Business Building Tips Archives | Social Jack

Sep 2019

5 Top LinkedIn Conversion Techniques That Can Be Done in 5 Minutes or Less

It seems that in today’s increasingly digital world, you have anyone on the planet within a click’s reach.

It seems that in today’s increasingly digital world, you have anyone on the planet within a click’s reach. So many social media platforms are designed to make communicating and engaging with others as easy and fast as possible. So, with all this immediate contact at our disposal, why not use it to our advantage?

As a Business Influencer (and yes, you are in fact an influencer), your impact on others is limitless— if you implement your influence correctly. LinkedIn, the leading professional networking and job search app, is a necessary tool for taking social media by the reigns and using it to build business. Yes, connecting with professionals in your industry, whether you know them or not, is great for building your network. But what’s the point of your large network if you are not taking the extra steps to convert these connections into clients? With each accepted invitation to connect comes a whole wave of opportunity. Watch this Social Jack Flash Class!

What is Social Selling?

Social selling is the process of developing relationships as part of the sales process. Today, this often takes place via social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, but can take place either online or offline. Examples of social selling techniques include sharing relevant content, interacting directly with potential buyers and customers, personal branding, and social listening. Social selling is gaining popularity in a variety of industries, though it is used primarily for B2B (business-to-business) selling or highly considered consumer purchases (e.g. financial advisory services, automotive, realty).

Social selling has become more popular since companies have looked to increase their return on investment of social media interaction. Sales teams within organizations frequently mine data from social media that may help them connect to customers in order to create a more genuine sales lead. The technique frequently focuses on approaching potential clients in a less direct way, meaning they don’t interrupt their daily lives with cold calls and hard sells. Koka Sexton stated that the art of social selling is said to speed up many sales processes, while also improving relationships.

Let’s take a look at some statistics from the International Data Corporation:

75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level/vice president (VP) executives surveyed use social media to make purchasing decisions.

Online professional networks are the number one information preference of buyers in the final stage of the purchase process.

Social buying correlates with buying influence. The average B2B buyer who uses social media for buying support is more senior, has a bigger budget, makes more frequent purchases, and has a greater span of buying control than a buyer who does not use social media. B2B buyers find the greatest benefit of social media is gaining greater confidence in and comfort with their decisions.

How Many Contacts Do You Have That You Cannot See?

When we think about our social reach, you may be connected to someone directly, through another person or through many different people. What happens is, information gets passed down a line. One person may see what you’re doing online, believe that it may be of value to someone else they know, then connect you to their connection. This opens up an array of networking opportunities

The LinkedIn Network

Even with 500, 400, even 300 industry-related connections, this puts us within degrees of millions of possible connections. When you look at someone’s profile on LinkedIn, you can see how many shared connections there are between you and them. This is the beginning of the formation of “clusters”. It is essential to know how to talk with the people within these clusters, more specifically, find the ones that matter.

Goal: Prevent Clicking Roulette!

What we want to prevent is “clicking roulette”. It’s normal to go onto social media and begin clicking on every possible prospective client you see, but it’s not efficient or beneficial to us. We may log onto LinkedIn with one goal, but soon find ourselves buying gadgets from the Amazon trending list, or making trades on Draft Kings. This lack of focus is not going to generate appointments.

Personal Challenge: Make it a goal for yourself to set five minutes (and only five) to go on LinkedIn, and make your sole intent to leave with one appointment. Whether it’s a phone appointment, a Zoom call, or just a coffee date, make that your one goal for five minutes on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Power Moves- Let’s Get Those Appointments!

1) Your Profile = Your Professional Brand

Think about your ideal target and whom you want to start conversations with. Take the time to identify your target audience, then make sure your LinkedIn profile speaks specifically to that group.

Your profile photo should represent who you truly are. It should be current, welcoming, and you want it to portray how you would look if a client were to be seeing you at a meeting or an event. If you put a tie on for professional headshot photo day at work, but you don’t usually wear a tie, that is not a good representation of your personal brand.

Ensure that your profile headline is clear and communicates to people what you do and how you can help them. Putting where you work is unnecessary because it is already located at the top of your profile. You want to answer the clients’ question: “What is your solution that you are bringing to me?”. Your headline is what the potential client will see first when they land on your profile, meaning it should be packed full of keywords (within LinkedIn's limit of 120 characters, of course) relating to your specialties and services. If they were to search for a combination of keywords pertaining to the service you provide, you want to be first on the list of profiles after they press enter.

2) Home Page Scan (UNE)

Remember that personal challenge from earlier? When you log onto LinkedIn, use part of those five minutes to scan your homepage. This step is where you literally scroll through your LinkedIn feed. If you’re noticing a lot of content and profiles that don’t apply to you and your goals, you have the wrong network. You can hide this unwanted content, or even unfollow/disconnect to these people that don’t belong in your circle.

