I am Charles Schwartz Show - Turning Invisibility into Influence

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

In this episode, Charles delves into the world of personal branding and digital marketing with Finn McKenty, a YouTube sensation who transformed his online presence from music content creator to busin...ess strategist. Finn shares his remarkable journey of amassing over 120 million views on YouTube and his bold decision to pivot his brand to align with his true passions. Finn unveils his strategic approach to content creation and audience building, offering invaluable insights into recognizing when it's time to evolve your brand. Through candid reflections and practical advice, Finn and Charles explore the untapped potential of LinkedIn for business growth and personal branding, challenging traditional notions of platform selection and content strategy. Finn's expertise in optimizing LinkedIn profiles shines through as he breaks down his step-by-step guide to standing out on the platform. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on one platform at a time and leveraging social proof to build credibility and attract business opportunities. Whether you're a content creator looking to pivot your brand, an entrepreneur aiming to establish a strong online presence, or a professional seeking to optimize your LinkedIn profile, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Get ready to be inspired and equipped with the tools necessary to redefine your digital identity and marketing approach. KEY TAKEAWAYS: * Discover strategies for pivoting your brand while retaining credibility and audience trust * Gain insights into optimizing your LinkedIn profile for maximum impact and business growth * Understand the power of social proof in building a strong personal brand * Explore techniques for engaging with your audience authentically across different platforms Head over to https://podcast.iamcharlesschwartz.com/ to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. KEY POINTS: 1:16 Pivoting Focus: Finn discusses his decision to shift his market focus. 6:01 Business Transition: The conversation turns to Finn's move towards business-oriented content. 8:09 Entrepreneurial Journey: Exploring the factors that led Finn to pursue entrepreneurship. 10:13 LinkedIn Rebranding: A deep dive into Finn's approach to rebranding on LinkedIn. 13:23 Singular Focus: The importance of concentrating on one primary area is emphasized. 15:38 Successful Pivoting: Strategies for successfully pivoting one's brand are shared. 17:30 Effective Differentiation: Tips on standing out effectively in a crowded market are provided. 20:42 Strength Utilization: Leveraging personal strengths for differentiation is discussed. 23:22 Tagline Importance: The conversation focuses on crafting an impactful tagline. 26:55 Banner Image Strategy: Insights into creating an effective LinkedIn banner image are offered. 29:00 Posting Frequency: Recommendations on how often to post content are shared. 31:03 Visibility Tactics: Methods to increase visibility on LinkedIn are explored. 33:01 Creator Engagement: The importance of engaging with other content creators is highlighted. 37:29 Rebranding Techniques: Various strategies for successful rebranding are discussed. 40:29 Transformative Tools: The conversation shifts to game-changing tools for entrepreneurs. 42:25 Tool Simplification: Advice on simplifying tool usage for increased productivity is given. 44:59 Brand Success: The episode concludes with insights on achieving personal brand success.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, we're exploring the bold world of brand pivots with Finn McKenty, who is shaking things up despite having a staggering 750,000 subscribers. Finn's journey is nothing short of extraordinary. He transformed from an unknown into a digital powerhouse, and now he's taking an even bigger leap. Finn isn't your typical social media strategist. He's unapologetically real with innovative ideas that have revolutionized his online presence. He'll share his insights on how to reinvent your brand, attract the heavy hitters in your new niche, and turn engagement into revenue. But this isn't your average how to switch niches session. Finn's focus is on authenticity, embracing your quirks and unique traits to carve out a distinct place in
Starting point is 00:00:46 a new market. Whether you're looking to refresh your business approach or establish yourself as an expert in a completely different field, Finn's got the game plan. So if you're ready to overhaul your brand and make a splash in a new niche, you're in the right place. Get ready because Finn is about to reveal the secrets behind his daring brand pivot. The show starts now. Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show, where we don't just discuss success, we show you how to create it. On every episode, we uncover the strategies and tactics that turn everyday entrepreneurs into unstoppable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives.
