Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #368: The Top Hacks To Elevate Your Influence, Attract Clients & Crush Your Goals This Year with Heather and Melanie Borden!

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Click here to get your spot at the November 2nd live masterclass and get ready to take your brand and revenue to the next level! Use Code ELEVATE for $500 off your seat - we have payment plans for you too! Click here to learn more now: https://bit.ly/HM10MC Thank you! To check out OneSkin click here! https://shareasale.com/u.cfm?d=1054216&m=102446&u=3821794&afftrack= To get your 15% one time use discount use code: Confidence Remember if you opt in for the subscription you can cancel any time but you can only use the discount code once. In This Episode You Will Learn About: The best tips to building a personal brand that will bring in business How to curate a space for your audience to thrive The easiest way to build content without becoming burnt out Our Elevate Your Influence Masterclass that will take your LinkedIn to the next level Resources: Sign up for our Masterclass: elevateyourinfluencemasterclass.com Use the code: ELEVATE to receive $500 off for the next 48 hours Join the Live Q&A on LinkedIn on 10/27 Website: humantobrand.com  LinkedIn: Melanie Borden Visit heathermonahan.com Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/monahan, all lowercase Go to 4Patriots.com and use code CONFIDENCE to get 10% off. Show Notes:  What are you doing with your personal brand? If you aren’t utilizing the tools around you to leverage your voice, you are leaving valuable opportunities on the table! Don’t squander your potential anymore! In this solo unlike any other, I am not actually alone. I am joined by successful LinkedIn influencer, personal branding expert and Managing Member of The Borden Group, Melanie Borden, who will share all her best tips on using LinkedIn to skyrocket your personal brand. Plus we will reveal our upcoming Masterclass, Elevate Your Influence, that you will NOT want to miss! So what are you waiting for? Listen in! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We've come adversity and set you up for better tomorrow. That's our new secret. I'm ready for my close time. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me this week.

Now, I know that you're used to me doing my solo episodes. By the way, do you love my solo episodes? Let me know. Always leave me a review. Give me the feedback. Post on social media. That's how I know this is working for you. No one succeeds alone and that is a huge girl.

Okay, today I am not alone, because nobody succeeds alone. You gotta have good people around you. And today I have my friend Melanie Borden a freaking incredible massive LinkedIn influencer. And today she is joining me. We're launching our first ever co-led masterclass, which is so freaking incredible

because I am not the expert in LinkedIn marketing, branding and positioning that Melanie is. So I'm bringing the experts in with me and we are launching our first ever masterclass. You are gonna love it. We're gonna break it all down for you. And today we're gonna give you some of the best tips, tricks, stories, success stories

and things you can apply back to your life to take your brand to elevate yourself to the next level and drive more revenue, more success for yourself. Melanie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. And I will also say that I do think that you're an expert in all of the above because I follow you. And I watch you and I followed you from the moment I started being active on LinkedIn. So there's that.

That but you know what's interesting and this is a lesson that I've held on to since I learned it in 2020. 2020, anyone can be a mentor in one moment and anyone can be a mentee a moment later. And I think that that's something really important for everyone listening to understand. Yeah, I can be seen as an expert in some regards and teach certain things around branding and LinkedIn. But for me, I also like to take a step back and say, I'm going to sit on this side now and learn from Melanie because you are an expert. You do have different expertise. You do have a different way of doing that's worked

incredibly well. And one of the things that I like is about what you've done and I'd love for you to share your story is how you transition and explode and so quickly by really stepping into your authenticity and how that attracted so much business to you. I think it's important for everyone here because everybody has the power to do this.

Break it down for us. Absolutely. So in 2020, I was completely freaked out by everything that was happening with the pandemic. And I knew that I had to do something at the time I had no social presence. I didn't have a website. I was working for someone else and the company that I was working for laid off about 95% of the entire organization, which was 400 plus people. And I could just sit there thinking what's going to happen. And as a single parent, I just thought, okay, I need to take control for myself because no one else is going to do it for me but me. And I started just becoming active on LinkedIn. I was working as a VP of Marketing for a dealer group in Northern New Jersey and New York. And we had just finished this training for all of the sales team to create their personal brands on LinkedIn.

