistic and I'm trying to clock my work. So when I'm writing a script for a podcast or when I'm doing an edit for a podcast, or even when I'm just pitching emails out, I'm like, was that 45 minutes or was I doing that for an hour and a half? Because that matters. I have to figure it out. And things that take too long, I need to outsource. So I love your tip about being conscious about time because I'm very optimistic. Okay, my last question, Frenchie, because I do video marketing, so I'd love to know for you, what's been a struggle or a success that you've had with marketing your own business?
Frenchie Ferenczi (24:25):
So I think in terms of the struggle was really understanding that one, how to distill my message in a meaningful way, how to really translate that into content that paints a picture of who I am and gives people a sense of who I am. I think with that in mind, I kind of expected that I was going to start posting on Instagram from my business account and suddenly people would just be throwing money at me, which is not exactly how it went. And I think that realizing that one, it takes time was really important, but also that you have to push and pull when you market. You want to push stuff out there so that people get a sense of who you are and people start hearing about you and you have to pull stuff in by relationship marketing. And so when I think about my success, it was really also balancing my content creation skills, which I'm more comfortable with my relationship building skills, which was felt more, more of a stretch for me. It made me more nervous. But when I really married the two, that was when I started to see the growth and I started to see much faster returns than I was seeing when I was kind of just sitting and hoping.
Kim Rittberg (25:37):
I love that because I was just meeting with one of my real estate agent clients and I was telling them, I'm like, content doesn't just go out there and then you magically have 10 clients. But content is a compliment to things you're doing. And it can be a few things. It could be a conversation starter, it could be a relationship builder, it could be a relationship reminder. I mean, I've been getting reach outs from LinkedIn from people I haven't spoken to in seven years or 15 years. They see me doing content, but they're not cold people. It's not like I've never, I know them, but I haven't seen them in years. So I think it's helpful for when people remember about marketing and content marketing specifically that it's not like post the video, get a client, but it all adds up and it does end up bringing in
Frenchie Ferenczi (26:17):
Business. Totally. And it's also, I think most of your clients, of my clients as well are building personal brands. And so the U needs to be in it. It is about you and is about how you deliver that to people. So yeah,
Kim Rittberg (26:32):
Frenchie, this was such an amazing chat and I am sure that everyone's going to love hearing from you as much as I did over tiramisu. I was like, oh my God, I just got so much knowledge. The podcast listeners are going to love this interview.
I loved Frenchie's tips, especially like the ones about having specific goals and asking yourself, is this a good use of my time? Ask yourself, what results do I want to see from this and start moving forward? I love the tip of just one foot in front of another. Sometimes we get stuck on these really small things. I know I do. I'll be like, oh, but what should that website page look like? Doesn't matter, just start moving forward. Small steps eventually will become bigger things, and I struggle with this, but I did love this tip. Be realistic about the investment of time for something. Whether you have six hours or 20 hours, be real about how long things will take. Love that tip. And if you want to learn more from Frenchie, you can check her out at frenchieferenczi.com. That's frenchie, frenchieferenczi.com.
It means so much to me when I get compliments or feedback or anything from you all. So I want it to give a couple shout outs to Lindsay Davis, the founder of the Park consulting, which helps moms get the support they need before, during, and after parental leave so they can thrive in and out of work. Lindsay gave a shout out, says she's loving the podcast. So thank you Lindsay so much, and Jennifer Leer corporate communications expert also reach out to me to tell me how much you like the podcast. Thank you guys. It means a lot.
So you're out there building your business, how do you find clients? Well, guess what? LinkedIn is such a great place for clients. I personally have found clients directly off of LinkedIn. I actually have two people who reached out to me on LinkedIn. I haven't seen them in seven years and 15 years, so you can guess how old I am. These are people I knew from ages ago, but they've been seeing the sort of content I've been putting out on LinkedIn. And so they reached out to ask me to pitch on a project. It's a good reminder that content can help you grow even with people you forgot about or they forgot about you, you can remind them that you exist. So content's not always buy this right now, but it reminds people who you are. It can refresh and rekindle old relationships in addition to building new ones. So with that said, I am going to bring in Cinneah El-Amin who runs financed. I absolutely love what she's doing. She's built this community by Women for women, which teaches us how to line our pockets and kickstart our generational wealth building. So she has som tips on how you can find clients off of LinkedIn.