Starting point is 00:01:20 Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive seven, eight, or nine figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there. The show starts now. All right, welcome back. Today, we're with someone who is pivoting his entire market and what he's known for and retaking control of his audience. I'm really excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to get into it. So you've done something and I saw one of your posts that you did on youtube recently and we'll do the preamble we tell everybody who you are and all that so they know that now two months ago you said yeah this isn't my my truth anymore i'm not doing this anymore i'm
Starting point is 00:01:53 being forced to talk about rock and roll and not about what i actually do which is you know my business and how i scale things and all of that and being able to retake control of your audience is something that most people have a hard time doing especially when in in a situation where tonight's the debate, by the time people see this, it'll already be done, where people aren't happy with what they have, but they're forced to be stuck in this environment. Do me a favor, tell Ruby a little bit more of how you got where you are and what kind of your next steps are. I will do that in a second. The first thing I want to do is say that unless someone literally has a gun to your head, you're not forced to do anything. It's all a choice. And that's step number one is to, to believe that all of this is a choice and you can do whatever the fuck you want,
Starting point is 00:02:32 as long as you have a plan and you're willing to do it. So to answer your question, um, I started out YouTube in 2017 and September of 2017. So almost exactly seven years ago. And my goal there was basically just to build my personal brand. And I wanted people to know who I was because I had done a lot of stuff in my career that I thought was pretty cool. I mean, I, I, my, my day job, you know, so to speak is product design and marketing. I started out in kind of the agency world, did some stuff like Nike and Nintendo and Red Bull back in the day, which i was wildly unqualified for and i did terrible work for them but you know i got some big names you know in my portfolio which is sort of the first step to climbing the ladder there moved on did a lot of other agency work like primarily the main thing i worked at a agency
Starting point is 00:03:18 that did a lot of stuff for procter and gamble like tide and febreze and swiffer and balance and stuff like that which actually ended up being way more interesting than I thought it would be. I was also a designer and marketer at Abercrombie and Fitch. So I'd done a lot, but like nobody gave a shit, you know? Cause it's like,
Starting point is 00:03:34 you can tell people all this stuff. They're like, Oh, that's nice. They don't care. Right. And it didn't feel good. And I felt kind of invisible.
Starting point is 00:03:42 And I felt like, I felt like I was an outsider looking in on the world because, you know, even though I had done this stuff that I thought was cool and I knew that I was good at my job for whatever reason, people just didn't care. And I said, all right, well, I've got to do something to make people care about me because I didn't want to be one of these people sitting on the sidelines complaining, you know, that the world was passing me by. I was like, well, I'm going to fucking figure this out. So I started the YouTube channel because I sort of knew that at the time that's where attention was. I'd done blogging and stuff like that before, but that had died in the 2010s. And I said, okay, YouTube's the thing. So I'm going to be there. I started out talking about business, which I would say is the thing I'm most interested in. And I did probably, I don't know, 50 videos or something like that about business. And again,
Starting point is 00:04:34 nobody cared, which, you know, to some extent that's part of the deal on YouTube. You know, when you start out, you're going to get 50 views. That's kind of how it is. But I was really just not getting any kind of traction there. And I was like, I think I need to pivot. that's always sort of a questioning to ask yourself you know you've seen that meme of the the minor you know like digging towards the diamond and they both quit one guy's an inch away you know whatever you never really know which one of those two minors you are but i said i think i need to pivot and i had written about music and stuff before so i and i had a decent sized audience from that you know i had blogs that i don't know maybe in their peak we're getting hundreds of thousands of unique viewers a month,
Starting point is 00:05:07 which is pretty decent. So I kind of knew how to talk about that. And I said, well, I'm just going to completely pivot and talk about music. And even though not necessarily the thing I was super interested in at that point in my life, but I knew there was an audience for it. And again, my goal was just to make people know who I was. And that's the reason why I said my name at the, at the beginning of every video for like the first six years, I stopped doing that recently, but
Starting point is 00:05:29 I said my name there because I wanted people to literally know my name and face. And I did that, you know, it's a hundred and I have like 120 or 130,000 or sorry, 120 or 130 million views now. So there's like literally tens of millions of people that know my name and face, which is the reason why I did this. I also made a lot more money from it than I anticipated that I would. I, I didn't really think I would make any,
Starting point is 00:05:52 and I made a lot. Um, and so now I'm sort of at the point you mentioned, where is I sort of, I did what I came to do with it. Um, my audience wants, you know,
Starting point is 00:06:02 which is fine. This is the nature of any sort of media platform. The audience has expectations, but the thing they want to hear about is kind of not something I really want to talk about and I've achieved what I wanted to achieve with it. So I think it's time to move on. So that move on step, is it hard? Cause I mean, you were trying to fill a certain cup, which was, I want to be seen. I want to be known. I don't want to be invisible anymore. That cup's been full. You've done that. You've got millions and millions of people, at least at the very minimum, know your name and what your face looks like. You're now in the process of pivoting away, which means you're the process of abandoning kind of that audience and doing that.
Starting point is 00:06:37 How have you struggled through that? Because a lot of people do this. We're like, Hey, I'm going this way. It's not working for me, or it is working, but it's not going to get me to that next level. Kind of the Tarzan effect where you're kind of swinging vine to vine, but you hold onto one and you mean you got to let go of another one. That's kind of where you are at this point. If not, you lose momentum. When you had to make that decision, what were the steps that you went through that you're like, you know what? Screw it. If I walk away from this, I need to do this and honor my authentic truth. What was that walkthrough process? How long did it take you? What are the questions you kind of asked yourself as you went through that?
