“What would I even write about on LinkedIn?”

Leah Neaderthal0:00

you're listening to the smart gets paid podcast with me, Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. But I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's so I taught myself how to do it, and I created a sales approach that feels comfortable, makes you feel confident, and that works consistently. And now I teach women how to land higher in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. So whether your client contracts are $2,000 or $200,000 if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever imagined, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Welcome to Smart gets paid. Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for tuning into this episode. I hope that wherever you are and wherever you're listening to this, you're having a great week and making some great progress in your business, and also taking some time for yourself. So I'm still thinking about the previous episode that we did a couple weeks ago. That was episode 28 about the confidence to show up. And if you haven't listened to it yet, it's a really good, just honest conversation that shines a light on so many of the things that we feel as women business owners, things like not being good enough, or about do I have anything to say, or this underlying feeling like everyone else might be more accomplished, or has it more together than we do? And actually, if you haven't listened to that episode, Episode 28 you might actually want to stop listening to this one and go back and listen to that one first and then come back here. Because in this episode, it's sort of a follow up to that one. And we're talking about once you decide you want to start showing up and posting on LinkedIn, what do you actually say because, you know, we can talk about overcoming limiting beliefs, about showing up and unpacking why we feel uncomfortable posting, and we did that in the previous episode, but then at some point you do have to, like, put pen to paper, so to speak, which these days looks Like, you know, opening up a new Google Doc, and you do have to start writing, and that's what we're going to talk about today. And when you do that, you have to answer the question, What am I going to write about? But most of the time, when I talk to women consultants and coaches, that question doesn't sound like, what am I going to write about? It comes out like, what would I even write about, you know, what would I even say that has meaning that interesting, that anyone would want to hear or that anyone would care about? And, of course, you know, I have like, 1000 thoughts about that, and I teach those thoughts and that methodology in the pack your pipeline system about how to get seen on LinkedIn. But I wanted to hear from my clients who've done this system and hear what they would say to this woman. Because I have to tell you, everyone struggles with this question, this question of what would I even write about? Everyone struggles with it. To some degree. I struggled with it before I started testing out the techniques on LinkedIn that would eventually become the pack, your pipeline system, and the woman that you're going to hear from today, they struggled with it too. And it's not just women business owners. I was actually talking to a woman who is the Chief Technology Officer of a software company. She is in the C suite. She leads a team of 20 developers. She's involved in every strategic business decision. You know, we were talking about LinkedIn, and she said to me, Well, what would I even write about? And it was just such a brilliant example of like the truth, which is that at every level, no matter who you are, we still, to some degree, doubt our abilities and doubt that we have something to say. So like I said, the women that you're going to hear from today, they felt the same way, And they overcame that feeling. They learned that they did have something to say, and then they learned how to distill that into posts on LinkedIn, which they also use for content like newsletters and other stuff like that. And so I've invited them to share their advice here, and after you listen to what they have to say, and there's so much goodness there, then I'm going to come back and offer a lesson that you can apply to your business. All right, so remember, the question here is, when it comes to posting on LinkedIn, what would I even write about? All right, here you go.

4:33

Before answering the question, I would consider how writing posts for LinkedIn is different from traditional business writing. There's no arbiter of what's valid or important. There's no larger corporate agenda. So you get to decide whether you write about your experience, your opinions, your successes, or how you take your coffee. Be so I would go back and ask the question with different emphasis and with some curiosity, what would I write about?

5:12

What I would say to her when she's thinking that she has nothing to say is, of course, you do, and you've probably already said it. So when I first started posting on LinkedIn, I went back to a conference presentation I had given years before, and I started pulling nuggets out of it. And then I found articles I had written, and I started pulling nuggets out of those. And then I started thinking about conversations I'd had with walking shop, and I started to pull nuggets out of those. These are all things I've said before, just in a completely different context. And once you start to sort of go back through your own personal archive, you realize you have a ton of things to say, and you would be surprised how interested people actually are.

5:55

I thought this was such an interesting question, because it's actually one that comes up for me with my clients. I'm a book coach, and it's the same essential problem. It's like making yourself visible out there in the world. It's about saying, Hey, look at me and my ideas. They're important. And I think it's often the same kinds of blockers behind people wanting to share their unique take on the world, or even seeing that their take on the world is unique. And so what I would say to her is, what do you not see other people saying? What do you think is missing from the conversation out there already? What annoys you? What kinds of things do people say that you think are myths about your niche or your area of expertise, because often that's where, in my case, the book idea is buried, but also it's the source of really interesting kinds of content that will really stand out on LinkedIn. And I know before I did PYP, I thought of LinkedIn as too kind of corporate for the kinds of things I wanted to talk about, but I found out that it wasn't, and that my content stood out to some extent because it was less corporate.

7:11

What I would say to this person is the genius, your genius, your expertise, to you is just the wallpaper. It's the air you live and breathe, it's the water you swim in. So to you, it just seems like, yeah, obvious. Of course, you know who would care to read about that. But the truth is, even the smallest insight and the little story that you tell could have a huge impact on somebody else, because it's not their wallpaper, it's not the air they live and breathe. So what it means is taking a step back from the wall or out of the ocean to look and take a day where you go through the day with a little sticky notepad in your in your pocket, and notice, what are the insights you share, what are the conversations you're having, what are the questions people ask? And every hour, you know, even if you if you're paying attention in that way, every hour, you can probably come up with two or three posts for LinkedIn that are really the basic bite size ideas of your work that again, to you, it's the air you live and breathe. To somebody else, it could totally rock their world and open a door for them and make something new possible. So it's about really recognizing that your expertise, even this tiniest bite size piece of it, could make a big difference to somebody else.