Cinneah El-Amin (29:07):
Talk to me about how to boost
Kim Rittberg (29:08):
Your LinkedIn profile
Cinneah El-Amin (29:10):
To attract opportunities. So there are a couple things that I think we could all be doing on LinkedIn to really ensure that we are using the algorithm to our advantage. So one of the first things that we often overlook is what's in your headline. If you are someone who is a public speaker, you're a coach, you are a consultant, you're a freelancer, whatever that thing is, even if there are many things that you do, make sure that those really clear concise keywords are in your headline. So for me, I have the fact that I'm a product manager. I also have a little spiel about what finance is. I of course have finance in my title, but I also have founder, public speaker, creator because I want any individual who's looking for creators that they want to profile, people that they want to interview, speaking opportunities.
I want my profile to appear at the top of their search result. And we know that LinkedIn primarily uses your headline in a few other minor details to really push your profile out when it comes to discovery. So definitely use LinkedIn's algorithm as it relates to your business, your company, your thing to make sure that you are rising to the top. I would say in addition, there are a lot of elements within your profile that you could be using to highlight your services. You know can add a link in your bio on LinkedIn. So as soon as someone comes to your profile, they can click on whatever that link is. So it's not just for Instagram or TikTok or Twitter. You can have that same whether, you know, use link Tree or your website or whatever that looks like on LinkedIn as well to really drive someone to those call to actions that you have.
So I really think that we could be using really those above the break elements of our profile. Think about when you go to someone's LinkedIn profile, you probably are only seeing a few things at once when you go to their profile before you start to scroll. Really make sure that those things are tailored to the types of opportunities that you want to attract because it's going to make it a lot easier for people to discover you on LinkedIn, which I found really does boost your credibility and invite so many opportunities your way. Another thing that I would say that we could be doing is cutting our ideas out there. LinkedIn is spending a lot of money to develop their creator voice on their platform. So you might be surprised that content that works really well on other platforms might work just as well on LinkedIn.
I have reused tweets for example, that did pretty well on Twitter, so it kind of gave me that kind of concept proofing that I doubt just brought over to LinkedIn. I literally just copied the text word for word, brought it over to LinkedIn, and one of those posts generated over half a million impressions. That means half a million people on LinkedIn saw that post and were then able to follow me, engage with my content, share my content with their network, is they comment, liked and shared. And that's also another way to build your credibility to build your position within the marketplace and really just to drive eyes to your products and services. So I would say that those are some of my quick and easy hits when it comes to growing your visibility and voice on LinkedIn. Talk to me about using that headline to put what you do versus who you help.
Because that area, that section that above the fortune in LinkedIn, it is actually small. So if you're a coach, let's say you're a coach or you're a consultant or an expert, or are you calling yourself an expert and then a little line and then I help so-and-so with so-and-so because there's two different thought thoughts in there, which is what is your title, what do you do, and then what is your selling proposition? Yeah, so I like to use both. I like to use titles as well as my selling proposition in my headline, the formula that I use, obviously I'm a nine to five hottie, I create a lot of content around career. So I actually start my headline just kind of talking about my professional title, which is I'm a product manager. From there, I then give my selling proposition. I help nine to five, nine to five ERs, nine to five hotties earn more so they can effortlessly build wealth.
And then from there I kind of list out the rest of my titles that I think are relevant to LinkedIn. So I call out the fact that I'm a LinkedIn personal finance grader. I call out the fact that I'm a founder, I call out my company name. So I think that there's definitely a way that you can include both your titles and again, you should really be thinking about what are those titles that you want to be associated with. Founder may attract a certain different type of visibility than entrepreneur, c e o or coach. So think about in terms of the conversations that you want to have in terms of the types of people that you want to attract, what are those right keywords for you? And then sometimes it helps to also just search those keywords yourself and see what are the types of profiles that appear?