Starting point is 00:07:06 Well, I laid the foundation for this starting a few years ago, because I knew this, like, I never wanted to be like, you know, a person who talked about music on YouTube forever. So I didn't know whether that was going to last three years or five years or 10 years or what the number would be, but I knew that it was going to come at some time. And I knew that I would want to focus on business because I that's like, that's the thing I'm most interested in. And so one specific tactical thing that I did from the very beginning is I included a link to my LinkedIn in the description of every video. Even though I wasn't really very active on there, I just figured I'm going to get some amount of passive traffic there and why not
Starting point is 00:07:45 build my followers, even if I'm not doing anything with it yet, because I know that I'm going to someday. So that's like thing. Number one is I build the bridge before you need it. Ideally don't wait until you have that like, holy shit moment. You build it before you need it. So I started doing that from the very beginning. So I built, I don't know, I probably got seven or 8,000 followers on LinkedIn or something from that, that, which isn't like huge, but that's pretty decent. And even if we assume that like most of those are not really like my target audience still, like it's still seven or 8,000 people that I got with literally zero effort. And then in 2021, I think I started posting on LinkedIn, I would say infrequently, but, you know, I was getting a little bit more active there again, just like if I was building the scaffolding around the bridge, you know, from the beginning.
Starting point is 00:08:34 Now I was sort of like slowly on the weekends showing up with a little bit of lumber here and there and sort of piecing it together again, because I knew this was going to happen eventually. And so I decided, um, yeah, go ahead. No, I was, I was asking you, you've started, you thought about this years and years and years ago. Yeah. When did you decide to pull the trigger that, that, because that's, you know, we've all talked about this and you know, when I built my gram account, I was like, all right, I know I'm going to do something with this someday. I don't know what it's going to be. So having, not having that clarity, what were your steps where you got into the clarity and what is it that you do want to do in the business environment? Because you've worked
Starting point is 00:09:09 with huge brands. You've obviously clearly been successful in your quote unquote day job. What is it that you're, you want to do and what is the value you want to bring to the market? Well, let me, let me answer. There's a few questions in there and let me answer them sort of in order, because I want to, you know, if there's anybody else listening to this, I want to give them some very actionable steps for this. So from the very beginning, I sort of knew a number that I wanted to get to that. Like if I hit this number in terms of the amount of money that I have invested, then I think I'm probably okay to make the leap. And so I had that number in mind and I hit that around like November, December of last year.
Starting point is 00:09:46 And I was like, okay, I think that means I'm okay to do this. And I have a friend who's also a financial planner. And so I called him and I screen shared everything. And I was like, this is what I got going on. Here's what I think I want to do. Like, am I, am I clear to proceed boss? And he's like, yeah, man, you can quit tomorrow if you want to. So I got the blessing of, you know, and of my wife, of course, but I got the blessing
Starting point is 00:10:09 of, you know, financial planner. So I sort of, again, I had the exit plan from the very beginning, um, or something close to it. So yeah, I hit that. And then once I had sort of made that decision and I still, you know, for anybody who's watching this now, like I still have these active YouTube channels that I haven't like stopped yet, but I'm going to probably around September, I think. So in November, I started revamping my LinkedIn again, like to sort of go back all the exercises of optimizing my portfolio and repositioning myself. And all those nitty gritty details about your headline and your about and all that stuff, which I'd be happy to talk to because I think these are super important. But they helped me work through all that.
Starting point is 00:10:59 I've probably gone through like eight iterations of that over like three months or something like that before I landed on what I have now. Um, and so then I started getting more active on LinkedIn again, you know, just sort of building this thing before I need it and I'm not making enough to pay the bills. And so to answer your other question of like what value I want to provide. So what I, I, I, I sort of experimented with a few different offers and positioning and stuff like that. But the thing I've landed on, which I'm getting a lot of traction on, is personal branding for entrepreneurs, especially like sort of, I would say, unconventional entrepreneurs, although I suppose all of them are kind of unconventional by nature. But that's what we're landing on. So if you're an entrepreneur and you want to grow on YouTube
Starting point is 00:11:41 or LinkedIn, I can help you do that. And I've been, I probably had 30 clients or something this year, which, you know, for my first six months in business, I feel pretty fucking good about that. That's really, really good. So when you talk about rebranding on LinkedIn, it's a huge pivot for most people, especially as entrepreneurs,
Starting point is 00:11:58 because entrepreneurs, instinctively, most entrepreneurs are so driven in a certain way that they forget these other details that matter as well. It just is what it is. We are all over the place. And we will jump from one project to another project. Because I grew up as a dork.