Example: If you are hosting an event and have 500 people you know, but 50 of those are the decision makers, those 50 people are the ones you want at your event. LinkedIn, and social media in general, is one huge event. Invite the people who belong, and drop the ones who aren’t benefiting you or your business.

Above is what your LinkedIn home page looks like. Time to scroll and see who is helping you reach your goals— and who isn't. Remember: Social Media is like an event. Invite those who should be apart of it.

Within two minutes of your homepage scan, you should be able to spot somebody worth starting a conversation with.

3) Network Diving – Level One

Find someone within your network whom you believe is reputable, is always making referrals, or who is just a good friend. Then, “dive” into their LinkedIn network.

Example: Tony is a good friend of mine who I KNOW would always be willing to introduce me to people in his network. Find a connection like Tony and try diving into their connections!

Don’t be afraid to get in touch with your established network and ask them to introduce you to people in their network. Take the “social” part of social media literally, and dive right in to new opportunities.

LinkedIn has a feature where you can search specifically for a certain industry, seniority, or job title of that connection pool to ensure you’re reaching out to your preferred target audience.

Here's an example of a filtered search within Tony's network:

4) Conversation

Now that you took that leap of faith diving into a new network, it’s time to start a conversation. Think back to those first five minutes on LinkedIn, we’re at the point where times halfway up.

You have identified that new person whom you want to start a conversation with, now it’s time to engage. Isn’t engaging what social media is all about? Select a recent post that your prospective appointment has shared and start a genuine conversation with them in the comments. Something as simple as making an authentic comment is a guaranteed way to opening up new doors for you and this potential client. Put the sales aside for a second and really focus and touch on what matters to them. Start that dialogue, and be sure that you are all in on investing in them. This will establish a feeling of authenticity and trust before the actual conversation even begins.

Example: You found a potential appointment, Spencer in this case, from that nose dive into Tony's network. Now that it's time to start a conversation, head over to Spencer's activity to find something you can either comment on or include in your future messaging.

5) Set the Hook – Convert

Now that you've done all that work (about 3.5 minutes into your 5 minute limit!), you're ready to get that appointment. Here are a few example strategically formulated messages you can send to your future client for your best chances of landing that conversion.

The “Catch Up”

This introductory message shows a genuine, authentic approach to breaking the ice with your target appointment. Writing this message needs to be done in a targeted fashion. Confirm that this person has a reason to utilize you and your services and that you as well are targeted in this initiative.

The “Fresh Connect”

It is important to thank people for connecting. If you’re lost on ways to initiate that conversation, thanking someone for simply connecting with you is a great place to start. It’s personal, simple, and gets straight to business.

We want to include a specifics with formulating this message. Specify how you want to meet and let them know you’re interested in working with them. Don’t leave this potential client wondering why you reached out.

Always provide two times and dates you are available to meet! If their response is delayed, at least you ignited a dialogue that can get picked back up in the future. Don’t forget to insert forms of contact information so you are easily reachable. While LinkedIn does not allow for automated signatures on messaging, it is always helpful to keep a document handy with a custom signature you can quickly copy and paste.

The “Continued Call”

One of the most important things about the continued call message is that you started the conversation. Remember that initial chat you had in the comments of the potential client’s post? It should be referenced here in this direct message. You can lead with language like “As promised…” or “Like I mentioned…” as an extension of that previous conversation. Make your intentions clear.

The “Transition”

This message can be technically viewed as an email validation. Make sure you have that intent to go from this conversation, to the next.

The “Referral Call”

Adding something relevant and specific to this potential client will allow them to feel like you truly care about them as a person, rather than just another possible conversion. Now, you are actually offering them referrals, letting them know that this connection will be mutually beneficial.

All of these steps to creating appointments on LinkedIn are meant to be completed within just FIVE minutes after logging on. Ditch the phone, turn off the TV, and focus on using your time on social media to gain new business. Every message you’ve seen thus far has included a personalized touch, clear intent, specific times and dates, and contact information. Who knew that five short minutes could be amplified into creating appointments? It is essential that we utilize the ever-growing digital world to our advantage.

What did you take away from these 5 LinkedIn power moves?

About the Author

For over 30 years, Dean DeLisle, has demonstrated his ability to accelerate bank, financial, and insurance institutions to stimulate business development while in a compliant environment. As Founder of Forward Progress, Dean and his team have helped over 2,000 clients assess and improve their online marketing and social networking results and trained over 120,000 professionals in over 35 countries with their online programs on their Social Jack™ Academy.

Dean has recently launched his new book, FIRST, The Street Guide to Digital Business Influence, which also tell stories of leaders within banking who have changed their culture and brand impact online.