But I wasn't doing anything to the extent that I am now, but I was just kind of getting into it. I was really just starting to explore the platform, but COVID in the pandemic really pushed me outside of my comfort zone to start posting, because I saw this opportunity with LinkedIn, because I thought, how do I reach people in my industry outside of the social platforms like Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. That linked in. That's how I'm going to do it is through LinkedIn. And I really didn't have much of a plan other than I need to make a name for myself. And I need to share with people what I'm doing,

all educational content for the most part and inspirational, motivational. And I started following people like you and I started watching what other people are doing. And I started studying really becoming a student of LinkedIn and spending most of my free time on the platform and trying to figure it out. And one thing led to another, I left my job, I had a new position that I started working for a tech company. And what started happening was over time, I started getting people contacting me, who I didn't know from all over the world saying, can you do for me what you did for yourself?

And I was working in marketing and I thought to myself, why are they asking me this? So meanwhile, I'm sharing marketing tips, I'm talking about my day to day, I'm talking about LinkedIn. And I had enough people reaching out to me that I felt fairly confident when I made the decision to go off on my own in 2021 to start my own business, but we are 100% fueled from LinkedIn. No paid advertising, it's all organic, all coming in straight

through LinkedIn on a regular basis. It's incredible because it's really like a warm lead, right? Like it's like a referral. Somebody who knows you because they met your presence, they know your brand, it's not like your stranger, and you're not overtly selling to them. Guys, listen to me right now, because I know so many people get nervous when we start talking about sales,

you attract the business to you, which is a completely different way of thinking, doing business. Right. That's so true. And one of the areas that I was finding is that people all over the world that I never would have known. And I was working exclusively in the auto industry in 2020. And even 21, when I started my business, that's what I was able to really branch out and really write my own ticket because I had people from every industry all over the world. It doesn't really matter what industry you're in. You can have a presence on LinkedIn and you can

be active and you can impact someone somewhere. And that's really what I like LinkedIn for is that you can really resonate with someone today and maybe tomorrow is when they're reaching out to you. Well, I know that you've been doing prior to you and I working together on our own masterclass, which I mentioned at the beginning and guys, I'm going to give you all the details on it. But before you were also hosting your own programs to coach and teach because you had so many requests coming, share with us some of the success stories that you've seen from the people that you've taught in your master classes that you've run thus far. Absolutely. So when I've called them in the past, the people who I've been working with, they're looking for something extra. They've been active

on the platform, or they've even just dipped their toe in, and they were really looking for something from a strategy standpoint to take them to the next level. And that's really the one thing that I see with most people on LinkedIn is they're just guns blazing, they want to be active, they think that they have to post something so they start, which is great, which is really the hardest part is starting, but they have no direction, they have no strategy. So what they've taken away from the classes that we've done is really just been able to have that strategy, be able to speak to the right person, who they're looking, their ideal client,

or I either ideal audience slash network, and be able to turn that into tangible revenue. So being able to bring a new client and creating visibility for themselves, by just making small tweaks, as you know, we're so active, so we're super users of the platform. Not everybody is a super user,

but they wanna learn how to. And there's really no shortcuts in how to do it. You just have to continue to understand and learn from others. So that way, it's a lot faster for you than it was for us when we were just starting out being active on the platform. But some of the things also, we have some attendees from the past class, they've been able to bring in, you know, more listeners for their podcasts. They've been able to grow their business. They've been able to go from VP to SVP. They've really been able to bring in more

clients, which ultimately a lot of times people come to me and they say I want to grow my business And I don't know how to post on LinkedIn. I don't know what type of content works What do I post and that's the hardest part and that's where people get stuck? So having that content piece is really an area that I think people struggle with because you can get a lot of fatigue mentally from trying to pump out different types of content. I mean, for me, I'm just going to jump into a couple different hacks that have worked for me using chat GPT if you ever get stuff right is like such a great way to brainstorm and get yourself thinking differently or seeing through different ones. Do you use a tool at all? So ChatGPT, yes, is a great one. The other one that we love to use internally in my company is Copy AI.

That's another great one. Also, Canva, a lot of people use Canva, but they don't know that there's a ton of AI capabilities with it where you can actually tell what type of content you want to create. And it will then create Carousel posts for you, which perform really well-lengths in. So there's definitely some amazing tools

that are out there for AI. There's so many AI tools for copy. Since we're always trying to add value guys listening, and I want to specifically on this topic, as AI is moving so quickly, Zoom has just launched companion AI, which is incredible. If you have not turned the functionality on yet and you

have Zoom meetings, I have way too many Zoom meetings. But now the great news is I no longer have to take notes. Zoom is doing it for me. Zoom's doing it right now. I actually, what I should do is put a post up of the notes after this so that you can see how Zoom's simplified, wrap the most pertinent and powerful information. That's amazing. Accused it for you. It's amazing. There's no cost for it.