Starting point is 00:12:11 I played baseball. And then I was a swimming dork. And then I became an IT dork. And then from IT, I got into scaling businesses and personal growth. And all these things are just constant iterations. So we don't ever know, like, hey, how do we actually show up? What is the best way? And you talked about you had eight iterations on LinkedIn. If someone's trying to
Starting point is 00:12:27 kind of redesign and redevelop and rebrand themselves, which are helping people do, you got to start obviously on LinkedIn. Cause that's where we all live. That's, that's the playground right now. That's our watering hole. What are some of the first things that you want to do as you walk into that going shit? I don't, because I remember I abandoned my LinkedIn years ago because I have an IT background. I was like, I don't because i remember i abandoned my linkedin years ago because i have an it background i was like i don't want anybody to know who i am in any way shape or form this is all going to get really ugly i'm just like i'm not touching this and now all of a sudden 20 something years later i'm like crap i need it is what it is um i go out and you know i remember seeing the bands you talk about on your youtube i'm like i've seen them live and i've seen them
Starting point is 00:13:02 live and i see them like shit i'm getting old. Going into this environment where now we're like, okay, I need this. This is something that I, as I'm rebranding myself and putting myself out there again, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are just completely unsure on how to do this in an effective manner. And obviously we need to do it on LinkedIn. What are some of the first steps you walk in and you talk about your headline, you talked about your about us. What are the things that other than the basics, like you need a good picture, please look at the camera. Other than those basic things, what are some of the things that you've walked into that you know, this has obviously been huge. This has been helpful because if you've already gotten 30 something clients in six months,
Starting point is 00:13:34 it's a huge takeoff. That's really, really good. Yeah, it's not bad. So this is going to be very, this is going to be very difficult for some of the people listening. It's going to probably make them white knuckle a little bit. But what you've got to do is focus. You've got to be one thing to the world. And that's tough because most of us are multifaceted people. You just rattle off a bunch of things about yourself. There's probably even more things about you that you didn't mention.
Starting point is 00:14:06 And any of those could be the way that you present yourself to the world right and they're all potentially valid but you got to pick one because um for for two reasons number one is that people are cognitive misers meaning that you know if you tell them like oh i'm a carpenter and a portrait photographer and uh whatever a landscape architect um they're just, their eyes are going to glaze over. And even if you are actually all those things, they're just not going to know what to do with you. People you want to, you want people to instantly know what box to put you in and see the value in that. And that might be like, okay, I don't need that. That's okay too. The goal is to create a very focused position such that your icp will instantly go okay i need that right now i'm gonna call this guy so you got to pick that one thing you want to focus on
Starting point is 00:14:51 and everything you do is going to revolve around that which was tough for me because again i like i was a very credible graphic designer like i did it for like 10 years i'm a very credible marketer i'm also a very credible YouTuber. I don't mean to be up my own ass and like pretend like I'm, but there's a lot of entrepreneurs who are like this, like they're legitimately good at a lot of things, but you can't be a designer marketer slash YouTuber because nobody knows what to do with that. You got to pick one. And the other thing I think people mess up all the time is they go too high. They're like, I'm a thought leader.
Starting point is 00:15:23 I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? What are you, what are you talking about? I'm an influencer. What the hell are you talking about? So it's, it's the idea of inch wide, mile deep. So when you had this idea that, you know, you've done some amazing things, you've been a marketer, you've been a YouTuber, you've been a graphic designer. What did you end up locking on? What is the one you're like, no, this is what I'm going to go with. This is how I'm going to present myself to the world for now. Cause again, as you said before, you, you snuck your LinkedIn profile in there cause you knew there was going to be a pivot in the future what do you what did you
Starting point is 00:15:48 decide to lock in now on what was the exact one so the first one was about helping startups with product design and marketing which i've done before and like i worked at a like the last one i worked out was called creative live it was uh i think raised like 60 million dollars or something like that um from some very top-notch investors like Greylock and Social Capital and Google Ventures and stuff like that, which, to be clear, I didn't do that. Chase, the CEO, did. But I was present. So I got in there right before we raised our Series B and stuck around for like four years or something. So I have a lot of experience there.
Starting point is 00:16:27 I've been doing product design. I made my first website in 1995. So I'm like very credible there. And I thought, okay, well, I'll help them with this. Um, but for reasons I can get into, if you want to, like, I sort of experimented that a little bit and I did get some traction, but I was like, you know, this is not the right place for me because like, I'm credible there, but I wouldn't say, but there's other people who are more credible. And so what you want to do is find a position for yourself such that you are a one of one or close to it, where it is instantly clear that you were in the top, you know, 1% of this thing, whatever it is, because being in the middle 50%, you might as well just be invisible.