Watch this Social Jack Flash Class

Sep 2017

85 Event Attendees Within 20 Days – B2B Influencer Marketing Case Study

The Key: Social Team Formation, Training, Coaching and Willingness to PLAY! The Challenge: Help us fill our event

The Key: Social Team Formation, Training, Coaching and Willingness to PLAY!

The Challenge: Help us fill our event in three weeks!

So many of you saw the previous Blog post on the Informs IMPAC 2017 show here in Chicago. Well, the INFORMS people came to us about three weeks before the show and said they needed a short, low-cost campaign to fill their event with paying event attendees at the Notre Dame Chicago Campus. We viewed this as the ultimate Social Influencer challenge: with a small budget and very little time, could we use our core network to make this event pop and possibly put some butts in seats? We took a close look at our network and talked briefly among our team; then we decided to take on the challenge and thought we would give it a shot with our Social Influencer Event System. Spoiler alert: it was a dramatic success! I have outlined the highlights of our steps below.

Strategy: Look at the impact and influence of the network

We faced the challenge of two networks coming together. FinTech Analytics and Sports Analytics are two different groups, with two entirely different networks. Keep in mind we look at every event like a sporting event, so we assemble networks and sub-networks like “Social Teams”, where there are levels of talent and groupings based on each levels’ commitment to the organization and desire for it to succeed, i.e., corporate championship. So, our typical method is to run what we call our “Inside Out” analysis. It might be easiest to follow along with the diagram below:

Prep work: We make sure first and foremost that we connect all of our teams and brands to the teams associated with the event. We also score all Team Players on the diagram above, both professionals and brands, so we know who the strongest players are – and consequently the ones most likely to participate. As much as you’d like for everyone to participate, we find we mostly get a 50% participation rate; however, some groups surprise us with a higher level of play.

Get the Teams Ready for Play

1. Core Team (Level One) – these were the Board Members. We were able to get agreement ahead of time for willingness to play. This is critical; without this buy-in, it does not work. So, a big shout out to the Board Members listed below who allowed us to start this machine rolling. A special shout out to Andrea Leiter who was our initial content and spark to get the troops assembled and have them agree to play with us.

They agreed to allow us to train them on how to play on social media and how to interact with our content. Our Social Jack™ Influencer Team Training purposely keeps it simple and easy for busy people to play the game with us and it’s proven to be highly effective. Board Members also agreed to connect us to the next level of the network, the Speaker Team.

2. Speaker Team (Level Two) – The Speakers were all connected to the Board Members (Team One), so we worked to have them reach out and ask the Speakers to play with our content. We then also provide weekly online coaching sessions for all clients and subscribers so they have a place to go. Don’t forget to also include the Speakers’ brands as part of the game! On our Social Jack™ Platform, we also record all training and coaching sessions for review. We then reach out to all Speakers and invite them to participate. When we have more time, we offer our training and coaching program for Speakers; unfortunately, for this run we could not organize our training for all Speakers.

See Speakers List

3. Sponsor Team (Level Three) – Sponsors typically are invested; however, many do not know how to play socially. We had the Board Members with the best relationships personally contact the Sponsors and ask them to participate; some even sent email blasts in addition to social posting and engagement. Most are typically invested as they too want the eyeballs on their brand — or they would not be Sponsors. We watched and helped the Sponsors boost their message as part of the process. Reciprocity is part of the success recipe here!

4. Connected Influencer Team (Level Four) – This is our “secret sauce”: so, we find the Influencer Players in our network, depending on the type of event, audience, etc. Sometimes we have more and sometimes less. In this case we reached out to everyone — from media contacts related to sports and everyone we knew in FINTECH. We wound up with a team of about 35 people of which about 20 played nicely. There was a great variety of participation, ranging from emails to social media placement of banner ads to attendance. Too many to mention here, suffice it to say however that we could not have done it without these players in this process.

Time to Play

Once we have team connections and agreements in place, it’s really time to play! As soon as we had the board trained, we then mapped out our messaging with emails, social media and advertising. We had to move fast since we had a super short promotion window, with very little time for testing. We had to lead out with our best guestimates for the message and tweak on the fly as needed.

We created content calendars and sent those out to all the team players that were trained and those that had agreed to play with us online. As always, some jumped in right away and some needed a little nudge and still others did not show up. No-shows are a hard fact, but in this case, most showed up to play with us online and some even went the extra mile with sending extra emails and even posted their own supply of social media. The most important thing is for all team members to understand what and when you will be posting so they can interact with you, so the best bet is to have your content done in advance, let speakers and sponsors know when they will be featured and where, and then communicate like crazy on approach.