Who are the types of people that you discover when you search some of these keywords that you're considering? Do you want to be, are those the right types of people that you want to be associated with or not? I think that can also help you kind of understand what are the right keywords to use to make sure that you're really writing to the top of consideration using that competitive research that you'd be doing in some other area. Doing the same one there. Let's say I want to get more paid speaking gigs in 2023, which by the way, I am getting a paid speaking gig in 2023 and I'm going to be doing more of that. Woohoo. This is really yes, my own advice column, my own advice request to you. How do you advise someone try to get more paid speaking gigs off of LinkedIn?
So a strategy that that's been helpful for me has been to essentially use LinkedIn as my way of sending out those same pitches that I would send over email and just expecting a higher conversion rate. So instead of me just sending out a blink cold email to that email that I might find as I'm scrubbing a website of I don't know, a conference that I want to speak at or a vendor that I had my eye on, I'm going to just apply that same concept, try to find that person who is the talent coordinator or their partnerships manager, and essentially send my pitches directly to them. So I think that's one way, if you have a cold pitching strategy already apply it to LinkedIn because you're more likely to get higher conversion rates and more and more momentum behind the effort that you're putting out there versus just doing email.
We all know we get bombarded with email, but if you get a LinkedIn where someone is really grabbing your attention with a strong headline and it's kind of helping you fill those slots, especially if you're looking for talent, you're probably going to give it more of a second look than just get another email in your inbox. So I think that's one. Number two is continuing to do what we already said in terms of putting your ideas out there. If you're already creating content on other platforms, repurpose it onto LinkedIn, try to tell that sane content spiel three different ways on LinkedIn. You can use carousels, you can use text format. Videos do really well on LinkedIn. I literally repurpose TikTok and just put them on LinkedIn. So I think that there is also, as LinkedIn is trying to figure out their creative voice, I think as creators we can use that to our advantage in terms of getting our voice out there, creating that authority for ourselves.
I mean, going back to that post that I mentioned that got half a million impressions on LinkedIn, I gained something like 5,000 followers from a single posts. Think about the impact that means for helping me just grow my visibility and authority in that space. So that's kind of more of a long-term play, but I think if your call to action is always as you're creating content, Hey, book me for your next event and here's my LinkedIn link. I think having that as a consistent call to action in that content, that that is going to be more viral, that is going to be more that it's probably going to trend on LinkedIn. That would be a great way to do it. And then another way, another thing that I think LinkedIn especially is really great for is really using the search engine to help you find those opportunities.
So getting comfortable just doing a weekly or biweekly search of paid gigs, paid speaker talent requests, those types of keywords because oftentimes what are people doing when they're looking for great speakers? They're putting out a call to their LinkedIn community and just saying, Hey, if anyone knows is someone great for this topic, let me know. I've also been able to make those connections that way. Someone who I wasn't necessarily connected to putts out a general post looking for speakers. I either comment or follow up over DM with them and the next thing you know I'm in consideration. So I think those are the three ways that have helped me tremendously in terms of strategies to land paid gigs. But I think as we all know, when it comes to getting your voice out there for paid work, it's a bit of a hustle. So I think having that mindset that there it's no loss energy, no loss.
Cause I think it's also a good one to have on LinkedIn as well. Maybe I am because I come from media and I'm more aware of pitches I see on my feed. Hey, I'm covering this story, I'm looking for experts on this. I see that more. I don't think I've ever seen someone post I'm looking for a paid speaker. Are you seeing that? So you're saying search for paid speaking opportunities or talent or Quest, you see that in LinkedIn, so if I search, search that right now, those would come up. Yeah, yeah. No, I have seen them. I've seen them on my feed. I've searched for them myself. Of course, sometimes it's not relevant to your niche or expertise, but I've definitely seen that or I've seen that be a way that people who are building out talent networks, there are people in my network who are a part of minority talent networks or other things where people are signing up to be notified of speaking engagements and whatever.