All you do is go into your, and I'm not a spokesperson for Zoom, would be happy to take their money if they'd like to pay me. Go into your Zoom account, go into settings, and then underneath settings, you're gonna see AI companion, click and turn that on, turn all the settings on, and the next time that you run your,

as we're meeting your next Zoom business meeting, your next interview, your next podcast, whatever it is, you're immediately gonna be emailed, a recap summarizing everything for you. It's like having a live assistant there for you feeding that's amazing. And I'm gonna add something to what you just said. We record every single phone call that we have.

I should say every single meter zoom that we have and we use another tool called Otter AI. There's a million AI's. So we use Otter which sounds like exactly like what you just described. And a lot of times I'll tell someone, hey, we're gonna record this call. I just wanna let you know, as I had some,

I use it for recaps, for client calls and for prospective clients. But the other thing that we use it for is for content. Because as you know, it's so frustrating and difficult sometimes to create content, regardless of what the platform is, whether you're creating an email or if you're creating something for your website or for a blog or for a social. When you're having a call with the client, you're speaking from a place of knowledge and you're essentially writing your content for yourself as you're speaking. And then you can just pull that and create content from it. We do that for every single one of our clients. I do it for myself and I always recommend to anyone who's looking to level up their content and scale it to do that because

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confidence. So so good and so true. and you can use that to get a new app. So, so good and so true. And whenever you're a guest on a podcast, always ask for a copy of that Zoom recording. And there's that tool that you and I were just talking about the other day, where they uploaded to this AI tool. And it spits back out little 60 second or 30 second clips that you can use for

social media. What was that one called? Obis clip. Oh, Obis clip is a game changer. So I am not a video editor. I can do a lot of things, but I can't edit video. And it's been one of those things that has held me back from video if I don't have a video editor available.

And so when I started working with Obis clip, I thought that this is unbelievable. You can essentially take any sort of MP4 or a link and you just drop it in and it will automatically spit back out to you within an hour, dozens of videos that are under 60 seconds, under 30 seconds, you can set the parameters. But literally, my nine-year-old could use OpusClip and create Batch video content.

It's incredible. It's so easy to use. Okay, so when I first started posting on LinkedIn, I was a chief revenue officer in the media world. The reason why I did it is I wanted to attract talent to the company. We were having a hard time finding talented sales people that wanted to get into the media business,

specifically on the radio side, which was a really old or traditional business. And so I started creating content to attract people to me, to the company. It worked. We were able to start in a people work for people they know like and trust. Just like people buy from people they know like and trust. When you're listening to this right now and you're saying, yeah, but Heather, I don't really need a personal brand. First of all, number one, you have one, you already have one. We want to help you take control of the strategy and directive

around how you're managing and who you're attracting and, you know, aligning with your goals. But for me, that was the initial reason why I started my personal brand. What it's evolved into now is that I own my own business and 90% of my business, very similar to your 100%. My business comes from the LinkedIn platform. It's the place where business gets done. So to me, this masterclass that we're putting on is literally for everybody because everybody's got a brand, everybody wants to elevate

the brand, everybody wants to elevate their business, but to do so in fourth quarter of this year, I think is really, really smart because a lot of people start thinking about this come January and they're going to not hit the ground running. They're not going to have all of the things done on the back end that need to be done to really support a big new year and a big new launch. Don't go into 2024 hoping to devise a strategy, have implement your strategy, outline it, and done the back and work so that when you hit the ground running in January, you're exploding. Would you agree with that timeline, Melanie? Absolutely. Q4 is the

perfect time because right now most companies are planning their marketing budget out anyway. This is the time that it's happening. So anyone who's worked in corporate and marketing any business, they're really trying to plan out all of 2024 right now. So having a personal brand on the platform and mapping out exactly what you have to do, exactly what you have to be, from everything from what your profile is, to your tactical strategy with your content, to how you're going to be nurturing your post, which is something that a lot of people don't talk about is what happens once they're engaging on your post. What do you do?

How do you then take that to the next level to then convert that into a lead to then convert that into a customer? And that's something that I think is missing a lot of times from the conversation also. And one thing that's come up a lot for us this past year is we talk to executives who say to us, well, I can't post because I can't do anything because legal and marketing has to approve every single thing that we're doing. And that is a very common conversation that I have. I probably have that conversation five times a week because there are so many people who are out there that want to do something, but they can. But having a strategy, IE, what do you do if you want to grow your brand?