Ongoing Coaching Support

In our weekly Social Jack™ coaching sessions, we provide unlimited support for all clients and students. This means if they want to understand LinkedIn more, we teach that; if they want to play more on Twitter, we teach that. Whatever they need we are there to help them. This way they never feel alone in the game, and for many this is a new game for them. We understand that many of these people are new to this game and we want them to succeed just by being part of the event.

That Extra Reach

To continue this thought, think about if you have a speaker that only has 50 followers on Twitter, then you show them how to get another 20, then how to attach to their brand and other influencers in their world. You are now changing the game one person, one network at a time. We literally received many inquiries and orders just from this method alone.

In this case we had:

8 Board Members

7 Sponsors

13 Speakers

20 Connected Influencers

The total estimated “targeted” social reach ended up being over 75 million connections, and that is a very conservative estimate.

The Outcome: 85 attendees for a paid event within 20 days!

One More Thing

Always think of the “one more thing”: what is one more tweet, post, share or like that can be done and where. We went into LinkedIn Groups, Alumni Groups and other areas, and in the home stretch that also helped. So, remember when doing this, stick to the plan and — like you do at the gym — always go for one more thing!

There were many more things that we did behind the scenes as part of our process, but I hope this brings you ideas and thoughts of how you can bring more people to your events through Influencer Marketing. We are all Influencers and have a powerful network once it is activated, it’s just that some of us are new and just starting out. Remember that the largest Influencers started with just a few followers at some point and built up to what you now know. The cool thing is that it is never too late to start.

For many of you this seems way out there, it is new, it is growing, it is changing all the time. If you want to know more or want to get a walk-through of our system, I encourage you to visit our website or our Coaching and Training Platform.

Oh — one more thing, remember as you start your journey, you are never alone as long as you follow the Social Teaming methodology described earlier in this blog post. Please let us know how you do as you grow your brand and yourself as an influencer, we would love to feature you or maybe refer to you during one of our upcoming events. After all, our event clients are always looking for the next up-and-coming influencer!

We will see you online…. Influencing!

Aug 2017

7 Steps to Promote Your Podcast Interview – Increase Your Influencerness [yes, I made up this word!]

So you have been asked to be a guest on a podcast…Great! In the spirit of Influencer Marketing,

7 Steps to Promote Your Podcast Interview – Increase Your Influencerness [yes, I made up this word!]

Article, Branding, Business Building Tips, Social Jack Best Practices blog, dean delisle, forward progress, Itunes, linkedin, Marketing, personal branding, podcast, podcasting, social jack, social teaming, technori Dean

So you have been asked to be a guest on a podcast…Great! In the spirit of Influencer Marketing, we hope it receives plenty of traction and social reach. In our previous blog, How to be a Social Influencer, we spoke of being a “Thought Leader” and turning on the “Content Machine”. Fortunately for you, podcasting is a great way to do just that. People get to hear your voice, know your personality, gain insights and knowledge from you, and even better, you can attach the podcast to blogs like this and to social media. In fact, my previous blog references a podcast I was on — speaking about this very topic. Once you follow the steps I describe below, your podcast will also support your efforts in Personal Branding, described in another one of our blogs, Personal Branding – A Great Start to your Social Selling Journey!

With so many of you getting interviewed, we thought we should tell you what to do before, during and after the podcast. For Social Jack™, we have a promotion process for each and every production, whether it be a podcast or webcast, so the best thing to do is understand some critical information about the podcast you are working with. Examples include what is their promotion cycle, what is their timing, etc. We reference this in the following list of steps.

7 Steps to promote your podcast interview

1. Promote on social media and other outlets 2 weeks before, if the podcast producers have a show schedule that references you. There is typically a website they have for the blog that will mention upcoming shows. You should sync the timing of this “xx” with any posting of your show. If they don’t have one, you can choose to promote a couple of weeks before, no further out than that. Once you’ve done this, you can tag and link back to that show, discussing how you are looking forward to the podcast.

2. Notify your Team! Remember Social Teaming, it is the essence of teamwork: you’re not doing this this all alone! Tell them you are on this podcast, ask them to watch for social media, ask them to listen and provide feedback and get in the game with you! It’s collaborative, and it’s fun. You will also pick up more podcasts and speaking gigs this way too, it’s proven.

3. Ahead of schedule, plan to blog about it, then you can have a link to the show from the blog post. This will provide good traffic between your site and theirs (and remember to use ample keywords). Also consider shooting a video talking about the upcoming podcast, or plan one for the release date of the podcast.

4. Promote the podcast on social media the day of the show recording; some podcast producers promote as well, but others do not because it locks them into a production release schedule.

5. Once the podcast is published, it’s time for you to go gonzo, tag your show and host, also remember all your channels. Once published, go ahead and cut lose with the blog or update the blog if done ahead of time.