Starting point is 00:17:05 Right? Exactly. So I, go ahead. is because being in the middle 50%, you might as well just be invisible, right? Exactly. So I, go ahead. Like you were talking about before the ability to stand out. You said you did this because I needed to stand out. It's kind of that same narrative. How do I make sure that I'm not invisible in any way, shape or form doing that in your LinkedIn as well? So you started out with one where I think we both made our first website about the same
Starting point is 00:17:23 time. Do you remember something called net objects by any chance? This program had net objects. Yes. Yes. It was embarrassing, but that actually was the first website I did. It was 95 and I I'm old now. So I remember when billboards started having WWW on it, right? Quit putting the three W's. What the hell's wrong with you? So anyway, wild. So, so going in and standing out, that was your first iteration. How did you realize that? You know what? That's not, that's not what it's going to be. I need to be that 1% or I need to put myself in that environment. How quickly did you realize it? And't really, what you want to look for is signs of life when you're experimenting here. Like you're not going to probably like have an amazing business, you know, on day one, but you want to look for some signs of life, meaning are you getting inbound, you know, at least some inbound from people who look like they're the right kind of leads,
Starting point is 00:18:20 right? Because if you are, then you just need to do more of it and you can scale it up. And now you have a business, but I was really not getting any inbound. I was like, okay, this feels like something is not right here. i observed is that pretty much every company sucks at youtube you know even like microsoft and oracle and stuff they're spending you know god knows how much money on these videos to get 1200 views and i was like well i could definitely help them with this um and so i started talking about that quite a bit um and i got a lot of engagement on that on linkedin but again i wasn't getting any inbound and it wasn't really clear to me, you know, because I've worked on the agency side of things, I know how it works to like, to, to, to get in with these sort of companies. And it wasn't really clear to me what my sort of strategy might be to, to get in there because they have retainer agreements with all these
Starting point is 00:19:18 big agencies and blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, you know, I don don't i don't think i'm going to be able to like get in with any of these big companies unless i really want to like i i think it's a low percentage thing small companies you probably get in with them but none of them really see it as like a need they might be like casually interested in it but if you're a startup that's probably going to be low down you know the the priority stack so i was, I don't think this is a good offer for them. And so then, and all the, but I did start getting some inbound, but all of it was from solopreneurs. And so then I was like, so again, another lesson here, again, you put out an offer,
Starting point is 00:20:00 you see what happens and then you adjust. And what you want to look for is like pay attention to people who are actually giving you attention or money and then probably double down on that right and so i did get hired by a few people you know they gave me a few grand to help them and stuff and they were all solopreneurs and i thought about that i was like why is this um and then i realized it's because solopreneurs have a capacity for risk that companies don't um and they and they and there's none of the political bullshit like you know how it is in any big company getting anybody to sign off on anything is a nightmare right and and on youtube you you have to like
Starting point is 00:20:38 you have to be able to take chances and you have to be able to move fast. Two things that basically even small companies can't do, but solopreneurs can't. And so that was sort of the next thing I did, and that started working. And then I evolved it again to where I'm at now, which is after talking to some people about this and just sort of observing things. I was like, you know, there's definitely a market here, but there's a much larger market for helping those same people with LinkedIn for lots of reasons we can talk about if you want. So I added helping them on YouTube and LinkedIn, and that has been the offer that's really working for me. But I still keep the YouTube thing there, even though I get more interest in LinkedIn
Starting point is 00:21:18 because it's a differentiator, because there's lots of people that'll talk to you about personal branding and helping entrepreneurs with LinkedIn, but none of them have 750,000 subscribers on YouTube like I do. And none of them can also credibly offer to help you with LinkedIn. So when I talk to somebody, I'm like, okay, what are your goals? We could go this way with LinkedIn. We could go this way with YouTube. Both of these are an option. Let's just talk about which one makes sense. So YouTube is still my differentiator,
Starting point is 00:21:45 even though it isn't necessarily like my core offer. So there was a lot there. I don't know if that's what you're looking for. No, no, it's social proof. You know, we walk in all the time and you know, when I used to walk out on stage, it was this huge, long dissertation of who I was and what I did. The minute the book became a Wall Street Journal bestseller, I don't even get introduced by my name anymore. They're like Wall Street Journal bestseller. And I have to walk out my name anymore they're like wall street journal bestseller and i have to walk out my own travel short it just becomes this differentiator and you have to work to those assets and those strengths everyone talks about you know you know you want to focus on your weaknesses absolutely not double down on your
Starting point is 00:22:13 strengths outsource your weaknesses make sure they're not crippling and then ignore them right absolutely so if someone's coming in they're like listen i need to do a better job on linkedin obviously it's where the solopreneurs are. This is where your niche is. This is something you're good at. And you can leverage your social proof, which is what you're doing with the YouTube stuff. It's phenomenal social proof. And again, not to bad mouth what you've done on YouTube. It's phenomenal, but it's kind of like describing the entire ocean by one grain of sand.