How are you optimize your profile? What can you do where you're still working in the legal ramifications of the company without having to go outside and upset someone potentially within your company? and upset someone potentially within your company. So something that I love to tell the executives and individuals, because it really applies to anyone. You don't have to be an executive at a company. You could be just anyone working at any level who's looking to grow your brand on LinkedIn, is make sure that when someone comes onto your profile,

they understand exactly what you do, they understand who you work with, and what the results are that they get from working with you. And you don't have to post content to do that. You can have that sprinkled in throughout your profile, and you can also have separate conversations in the comments and also in the DMs where you can grow your brand without having to post content. And that's something that a lot of people don't talk about

that I think is important to talk about because you have to have a strategy for that. If you want to do something, you need the strategy for it. Oh, that's so good and so true. And you just remind me, one of my clients, I consult their company, they're not one of the companies that says, hey, we don't want you posting. They're a company that says, hey, we want you posting.

And I promise you this, all companies inevitably will come around to that way, Hey, we want you posting. And I promise you this, all companies inevitably will come around to that way of thinking. So if you invest in yourself now and start growing your brand, you'll be seen as an asset above and beyond the skill set that you're bringing to the job and the position. Not only do you have that amazing skill set and you need talents that you bring to the workplace, but now you also have this influential piece where you can help attract talent, you can help promote the business, the culture, attract opportunities, clients to that company. And now suddenly you're seeing in a twofold perspective,

we were just having a conversation with my client the other day about we're trying to attract talent for them, they're desperate for talented, SaaS sellers. The first thing I said was how many people do you have on the sales team that have decent-sized audiences on LinkedIn that we can ask to go out on the company's route and help us to attract these people? And they were like, oh my gosh, we've got like five or six of them. They're incredible. Those people, whether they know it or not, they're

stocked just raised in the company because now suddenly, not only are they great leaders, managers, account executives, but now their voices and influencers for the company. Well, in addition to that, you also have this synchronized messaging because you have five or six people or however many people from the company who are out there putting themselves out there, also speaking about the company and then you can align initiatives with it so they're all on the same page, speaking the same language, and then if you take it to the next level, they all have audiences that are probably similar because they all work in the same industry. They work for the same company. And then all of a sudden, it seems like everyone in that industry is talking about that company and everyone wants to know what they're doing and how they're doing it.

And that's really how people go viral on LinkedIn and how companies really are able to monetize it. Oh, it's such a good look when an employee can bring so much more to the table. And everyone has the power to do it. And that's I'm so excited about us leading this masterclass. I can't wait to get this off the ground up and running and people into the class. The number one investment you're ever gonna make is the investment you make in yourself. That is hands down because you can bring that investment wherever you go.

You may not stay with a company that you're with today or tomorrow forever. That doesn't matter. Investing in you in your personal brand is something that you will take and will continue to have compound results and compound interest for you, no matter where you go. Have you seen that happen with any of the people

that you've worked with Melanie? Absolutely. So I've done a bunch of consultations for clients who specifically their goal is they want to be promoted either within their organization or their goal is to move up a level to another organization in their industry. And when you put yourself out there, you're essentially grabbing

the microphone and getting on stage. I like to compare it to going on stage at Madison Square Garden. And it doesn't necessarily mean that that person is the most experienced, or they know the most, but they're the ones that are willing to take the step to get out there on stage for that audience. And that's exactly what happens. And it always happens.

Almost with every single person I've ever worked with, I don't remember there ever being a person that I've ever worked with, where they haven't called me within days of executing on our strategy to say, you're not gonna believe what happened. You're not gonna believe who called me. I cannot believe this. And that's usually

the first and that's that dark social or the word of mouth metric that always comes up. And it just, it always happens. It doesn't matter the industry, it doesn't matter the role, it doesn't matter the level of who they are. If they put themselves out there and they're willing to step on stage, on the LinkedIn stage, they're going to have results no matter what. Now, that doesn't always mean that people are going to love what they're doing, but that's not the worst thing ever either because they're separating themselves and they're putting themselves into a place

where other people aren't willing to go. And the risk takers, the people who are willing to put themselves out there are the ones who are going to get rewarded with that next level where they want to be. Oh, it's so true and so good. And I totally agree with you. By owning your voice, finding your voice first, owning it and putting it out there on whatever

stage that's going to be unlinked in it or various other stages podcast, it doesn't matter. You are attracting those right like white and white people towards you and expelling and getting rid of the people who are not meant for you, which is so, so important and so powerful. And we get into all of this on the master class. We get into how to become a better speaker, how to own your confidence, how to speak for yourself, how to find your voice and step into that power,