6. 30 and 90 days after: (if relevant to your current business you can thank them and repost) – don’t forget use of #hashtags and @tags!

7. Forever after…. Keep using the podcast in your content cycle as long as it is relevant!

Now, go do the next podcast interview and keep following this protocol to put yourself out there to support your influencerness (yes, I made up this word just for you!) ?

PRO TIP: Remember to always listen to your blog interview and think about what you could have done better or said better to improve your position as a thought leader. Also, listen to your competitors and colleague’s podcasts as well. You should always be looking for those nuggets to be better.

TOP RESOURCE: We recently did a full course on podcasting with top Podcaster Scott Kitun, from Technori, one of the top-rated media podcasts featured on WGN Radio, here in Chicago. Below is access to the slides; if you would like access to the full class we did, simply go to Social Jack™ and join for a 90-day free trial and you will have access to this class and over 200 others for that period — and weekly coaching, too. This is our gift to you for being part of our community.

To learn more about Podcasting, check out Podcasting 101 Marketing on SlideShare

In closing, let us know when your podcast airs and the team at Social Jack™ will gladly listen and promote your efforts. Remember, we are on your Social Team and we are all in this together!

See you online!

Aug 2017

Employee Advocacy & Social Teaming – The Evidence and Numbers Are In – But Wait

So, @Social Media Today had a great article titled 12 Reasons why Your Business Should be Utilizing Employee Advocacy,

Employee Advocacy & Social Teaming – The Evidence and Numbers Are In – But Wait

Article, Blogging, Branding, Business Building Tips, Education, Social Jack Best Practices, Social Media News blog, dean delisle, Employee Advocacy, linkedin, News, social media, Social Media Today Dean

So, @Social Media Today had a great article titled 12 Reasons why Your Business Should be Utilizing Employee Advocacy, with a great Infographic from @LinkedIn. This was fantastic for me — and timely – because I had some talks lined up on Employee Advocacy and Social Teaming. I’d like to highlight the numbers I think are the most relevant here.

On Average, a company’s employees have 10X as many connections as the company has followers. 10 Times? Yes — and this is proven. In many of our Social Selling and Social Culture programs, we know for a fact that the average employee has 240 connections, and with their two degrees of connections, their social reach hits about 3.8 million connections. Now, to be sure, they won’t reach all those connections, and they’ll need a level of frequency to establish success, however their potential of reach to the company is far greater. The company page needs to rely on followers and there are only two ways to get followers: from existing followers (like employees) engaging, or from advertising. On average, the employee page has only 3% of the potential reach of the employees, and that is best case from our experience.

Every two employee shares from the company page on @LinkedIn result in a company page view, every six shares results in a Company Page follower! Wow, that is staggering, that is all it takes? Well, almost. We need the participation of those employees. How does that happen, how is that orchestrated?

Let me give you a real-life example from one of our clients, American Family Insurance. While at a recent conference, I was able to listen to long-time associate @TomBuchheim, who led the charge at American Family for their Employee Advocacy Program. I have always known they were on it, and proud to say I have been there since the early days of social, and frankly their approach was brilliant. In fact, it was very synergistic to our Social Teaming methodology for sales and culture development.

He mentioned how they formed teams of champions that would act as advocates for the brand and be willing to share content provided by the company to their LinkedIn pages. They started with a small group, then they continued to grow the teams. They created rewards and recognition for their efforts and it bonded the team and humanized the brand. They are even now tracking the success of this program to new business. They had so much success that it became the “in thing”, to a point where people are lining up to be on the next selection. “Pick me!” is how ! Imagine that.

So you see, these are simple metrics which prove the value of employee advocacy. Tom’s story at American Family Insurance is evidence and it continues to grow. We are excited because all of our programs at @Social Jack, Sales, Career, Recruiting and Culture have Social Teaming at the core. In fact here is our definition below, see how it resonates to the story above.

Social Team Definition

A group of professionals who have complimentary skills (1) driving to a common objective, goal or destination for which they (2) hold themselves mutually accountable for collective performance. They stay constant on their journey with the (3) purpose of building stronger relationships, trust and always think of other team members with genuine reciprocity. A Social Team (4) utilizes online social networks and the power of their targeted connections, within their sphere of influence, to (5) enhance the team’s relationships, reach, performance and success in reaching their common destination.

If you would like to read more, check out our blog post on Social Teaming:

Social Teaming – It's All About Who You Know.

Here is a snapshot and link to the revolutionary infographic by LinkedIn

So whether you are in the middle of this and working to figure it out, ask us about Social Teaming to energize this effort. If you’re not sure if management will approve it, show these numbers and this great infographic by LinkedIn to your boss. Think of it as “it is time or get left behind”, because it’s just too easy and it promotes culture development at the same time. What are you waiting for?