Starting point is 00:22:40 It just doesn't make, there's so much more to it. So I'm not trying to dismiss what you've done in any way, shape or form. I just think that there's so much more to your story that we want to talk about. So when we come into LinkedIn and we do these types of things, what are some tangible things that are like, okay, this is what works. If you want to sit there and you want to pivot yourself and you want to stay less than inch wide, mile deep, and you want to be stand out as a differentiator with that 1%, as you were mentioning, how do you do that?
Starting point is 00:23:01 What are the tangible things that someone goes, crap, my LinkedIn, mine personally, is garbage. I haven't even looked at it in a long time. I'd be happy to help you with that. Please, it's embarrassing. It's serious. I haven't touched it. People still hit me up. They're like, would you like to talk about your IT company?
Starting point is 00:23:18 I'm like, I sold that like 10 years ago. Shit, I should update my LinkedIn. It's embarrassing. So being able to have that conversation, you know, what are the things that people can do? Take me for example, what are the things that I could do? Cause I haven't touched it in a very long time. I'm embarrassed, but it's true. So step one is to pick that focus. Like I said, and, and again, you know, understand you're, it's very likely that you'll pivot lots of times, just like I did, but you got to start somewhere
Starting point is 00:23:43 just like anything else in business. So you pick what that focus is, and then you need to optimize, just basically give your entire profile, um, uh, a reboot to reflect that. So, you know, tagline, uh, about section banner, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I could, I'd be happy to get into the tactics of all those individual elements if you want, but do that um so what i would do um for your tagline which i think your headline which i think is kind of the most important part because when people see you in the feed um the first and they like either one of your comments or you know a piece of content that you make the first thing they're going to do they go
Starting point is 00:24:20 oh that's interesting or smart who is that and they're going to look at your profile picture and they're going to read that headline and, oh, that's interesting or smart. Who is that? And they're going to look at your profile picture and they're going to read that headline. And that's basically what Procter & Gamble would call the first moment of truth. Meaning that when you see Tide on the shelf, you have about within three seconds, the consumer has basically decided whether they want to buy it or not. And it's the same thing on social and, you know, in particular on LinkedIn. So the format I like for that headline is um you know this is not like universal but broadly speaking is to say what you do and who you do it for
Starting point is 00:24:51 followed by some demonstrated proof of your expertise so you know um it could be like um helping horizontal SaaS companies with SEO, you know, slash 50 plus, you know, websites overhauled since 2019, something like that. So you're integrating the social proof in the end of it. So you're saying this is what I do. This is how I've done it. So, you know, kind of like for you, cause I'm just thinking about this.
Starting point is 00:25:22 You'd be like, I help people brand themselves slash 750,000 followers. Greater with 1.1 million followers. So you have, you bring that social proof in immediately. So there isn't a debate once in a while. Exactly. Or, you know, the, the, the, the second part of that sort of depends on the assets you have to work with. So for example, for you, I would say for sure, Wall Street Journal bestselling author would be the thing to lead with there because as you've noted, that's kind of the thing that's most persuasive. For someone else, like let's say you're a marketer and you've been a, it could be like
Starting point is 00:25:57 three times marketing leader or something like that. Or if you've won an award, it really depends. But just something where you just plop that down on your car on the table. And instantly it's like, clearly I know what I'm doing. As you can see by the following. And if you don't have, if, if you feel like you don't have the assets to support that, that probably means you need to revisit the first part of it, because you might be overplaying your hand. It's, it's getting to the point where you can stand out as that 1% and making sure that you're in that environment and say, listen, this is a reason you should listen to me. This is how it works. And there are some people, as we talked about before, entrepreneurs, we've done a lot. We
Starting point is 00:26:32 want a lot of hats. And this is probably why you've had eight iterations out of it. Cause you're like, well, this and then this, but what I loved about it was you didn't go up and tell the ocean when you wanted the waves to come in. You kind of listened to the market and it's like, oh, this is when the waves come in. I'm going to adapt to that. It's a calm day. I'm going to deal with that. It's a rough day. I'm going to deal with that.
Starting point is 00:26:49 The market will tell you what it's responding to. So many entrepreneurs, we get into situations when you try to scale going, no, this is my grandmother's favorite recipe of cookies and I love them.