which listen, as you begin doing it, it feels pretty scary, but like anything over time and putting into that power, which, listen, as you begin doing it, it feels pretty scary, but like anything over time and putting those reps in, you continue to get stronger, and you continue to see the results. I have seen countless people that I've worked with over the last two years explode, one becoming an S.B.P. and a Fortune 100 company. I mean, I've had another one where it took a sales and confidence masterclass that I did two months ago and a big part of this masterclass that I just more than three times paid for the Masterclass in the first 24 hours out of one ass

that she would have never made before. So some of these tweaks are so small and seemingly not that difficult to do, but when you're tasked with them, when you're in a room, a virtual room of like-minded people, they're all committing to going after these initiatives. And as you begin to see that it's possible and how it happens and learn from someone who's done it, suddenly those dots start connecting and get out of the way the momentum takes off. Have you seen

examples like that in your master classes before? Yes, absolutely. I think that the number one thing that people tell me is I didn't realize it would happen so quickly, and I didn't realize that all the things that you said, when you do something enough, you understand what the pathway looks like, and you know that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter the industry that you're in, the level that you're at, where you're going, the results are generally very similar in terms of what happens. So first you have the reach out from someone you haven't heard from in a long time. And a lot of people get stuck on, well, I didn't get a lot of comments, or I didn't get a lot of likes, but I did get X amount of 1000 impressions.

And so we like to look at those as lurkers. Those are the people they're watching. They're reading your posts, they're reading your content, they're watching what you're doing. And those lurkers are the ones that always become clients. I know for me personally, the clients that we've had, especially our long-time clients that we've had for over a year since my company is still fairly new,

those clients never engage with my content. They were always the ones who were lurking and then reached out and said, I've been following you for X amount of time. I love what you're doing on LinkedIn. Can we set up a call and discuss? And that's verbatim what my clients tell me that they hear from their clients also.

It's no fail every time it always happens that way. And then the second, I would say touch point that would happen after you have that word of mouth metric, which is seeing them on the platform is the people who are just messaging them or reaching out directly through LinkedIn outside of the people who are just reaching out they haven't heard from in a long time and saying, I love to work with you are going directly through their website and saying, I'm interested in working with you. And you know that they came from LinkedIn

because of the conversation that you're having with them. But it's something that happens all the time. And I think people don't realize the opportunity that's there. And there's 950 million people on LinkedIn. There's less than 5% of people who are posting. So those numbers are crazy in terms of the opportunity. When we first started becoming active on the platform, whether there was like 500 million.

So it's almost double in size. So the opportunity is so massive for someone who wants to take themselves and their career to the next level. And then if you combine that with confidence piece and asking for the numbers that they want to ask for, you're going to take your career to new heights. The thing is people have these big goals and big dreams and ambitions,

but they don't actually take the step to learn the skill, to surround themselves with people who've done it. One of the best pieces of advice that I can give anyone listening right now is don't take direction from someone who hasn't been where you're going. There's a very good reason why, when I have questions, I'm speaking to people

of Ben where I want to go or more successful than, you know, when I wanted to write my first book and I had never written a book, I hired an editor who had written 18 books. Right, you want to reach out and work with people who have been there. And that's the beauty of Meli and I partnering together for this master class is we both created success

and exactly what it is that you're looking to do. And I will tell you from my background in corporate America, I was a chief revenue officer and SVP of sales or a publicly traded media company. I bought and sold companies in excess of $55 million. I had tremendous success in corporate America, but over the last six years, I translated that success into becoming a best-selling author, a top-kino speaker, a TED speaker, launching

courses and working in very different, in new categories and industries. The blueprint remains the same. I can help people reach success in sales. I can help people reach success in speaking. I can help people reach success and creating confidence for themselves. I've done it multiple times successfully and I've taught it multiple times successfully. The same way that Melanie, you have taught how to elevate your brand, how to create your brand, how to implement these successful tips and tricks and long-term strategies that deliver big time results.

Some of the examples that I wanna get into that I wasn't deploying when I really launched as an entrepreneur was, I wasn't converting. I was doing a lot of content creation, which is great and it was building community, but I had fallen asleep at the wheel on conversions. I didn't wanna be over the top, hitting people over the head.