We hope to see you and your employees online and working together for a stronger brand!

Jul 2017

Storytelling Best Practices – Microsoft’s Miri Rodriquez tells how they do it

Recently we hosted my good friend Miri Rodriquez from Microsoft at Business Accelerator Webcast sponsored by American Family Insurance — and we learned a

Storytelling Best Practices – Microsoft’s Miri Rodriquez tells how they do it

Business, Business Building Tips, Social Jack Best Practices amfam, dean delisle, forward progress, linkedin, microsoft, Miri Rodriguez, social teaming, socilajack, storytelling Dean

Recently we hosted my good friend Miri Rodriquez from Microsoft at Business Accelerator Webcast sponsored by American Family Insurance — and we learned a lot!

Miri recently shifted roles at Microsoft; from Social Media to Storyteller. Would we even think that this – Storyteller — would ever be a corporate position, and at Microsoft? This digital world really grows in fun and crazy ways! I believe she said Microsoft employs over 1,000 Storytellers.

It might seem easy and cool, but remember she had to switch from Social Media to Storytelling, which meant moving to a much more technical gig. Miri literally has to work with engineers and determine the best way to tell their story.

Let’s share a few simple things we learned from her:

1. They really love to humanize the brand by sharing stories of achievement, and that’s a move I really like. What’s more, they don’t just share the glory, they share all the up’s and downs, keeping it real and totally authentic. Kudos to Microsoft. They talk about Movement, Heroism, Betterment and Destination. If you who know me you also know that I am all about the destination! So remember to keep the story real, make sure to talk about all of it, ranging from your challenges to your wins.

2. Another key learning for all of us is to stay consistent through personality, tone and purpose; yes, purpose. I like this, we talk about it all the time, but think about sticking to this when at a company the size of Microsoft! When we at @ForwardProgress work on social media accounts, we practice this consistency and integration, and we have a guide for each client on this topic. Microsoft has a platform-based guide that dictates these guidelines and it is the responsibility of the Storyteller to actually read and understand any updates before the next story. Big lesson we can all earn here! Easy, practical and effective.

3. Remember to build assets and share them on all channels. There are several ways to do this. You can build assets like video on YouTube and connect networks by sharing from one Social Network to another so that you can drive new users to your story. It’s really that easy.

4. Remember to include influencers: just like we are telling a story here about Storytelling and connecting Miri, Microsoft, American Family and our brands, you can do the same thing. The goal is to tell your story and include others, don’t go it alone. As you develop your brand, celebrate it with others and allow them to celebrate it too. Remember the other key factor of transparency, notice that Miri has it listed three times above.

Summary with Bonus

To summarize, make sure you know your story; you can even test it with others and get feedback. Then once you have it, “Tell it Well”; it shapes your personal brand and you as a professional. Remember to build some guidelines and content to share, learn and build as you go. Also, remember to tell REAL stories of REAL people and how your company or you helped them achieve their goals. Lastly, don’t go it alone, ask others that care about your mission for help. If you are part of our Social Jack members, use your Social Team, and make sure you put it out there! I will add one thing [it’s the bonus!] as I am going through this myself now: once you land on your story, update your Social Media profiles! Do not forget!

If you would like to see a copy of this broadcast, please see the link below in the Business Accelerator Event Center. You can also get access to hundreds of other articles and previous recordings.

Access to recording:

https://www.dreamfearlessly.com/event/live-webcast-telling-your-brands-story-with-microsofts-miri-rodriguez/

I hope you found this as useful as I did, see you online soon!

Mar 2017

Five Steps to an Effective, Sustainable, High Performance Content Plan

On Tuesday, September 27th I will be traveling to San Francisco to speak at the Social Media Strategies

Five Steps to an Effective, Sustainable, High Performance Content Plan

Blogging, Business, Business Building Tips Dean

On Tuesday, September 27^th I will be traveling to San Francisco to speak at the Social Media Strategies Summit with many of my colleagues. Since a majority of you won’t be attending the event, I thought I would share an exclusive blog on a some of the information I will be presenting that day. If you’d like to attend the event in San Francisco and see more on this session, get your tickets here.

Whether you’re a beginner, or a senior level expert in social media and content marketing, your content plans have to better than ever. They should help you hit your goals and objectives. In my workshop, I will show you what is currently working with brands, and how to build and deploy efficiently.

Writers block can happen to anyone, below I’ll help you find five fresh ideas to include in your current, and future content marketing plans.