I've also seen those opportunities come up. So just like people also often share networks that you can join, just other things to be in more of the using those keywords. You've had tremendous growth on Instagram and many people say it's slowing down now. It's harder to get engagement. What do you recommend for people looking to get clients on Instagram? Yeah, so my recommendation there are a couple things. I think some of the things of Instagram's paths still apply. So when I was starting out as a creator on Instagram, some of the things that I did were collaborate with other creators, really try to cross pollinate with other creators, audiences, continuing to use really targeted hashtags for people to find me and what I offer. And then of course we know with Instagram reels are huge. So I think in terms of reach, that's probably what I see in my own business where I am getting the biggest amount of reach is from reels and looking at other creators in terms of how can I talk about my products and services a little bit different and make it a little bit more entertaining in terms of really I think closing the loop with clients.
As I mentioned before, one of the most underrated uses on Instagram is in dm. So whatever you can do to engage with those people that are watching your stories, because those are probably your most, those are probably your warmest leads. Someone who's going to watch your story, someone who's going to see what it is that you're talking about. Even if you can't get into the habit of posting content every single day on your feed, I think showing up on stories, giving people a behind the scenes of what it is that you're doing in your business, showing off those testimonials, showing off those client wins and stories, and then being able to even just see them as highlights so that if someone organically finds your profile, they know, oh, okay, I'm just going to kind of be nosy and click through her stuff. They can then start to learn more about you.
That's going to give them more consideration of your offers and services. And I think then make it a lot easier for you to then close the loop and say, Hey, I saw that you took a look at this story. Or Hey, thanks for stopping by my profile, welcome. Or what is it that I can help you with? I think sometimes I think we overestimate how much that human connection on Instagram is still so important. I can't tell you how many people are surprised when I send them a cold DM thing just like, Hey, welcome. Or when I'm just engaging with new followers, it really makes a difference. I then see those people be more likely to buy my products and service and continue engage with my content, subscribe to my newsletter, right? Because they now feel like, hey, this is a person that I'm building connection with, not just another creator online trying to make money from me. So I think don't overlook that human connection that you can make on Instagram as well.
Kim Rittberg (41:40):
And if you want more of her awesome ideas and tips, you could check out flyunanced.com. So I have a weird story that happened recently that my kids are laughing about, but I was not laughing about at the time. So I found a mouse did in our bathroom and it was stuck in one of those sticky things that I had for insects. Wow, it must be very powerful that it's meant for crickets, but it caught a mouse. Anyway, my winter jacket was in the closet and I hadn't had it in a while. I take my winter jacket out and there's a little rip in the winter jacket and I'm like, that's so weird. I didn't scratch on a nail. I didn't walk by something that scratched. It was a one inch horizontal scratch with a little feathers coming out of the front of the jacket, a really weird place or a rip and not on a seam.
I'm like, this is weird. I go to lunch or walking around town with my kids, put my hand in the pocket. I realize there's a hole in the pocket. I take out something. It is a travel peanut butter case, but it is empty, totally clean, and the bottom was broken. And all of a sudden I realize, oh my God, this mouse then running around the house, he went in my jacket pocket, licked out all the peanut butter <laugh>, ate around it, and then went to the bathroom and promptly died in our sticky cricket catcher. Anyway, my son, who's five and a half loves animals and has a really good sense of humor. And my daughter Lily is super bright and she loves weird and funny stories. So we kind of made a story about the mouse, like, oh, the mouse was here and he was climbing in your jacket in the closet, and he ate his lunch and then he died in the bathroom. Anyway, it was a really gross experience, but knowing in the moment that it was already becoming a very funny story, that was becoming a part of our family lore definitely made it better. But I could generally always do without a mouse crawling around my house or my jacket.
Thank you so much for listening. Make sure to drop a review and if you want to send in a real mom moment that we'll share on the air, check out kimrittberg.com. And if you're a professional or small business owner looking to grow your brand through amazing content with no silly dances and with no burnout, check out my website kimrittberg.com and you can hit contact to chat with me. And thanks for listening. Like this is the most amazing community you guys send in the best feedback, so share it with your friends. Let anyone know who you think would appreciate it. And this is Mom's Exit interview. I'm your host and executive producer Kim Rittberg. The show is produced by Henry Street Media. Jillian Grover edited this episode, and Eliza Friedlander is our editorial producer and publicist. I'll see you next time.