Here's what I didn't realize. I was failing my community because I wasn't pushing my book Confidence Creator. People didn't know I had written a book Confidence Creator, which meant they were never going to learn the strategies from my book and benefit their life. So when I really started about two years ago, leaning into major conversion mechanisms,

every other post, I would have a very direct ask. It was a very direct call to action and selling point. And then when I wasn't doing that on every post in the comments below, I'm always converting, converting and putting an arrow to read the comment in this below this post and click on the link and there were always a conversion mechanism. Now the messages I get back from people are, thank you so much for posting that. Thank you for letting me know that you had a book. Thank you for letting me know you had a podcast. I had no idea it's changed my life.

I'm getting these rewarding messages because the bottom line is this, selling is helping. And when you start approaching, selling in that regard and get away from the idea that maybe I'm offering something to someone they don't want, it is not our place to make decisions for other people. We cannot believe that we know what is best from what we can do is offer them the solutions that we've created that have helped a lot of other

people and let them make their own minds up. Did you ever have that problem with the conversion mechanisms on social? Well, it's really interesting that you said that because when I left my job and I started my company, I had always just been posting pretty much educational and personal content on LinkedIn. And a lot of people were like, how could you post personal content on LinkedIn? Well, it works, but it wasn't converting. I thought I was gonna announce my business

and all of a sudden people are gonna start wanting to work with me. And people were reaching out, but it was on their timetable, not mine. So as you start a new business, and you're trying to bring in revenue for your company, you're thinking, well, what am I doing wrong? And I really had to take a hard look at what I was doing,

and I wasn't promoting myself, even though most people thought that I was because I was posting content and they thought, oh, she's just promotes herself all day long because she's posting. No, I really wasn't. I was not asking for the business. The second I started adding in actual promotional content, letting people know that I was available to work, letting them know what I do, giving them the opportunity to schedule time with me,

no putting different things in the comments about how they can reach me and how they can work with me. That's when I started converting and then also nurturing my posts. That's also something that I think people miss is, okay, am I supposed to be messaging people when they're liking my posts, when they're engaging with me? What do I say?

How am I supposed to say it? How do I do it in a way that it's not tacky and it's not pitch-lappy where they think that I'm being, you know, intrusive. So definitely putting out promotional content is something I highly, highly suggest. And then also user-generated content, what people have said who have worked with you.

I mean, that's another thing. You let them know, you know, what you do, who you are, and what other people have said who have worked with you. I mean, that's another thing. You let them know what you do, who you are, and what other people have experienced with working with you. And that's really taking them through, if you think about the customer journey and the funnel, and you're thinking about taking them through that process, all that is is you're just taking them through

and just giving them more proof of why they should be working with you, pushing them closer towards where they need to be. Tired of business books that focus on Silicon Valley Unicorns and billion dollar organizations, so is Patrick Esposito, CEO of ACME General Corp, and author of the Structure of Success, a framework to build your business better, the latest release on the Inc. Original Imprint. Esposito, who has successfully founded, scaled and sold multiple startups, identifies the eight, most important factors within a small

and medium-sized business internal structure that impacts its chances of success. The structure of success covers everything from management compensation to succession plan to determining the right time to merge or acquire a competitor. He provides a nuts and bolts resource for real-world business owners and entrepreneurs to help them outlast the competition, solve problems and provide for their employees, families, and communities. Dr. Marshall Goldsmith thinkers 50 number one executive coach and best-selling author says the structure of success is an incredibly insightful and pragmatic guide

for any entrepreneur or business owner It answers all the tough questions that business owners face when trying to grow and succeed while maintaining their core values and culture This is a must read for more information visit patrickspazito.com The structure of success is available now wherever books are sold pick up your copy today and build your business better will now wherever books are sold, pick up your coffee today and build your business better. Oh, it's so good. First and foremost, asking for testimonials of your work is so critical. Secondly, on LinkedIn, there's actually a place on your profile where people can leave reviews of your work, which is super powerful. I mean, people are nowadays going to LinkedIn instead of Google very often. So they're going to search up your profile. They want to read and see what other people have said. So requesting

that. And by the way, most people, it doesn't cost them a dime to leave your review. If you send them a DM or a note, say, Hey, we mean the world to me. If you believe them, 90% of people are going to say, sure, happy to do it. Certainly, that's when the case for me and I'm sure it has been for you as well. It's just, it's taking the time to ask for it. It's surrounding yourself with like-minded people that are committing as well as you are to doing these things. In my last master class, I had an incredible group of like-minded people and something happened