First let’s break down the fundamentals of content marketing:

We practice relationship marketing to build trust, rapport, an emotional connection and because, well, relationship marketing has the numbers to back it up. This allows our content to be more connected to the audience.
When we engage with customers, they’re more likely to buy from us (87% of survey respondents indicate that online social engagement with a brand positively impacts their likelihood to purchase).
Now here are the five steps that will help your content marketing plans:
1. Make a plan – figure out your main goals, your target market, where you want to be found, and what you have to offer.
2. Target – identify and clearly realize you are always in a conversation with your content, so make sure you know your target and your target is speaking to that target audience.
3. Commit – to engage with your new and old relationships, have ownership and a schedule and let them know of your content.
4. Value – always communicate how you can help others, how do you compare to the competition, what makes you different and what products and services do you provide?
5. Schedule and Launch – Create a realistic consistent schedule. Start generating valuable content, interact and engage with customers and prospects, build those relationships, and once you decide to start, don’t stop. Setup a schedule of success so your content becomes a place where your target audience knows they can come to for reliable, valuable advice and answers.
Implement these steps into your content marketing plan and let me know how the results are. We hope this helps you with your adventures in content marketing, whether you are a beginner or expert, there is always a next step in your journey.

At the summit, we will do a live broadcast recap on our SocialJack.TV program, so tune in September 27^th to get an inside view of SMSS San Francisco, meet keynotes speakers and even win in our prize giveaways. If you would like a free membership to Social Jack™ Training and Coaching, plus the program, click HERE TO SIGNUP.

Sep 2016

How to get your dream job in 8 steps or less

You took your last final two months ago, you walked across a grand stage and shook the Dean’s

How to get your dream job in 8 steps or less

Article, Blogging, Business, Business Building Tips, Facebook college, college graduate, diploma, job, social jack Dean

You took your last final two months ago, you walked across a grand stage and shook the Dean’s hand, and now your diploma just is collecting dust at your parent’s house. For young college graduates, the unemployment rate is currently 7.2 percent (compared with 5.5 percent in 2007), and the underemployment rate is 14.9 percent (compared with 9.6 percent in 2007). Employers are looking to hire employees who come through referrals. Think about the saying, “it’s who you know, not what you know.”

Pick your destination:
Before applying for a job, think about the location in which you envision yourself and where you want to work. This means you will have to decide which industry you will want to pursue, which company interests you the most or geographically where you see yourself. Regardless which one it is, you will want to pick that destination.
Targeting Individuals.
Next you will want to identify and name the targets. Make a list of what type of people would be connected to the destination you strive to be at. If it is a particular company you are interested in, connect with the employees currently there. A good starting place is to connect with the head of HR, and send them a message introducing yourself and that you applied for a position. You will want to have a clear vision of that target individual looks like. Within the target, you will want to focus on “hubs” or organizations that would contain those people. This would be associations you are a part of, your alumni group, chambers of commerce or past conferences you’ve attended. There all kinds of past involvement that you can tap in to for career opportunities.
Social Media Accounts:
Make sure to update your profiles so that they are consistently representing who you are as a person, and for where you want to go on your destination. Build your LinkedIn page to its maximum worth. The use of social media for for recruitment has grown 54% in the the past 5 years. A recent SHRM study found that 84 percent of organizations are now recruiting on social media; only 56 percent of companies were hiring on social media in 2011.
Current State Team:
Then you will build your current state team. Start by looking at everybody within your circle of influence and build a team of people. You then match those people with the targets you identified with.
Get Connected:
After that you will then make sure you are connected with that team on social media like LinkedIn. If these people are personal connections, follow them on virtual hang out places, that could be Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. This will be different for different team members
Stay Connected:
The next step is to pick four people a day to connect and have conversation with to then build your rapport and your connection with deepen. You want to let these people know what your destination goal is. By reacting out, having simple conversations, being genuine and authentic, you will have access into their networks and can connect with them. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to ask questions, because your end goal is to get into that destination, company or industry
Scouting:
Scouting for new team members on the professional side is seen as almost identical to scouting for a sports team. One thing that is easy but challenging for people is to let go of current team members who are not getting you to your end destination (Derrick Rose to the Knicks??). Thus, we have a scouting and drafting process in our Social Jack system that helps people bring new team members on board. We recommend that you go our Social Jack website and get a free account, and you will have access to the training we provide. It’s easy and fun!
You’re hired!
Enjoy the benefits that come along with getting hired., most importantly tak
e advantage of the snacks! We promise that if you follow these steps, and get into a routine on this, your network will ideally connect you to your ideal destination.

We’ve successful training over 100,000 professionals, (high school, college, graduate students) with this simple process yet if you stick with it, it works. Make sure to share this blog post with your recent college graduates.

Aug 2016

Microsoft buys LinkedIn for $26.2 billion: Good for business, bad for social?