Starting point is 00:26:58 And now everyone has to love them. And this, no, no one cares about your grandma. No one cares about her cookies. React to the market, respond to the market, put your ego aside, get into the 1%. So we've got our tagline coming in with social proof. We've decided that 1%, we're going to do this 1%.
Starting point is 00:27:13 When we go in next, I'm guessing it's the about us or what is our next step from there? Yeah, I mean, it could be either one, but I'll say the banner image, just you could do them in either order. But the banner image, number one one should have your face in it because, you know, people, it's very simple, but people want to do business with people that they know, like, and trust. And the more times people see your face, the better. And you might not like the way you look. I certainly hate the way I look, but you got to put your face out there anyway, because just that's how it works. So put your face out there anyway, because just that's how it works. So put your face in there. And then also I like to describe the outcome of what will happen after
Starting point is 00:27:50 somebody works with you. You could also tell them what you do, but I would say like paint a picture of the world after they work with you. So, you know, for example, again, if you say, you know, if you are that SEO consultant, I mentioned something like that. It's like, you know, if you are that SEO consultant, I mentioned something like that. It's like, you know, build traffic that converts something like that. So they're going to see what you do and who you do it for. They're going to see some social proof. And then when they look at the banner, they'll have some idea of what the world will look
Starting point is 00:28:19 like, what the benefit of working with you is. So your future focusing them in that environment. You say, okay, this is who I am. This is why I'm the best for it. And if you know your market well enough, this is the pain I'm relieving and the result you're going to get from it. Exactly. Are there certain tools that you use?
Starting point is 00:28:35 It's like, hey, I love this versus that. If it's Canva or whatever else. I don't think it matters. It doesn't matter. People like nerding out about tools. I think it's dumb. Just use whatever you want. Thank you. It's a total waste of time people nerd out
Starting point is 00:28:48 just get it done i i you know my favorite tool would be um opt other people's time just have someone else fucking doing it out of the way i'm like you know you make banners cool here's five dollars you go make me a banner i'm gonna go back to my life now yeah that's my favorite tool in the world is opt simple and easy and when i'm investing's OPM. Using other people's money works out really well. So banner, one percenter, the result you're getting on a high level, putting your face out there, and then any sort of social proof, which is great. When we get into there and you get in, when you look at content and design and starting to do these things, which I'm pretty sure I skipped a couple of steps, but how much should you be posting? I mean, cause I get YouTube is very different than LinkedIn,
Starting point is 00:29:29 which is very different than Graham, which is very different than Tik TOK, which is very different than Twitter. Cause I refuse to call it by anything else. You can kiss my ass. Twitter will be Twitter to the day I die. I'm not calling it X that no, it's Twitter. Shut up. You killed a brand. You schmuck. Anyway, when you go into this and you need to deliver content and you're trying to push these things in, what are the things you're doing? How do you, is there a limit on how much you should post? How much you not post?
Starting point is 00:29:54 You do do it based off what other people are doing. What do we got here? Well, it depends on your goals, which is the next step I would, that will actually the very first step in the process should be to like outline your goals in terms of business objectives. And I don't mean like become well-known. Well, why do you want to be well-known? What is the specific outcome you want to achieve? Right?
Starting point is 00:30:16 Like close X number of deals, you know, of the following value or sell this much product at this, you know, whatever. Like in terms of like clear specific business objectives is goal number one or step number one, then you create a profile that you believe will enable you to achieve that goal. Um, and then the content piece, you know, and sort of your question about how often and all that sort of stuff, uh, also depends on that goal. Meaning that, um, if, if I'm in b2b and i only need to close three deals to have a great year well that sends me in one direction um if i'm in you know whatever i have a friend of mine that's a company that does like product marketing consulting they have a productized
Starting point is 00:30:57 offer that you know they they go through a like probably 150 people a year or something like that so uh they need you know a bigger pipeline something like that. So they need a bigger pipeline, right? Right, absolutely. They just need a much bigger pipeline. So the answer depends on your goals. But broadly speaking, there's two jobs that you need to do on LinkedIn. Job number one is to make yourself visible. And you do that by content and by comments.
Starting point is 00:31:23 This is a thing that a lot of people sort of overlook is the commenting. So job number one is to make yourself visible. And you do that by content and by comments. This is a thing that a lot of people sort of overlook is the commenting. So job number one is to make yourself visible. And then job number two is to convert that visibility into business outcomes. Meaning, you know, either, you know, get people to subscribe to your newsletter, product demo, like get on a discovery call, whatever that is. So I would say most people, and I'm speaking very broadly here, but most people, if you post two or three times a week on LinkedIn, that's probably enough. You should also couple that with spending time engaging in the comments of other people's content. Specifically, find creators who have an audience that is composed of your ICP and take time to leave very deliberate, thoughtful comments there. Don't force it.