8:29

So I knew I needed to do it for, I don't know, years. I mean, I was, I was active on LinkedIn, but I wasn't posting until I started doing popular pipeline. And it was that same overwhelm of I don't know what I'm going to post or anything to say. And so when you start to refine those topics, like you show us how to do and then use the tools that you gave us, it just now, it's a system, and I can actually bang out 12 posts. So it feels very effortless, and it feels very just like what I do now. So I've only do, I only do post three days a week, but I haven't missed a day since I started last November. It's been lost a year. So I would say, like, based on the question that you asked, that even though you know you need to do something doesn't mean that you're going to do it if you don't have a system, and that's what pack your pipeline gave me.

9:10

First thing I would say is that you'll never be ready. So if you wait until you're ready, you will never start. So you just need to start, and once you start, you're going to find ideas everywhere there will be something you read the kick off, an idea, the way, I don't know, the way your dog behaves, something someone says to you, an interaction you observe between people at work or at the grocery store. The more you post, the more ideas you have, and the more aware your your idea antenna will be it's, it's kind of magical that way. Really, I didn't think I would be able to post every day, but I've actually got more ideas than I know what to do with at this point. So really, the only way to start is to start dive in, get going on it and have fun with it, play, let, let your personality out. And it really, actually does end up being a lot of fun.

Leah Neaderthal9:59

I. Oh my gosh, it's all so good as a coach, this is the stuff that makes me so happy hearing the after, how my clients feel and what they offer after they've overcome all the things. So that was Marina arrow car management consultant and founder of Hampstead solutions. Emily weisgrow fundraising consultant and founder of weisswood strategies. Sophie Dale, book coach and founder of fully booked studio. Johanna Walker, speaking and storytelling coach at Johanna walker.com Casa grant, founder of Casa grant communications and grace. Judson, leadership coach and consultant at Grace. Judson.com thank you. Thank you. Thank you to each of you for sharing your wisdom and advice here, and you guys go check them out, connect with them on LinkedIn, and please thank them for sharing their thoughts here. We're going to put their information in the show notes. So there is so much here, so much goodness. And I just want to leave you with one additional thought that you can apply to your business. So I started my career at big ad agencies. I worked at DDB and Leo Burnett. And then after that, I went in house to a mid sized tech company, and I worked in corporate marketing. And in those jobs, I was just really comfortable, you know, just sort of putting my head down and doing the work. And I was lucky. I had great bosses, and so my work would get noticed, and as a result, I'd get promotions and new opportunities and all from just doing good work. It never occurred to me to promote myself or talk about what I was doing or toot my own horn. I mean, that just made me so uncomfortable, and not to mention, especially in those first big ad agencies where I worked, nobody wanted, or even expected a super junior person like me to be touting their achievements. So I did great work, you know, in the background. And I talked to a lot of women who spent their careers doing the same thing. And there's a lot written about how women tend to do this. You know, we tend to sort of put our heads down, do great work, and expect or hope that it gets us, you know, promotions and achievements, and it does sometimes. But you know, in reality, we're often surpassed by men or other employees who can tout their own accomplishments. But anyway, this is the way so many of us feel comfortable, you know, working in the background, and then we start our businesses, and we tend to do the same thing. You know, we do great work, and we hope that it gets us noticed. But here's the thing, when you're running a business, doing great work in the background does not get you noticed. It does not get you clients. It doesn't get you business. It's what my client Betsy Talbot calls being quietly awesome. And it might have worked when you worked for somebody else, but it just doesn't work when you're running your own business. When you're running your own business, you have to make yourself seen. I found this quote a while back from Jenny Sundin, who's a media researcher, and she put it perfectly. She said, in order to exist online, we must write ourselves into being. So if you're not writing or, you know, maybe you like video, if you're not doing something to write yourself into being. The truth of the internet is that you just don't exist online, and your business doesn't exist online. And I know that sounds super harsh, but it's true. And if you don't exist online, and if your business doesn't exist online, then you can't be found by the clients who need what you do and who want to work with you. So don't be quietly awesome. Write yourself into being, and if you want help and a system and tools, check out smart gets paid.com and set up a call with a member of my team, and we'll help you figure out if one of our programs is a good fit for you. Hey, everything we're talking about in this episode is part of the system. Women like you are learning in the academy. In the Academy, we help women consultants install the two systems every B to B consultant needs a marketing system to consistently attract the right clients and a sales system to lead a sales process to a yes and get paid more for every contract. So even if you've only gotten clients through referrals or word of mouth in the academy, you'll learn how to attract and sign clients outside your network, how to lead a sales process with confidence and how to get paid for your value, not your time. And There's no cold calling or cold emailing involved, no changing your services or making a course, and you won't use any pushy sales tactics. That's just not our vibe. So if you like what you've heard here, the academy may be your right next step to learn how you can get these two systems in your consulting business and make progress faster and with fewer roadblocks. Head to smart gets paid.com/academy and apply, and we can chat about next steps. All right, see you over there. You. Transcribed by https://otter.ai