In reading recent articles the last couple of weeks, it seems there are mixed reviews on the good

Microsoft buys LinkedIn for $26.2 billion: Good for business, bad for social?

Article, Blogging, Business, Business Building Tips, Social Media News, Social Selling linkedin, microsoft, social jack, social media, social selling Dean

In reading recent articles the last couple of weeks, it seems there are mixed reviews on the good and the bad around the purchase of LinkedIn. I have a few thoughts on this:

Microsoft has stated that it has plans to integrate LinkedIn and Social Selling into its existing CRM product, Microsoft Dynamics CRM- which is second to sales. I believe this is great for Microsoft but not so sure how it will impact the rest of us that do not use Microsoft CRM. There are also current LinkedIn tools, like “Sales Navigator,” that work well in the sales force. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

My personal thoughts are that Microsoft is genius at wanting to own the data that LinkedIn has. The business intelligence that LinkedIn has from a social perspective of how people are connected and how people work and communicate together, there is nothing out there like this. Microsoft will be able to obtain social trends, social data, business trends, business data all blended together. I believe this is the main reason why they wanted to do this and also give new life to their new CRM products.
Microsoft has historically not been that successful when it comes to social networking or social media. This to me validates that now they’re seeing the value, and it has increased, of social media and social networking. Many people think that this is potentially the death of social media, where these platforms cannot survive on their own, however I believe just the opposite. Microsoft has proven the value of connection, which is what we teach in our Social Jack training programs on coaching individuals the value of their connections based on their own ROI (Return of Investment).

The fact that Microsoft paid $26.2 billion in cash for 433 million users, tells me that they found the cost per user came out to be $60. In our system, we look at it by value of user based on the ROI and outcome of the relationship, which is expediently more. The fact that Microsoft has placed a value on those connections, which have relationships, shows us that there is a value in social networks and connections.

So, connect with someone new today and you never know where it will take you.

Jul 2016

Social Jack is the new standard in Social Selling for Exit Planning Institute Members

Our new partnership with EPI, Exit Planning Institute, started in late May, when I traveled to the University of

Social Jack is the new standard in Social Selling for Exit Planning Institute Members

Article, Blogging, Business, Business Building Tips, Social Selling EPI, Press Release, social jack, social selling Dean

Our new partnership with EPI, Exit Planning Institute, started in late May, when I traveled to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, to certify some of their workers with CEPA. I am proud to announce that Social Jack is their official Social Selling learning provider for EPI.

The Exit Planning Institute is the premier provider of education, networking, professional development, and tools for exit planning professionals worldwide. Exit Planning Institute whose representatives are typically wealth managers, financial services, accountants, and other business related careers, want to add exit planning to their book of business.

Our Social Selling technique is essentially another product line for their members. Social Selling can be defined as, “the interaction between two people to get to an entire network.” This functions no differently than when people build a sports team. That’s the system we use: scouting, drafting, and building a core team around your book of business.

At EPI, we have been brought in to be part of their sales track, part of adding the view add of Exit Planning Institute is that they teach and certify you in how to help a business strategy exit but they also help teach you how to sale those services.

This is where the Social Jack curriculum, and modules for Social Selling have now become a standard as part of their modules that they deliver to the membership. We’re so excited to start working with EPI and their members to help them produce more new business by generating this new product and by having the knowledge of leveraging Social Jack and Social Selling.

Now let’s break down our business plan. Our curriculum is about people teaching people how to do social teaming. Social teaming is when people who are in practice management, (accountants and wealth managers) that have a network, but they don’t know how to organize their network. We then step in and teach them to structure their network, clients, friends and family and then convert that to into a powerful team to generate referrals.

As part of their CEPA certification, members of EPI are enrolled into two classes. The first was Social Selling 101: How to harness the power of social selling and thought leadership and Social Selling 201: How to build your influential network. Then members will migrate and become members of the Social Jack system, where they will be introduced to all 15 modules, bi-monthly coaching, and library of over 200 other classes.

About Social Jack

Social Jack is a Micro-Learning coaching and training platform that allows you to learn at your pace for your own objectives, sales, career, culture, business building or lifesyle. We use Social Teaming as an exclusive core to all of our programs. All learners will set an objective, get a game plan and quickly move into result driven power moves with a proven system. Over 100,000 professionals have been coaching and trained on this system and more information can be found at www.SocialJack.com.

About EPI

EPI is emerging as a worldwide recognized leader in the exit planning industry and is on a wave of momentum, powered by a strong, active community of CEPAs, members, faculty, board and leading industry experts. Our team is dedicated to accomplishing this vision, providing leading educational opportunities, certification programs, events, member support, and industry research for exit planning professionals in the United States and worldwide. More information about can be found at http://www.exit-planning-institute.org.

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