during this master class that I never could have anticipated, but I want everyone to know because you just never know what can come from being around like-minded people. Two of the women in my last master's class was a two-day event just like Melanie and Maya, November event will be. People get to know each other, they decide to talk offline, everyone follows everyone on LinkedIn and connects on LinkedIn. Well, the two of them end up letting me know that they were both by chance going to be at an

industry conference in New York the following weekend they were going to exchange cell phone numbers so they can meet in person. I'm like that's great guys, have a great time, at an industry conference in New York the following weekend, they were gonna exchange cellphone numbers so they can meet in person. I'm like, that's great guys, have a great time, whatever send me a picture. Well, wouldn't you know one of the women ends up advocating for the other woman and got her a higher level position, more compensation and brought her

from a competitive company over to her company and they've become friends now that not only are friends, they've worked together. So you just never know what can happen by joining a master class like this where you know you're going to be around like finding people they're elevating their brands, going to the next level, stepping into their power, you are going to be in the right room. If you're looking for a bigger 2024 than you've had in 2023, these are the rooms you need to be in. And it was funny, I like taking a workout classes.

So I'm always going to spin. And the other day I went to my soul cycle class for spin because I love being in group settings, I love being around great like-minded people. The teacher wasn't showing up. And I'll tell you watching everybody's space that, yes, it's great to be around like minded people, but you need coaches and people who have a plan and strategy

for the time while you're together. Otherwise, everyone kind of looks lost. And finally, when the teacher arrived, everyone was talking, we were so excited. And immediately the playlist was launched, the schedule, that she knew exactly what we were doing. And she let us along a great workout. It made me think a lot of

why people join a masterclass. You want someone who's been where you want to go and you want someone who knows how to break it down and leave you through it. So yes, it's great to be with like-minded people, but you also want someone leading you there. It doesn't matter if you're an MVP in the NFL. The Super Bowl still has coaches that are leading the teams and the players to get them to where they wanna go. They know how to do it. They've got the blueprint just like we've got for you. Manny, who would you say this Masterclass is for? That's a great question.

I would say this Masterclass is truly for anyone. It's anyone at any level. I mean, it could be from a student to someone who's in business development, to an executive, it could be anyone because anyone at any point in time can leverage the knowledge that you and I have together for catapulting themselves to the next level. And so I truly believe, I mean, for the most part, we do work with executives, but in just thinking of the person who would want to step

on that stage, both on LinkedIn and in real life, it could be anyone. It could be someone who's preparing for the next level of their career. It could be someone preparing for a transition. It could be someone who's preparing for just to be prepared to make sure that when they're with their team on a daily basis basis that they can help their team be themselves and to help them get to the next level of their careers as well someone within leadership so it's really for anyone. I wouldn't say that it's limited to just one person one type of person one type of role think it could be for anyone because let's be honest

I mean as far as LinkedIn goes, you see all different people from all different walks of life, all different types of backgrounds who are out there on the stage. And so I definitely think that it could be for anyone. And there is something that I also wanted to mention too, because you had mentioned the services page. And what I try to tell my clients, and I want them to think about LinkedIn differently, and I think it would be good for your listeners to think about LinkedIn differently as well.

LinkedIn is no longer just a social site. It's a search engine. Your page, your LinkedIn page is a landing page, and it's a landing page that Google is crawling. I have a Google Alert setup. I know you do too. For the last few months, I have been receiving Google alerts for my posts on LinkedIn on a daily basis.

So what that tells me is that there is this massive SEO opportunity to saturate the market, your market, and also Google through what you're doing on LinkedIn. You can also search for keywords and get different types of content. You can search for positions, you can search for people, you can search pretty much anything on LinkedIn and get different results just like you would with a search engine. And that's what we say about YouTube because YouTube is a search engine, but you know

what LinkedIn has become a search engine as well. Why is SEO important to somebody for someone who doesn't understand that? SEO is so important is because it is how someone can find you. It is how someone can realize who you are, what you do, and how you can really impact them in the right place at the right time in that right moment. And specifically for what we're talking about, not only just for the master class, but in life, it's something that will help them with their career. Because if someone is searching for you, if you're looking for a new position, recruiters are now looking on LinkedIn, they're looking on social sites,

and they're going to Google you. So why wouldn't you want to control what comes up about you versus letting somebody else control what comes up about you, you can control it yourself and you can really navigate that. And in the master class, we're going to go through that too. There are strategies and things you can do in positioning yourself on Google, outside of LinkedIn, that you can also use for content on LinkedIn. You can use both. No, it's so good.

And everybody and anyone, whether you're dating someone or you're hiring someone, every fun is going on to LinkedIn to see who this person is. A lot of people ask me, how did you get on Gary Vaynerchuk's podcast? I break down and we get into so many different strategies in regards to how to sell yourself and accomplish what you want to achieve in the master class.

But in this instance, specifically, I took out a Google Alert on Gary Vaynerchuk and we'll talk about this in more detail in the master class. But when you take out a Google Alert on someone, you're going to be served of information on them, on the regular, and I found out he was launching a new company, a new wine company, and it gave me the name of his partner. And immediately I knew I bet his partner is a lot easier to get to than he is. And so I sent to DM on LinkedIn where I have a face, I have a credible resume, I have tons of testimonials, all the things that we're going to be teaching during this master class so that when he went to my page to see who's this woman sitting we know he said oh wow this lady is like gotta go on she's the real deal she's not some lunatic he messaged me right back yeah I'd like to talk you know and of course I'm talking about how

I can add value to him but none of that stuff happens if you're not showing up as a human that is someone who could potentially be trustworthy that does have reviews and for people listening right now they're saying but I don't even know, I'm too early on. Then that's the perfect time to start so that you can start the right way versus someone like me who waited two decades too long before I started down this journey. If 10 years ago was the right time,

now is the only time. And doing this before the end of the year is so critical. While so much of the world is gonna take the month of December off, you're going to be armed with a blueprint to set yourself up for your biggest year yet. You can when you have free time in the month of December, you're going to be able to execute on these strategies and really do the back end work that you need to so that you have your content setup that you're practicing and taking the small steps that you need to to build your confidence, to step into and find your voice, and to speak up in a situation where you know you really want to. So I'm so excited for this Masterclass. And like, you want to give some details on how people can join us. Yes, so definitely go to elevate your influence masterclass.com.

When you go onto this website, it will have everything about what we're doing at the Masterclass, the details of what we're doing, and you can register straight from there. You can also find more information on both of our profiles, on my profile, and also on Heather's profile. And the dates are November 2nd and November 3rd, 10 AM to 1 PM Eastern Standard Time, and we will have replay available. So if you're not able to make it for one of those days, that's fine. That happens a lot.

One of the things that I think is really powerful is the fact that we allow for live Q&A in these events. Have you been blown away by some of the questions and some of the opportunities that have been created around the Q&A. Yeah, with the Q&A, I definitely feel that it puts people in a place where they feel more comfortable. Maybe they can ask the questions versus having to go to the master class and ask the questions up front. So they get those questions answered and then it makes them feel more confident in their decision to joining the master class. So we are offering a live Q&A on LinkedIn on Friday. And that is, I need so much. 27. Oh, perfect. As Melanie said, we also do live Q&A in the master class as well, because it's so important. This is not copy paste and this is a prerecord. No, we are alive with you. We are there every step with you. We are answering your questions and making sure that this is customized for you and for your individual success.

And today, because you're here with us, because you're my writer, Dad, because you're a podcast listener, we are giving you an incredible discount for the next 48 hours. You can get $500 off by using the code, elevate. When you go to the link that Melanie just mentioned, I'll also drop the link in the show notes below.

Use code, elevate for $500 off. That is good for you, for your friends, for the next 48 hours. And we have a payment program set up as well. Yes, we do. So you can pay as you go through Clarna. There are no barriers to entry. You are worth this investment.

Investing you is the best investment you will ever make. Show up with two coaches. We'll have been where you want to go and are happy, willing and able and excited to lead you to get to the biggest year of your career. Yet, 2024 has done to be a change. Doesn't happen by chance. It happens by taking one specific action. This is the action we can't wait to see you November 2nd and 3rd use code elevate for $500 off. You are worth it. We've got the payment program set up. There's no excuse. Jump in and get ready to elevate your brand and your success in next level. Melanie, what do you want to say closing words? Anyone can do this. This is not rocket science. This is not brain surgery. This is something

that if you have a desire and a will to achieve, you can make this happen. It is something that we have done. We can teach you how to do. It is not groundbreaking and we will be there to help you every step of the way. It is not difficult, but it is game-changing and the results that you're going to see for your brand, for yourself, and for your business. We can't wait to see you in a second. And November 3rd, check the right balance. I couldn't be more excited for what you're getting here, start learning and growing. And inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while.

You can miss it. I'm on this journey with me. This episode is brought to you by the Yap Media Podcast Network. I'm Halah Tahha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world and I turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Each week, we dive into a new topic like the

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