Starting point is 00:32:13 Don't try too hard. Only do it when it actually makes sense. But I'll give you an example of this. I booked five discovery calls in a day from one comment I left. There's a guy named Adam Robinson, who's the CEO of retention.com. You know, if you're on LinkedIn, you might've seen him. He mentioned that he was looking for someone to help them with YouTube and a couple of people tagged me and I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to leave him my pitch in this comment because, you know,
Starting point is 00:32:37 I also DM'd it to him, but I'm sure his DMs are a mess. So I was like, I'm just going to leave it in the comments. So I wrote, I don't know, probably a three paragraph comment saying like, well, here's exactly what I would do if I was in your shoes. Here's the questions I would want to answer if I worked with you. Um, and because that was a very specific, valuable comment, I got like probably 20 first connection requests from that. And I booked five discovery calls and, you know, so far, one of those people has turned into a client.
Starting point is 00:33:03 Hopefully a couple more will from a comment that probably took me 10 minutes to write, which doesn't sound like a long time. But ask yourself this, do you usually take 10 minutes to write a comment? Probably not. More importantly, do you spend more than 10 minutes trying to get five leads? Yeah. Because most people spend a lot more time to do that. And I think the important part of this, because when we talk about scaling and doing this, is the reason it works so well was you were specific.
Starting point is 00:33:29 You said, hey, here's exactly what you need to do. I'm providing value to you. And if you take it, great. If you don't, fine. But I'm not some random person that has no social proof. I've got almost a million followers on this, a million subscribers and so on and so forth. So it was already built into your profile. So the mini was,
Starting point is 00:33:46 well, who is this schmuck giving me all this information right there in your tagline is like, Oh shit, he's not a schmuck. He's actually, he knows what he's talking about. He's moving forward in a way.
Starting point is 00:33:54 So that, so that kind of brings back that, that whole circle of this is why your taglines need to look like this. This is why your banner. Cause I'm sure he went over and he clicked on it. He goes, who the hell is this guy? Click and went,
Starting point is 00:34:03 Oh shoot. Well, okay. This is a different ball game right now. The interesting part is I haven't talked to him. I haven't talked to him yet, but five people in his audience contacted me and booked discovery calls. I, I hope I talked to him, but I, I mean, whatever.
Starting point is 00:34:19 I don't really care. I mean, if I do awesome. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's, it's, it's the four ways to get a customer, an audience. You can build it, you can buy it, you can borrow it, or you can beg for it. Yeah. And most people fail all the time because the first thing they do is they beg. They're like, please like and subscribe.
Starting point is 00:34:34 Yeah. Don't do that. And then they buy it. So now you've got all these cold leads. And then the other one, which is build it, which is just going to take way too long, just way too long. The best way to do is what you just did, which is you borrowed it. But in order to borrow it effectively, you had to establish yourself as that one percenter and say,
Starting point is 00:34:49 here I am, this is what I did. I've given tremendous value and go ahead. I know I'm just going over again because someone's sitting there taking notes right now going, mother that's why, which is why we create the lab report. So we're going to walk you guys through all this. The tactical step here is, um, build a list of creators who have an audience composed of your ICP, turn on notifications for them in the LinkedIn app. And every time you see them post as quickly as you can, assuming you have time, go look at that post and see if you can leave a really, really, really good comment. And again, don't force it. But if you can make a habit out of this, people will notice for sure, just like they did. So you're going to post your own content, of course,
Starting point is 00:35:31 but you know, like you said, that's building it, which you should do, but also borrow it by engaging with other people's content. That's job number one of being visible. And then what you need to do is convert that visibility into into, you know, into business outcomes. So hopefully, you know, you get lots of inbound and people DM you and like, Charles, you're so smart. I love all your content. Please do business with me. That will happen to some extent, but you don't want to rely on that. Um, and especially in debating, you probably can't rely on that because you just don't have enough inbound. So what you need to do is think of this as a funnel and move people down the funnel. Meaning if anybody engages with your content in any way, whether that is, you know, a like
Starting point is 00:36:12 or a comment or whatever, um, you have permission to then interact with them in some way. I would, uh, go look at their profile. And if you think that they're relevant, add them as a connection, because that means that your content is going to come up in their feed more often. And also, you know, they'll just feel closer to you. You can also, and when you do that, send them a personal note. There's a way to do that. Like if you're doing it on desktop, it's easy in the mobile app.
Starting point is 00:36:36 I don't know why they hide this, but the default is just send them a connection with no message. What you want to do is go down. There's an option that says personalized invite use that one and just send them a little note there that is based on something in their profile so you know that they just they know that you didn't just copy and paste it um literally anything like if they're from kansas you'd be like hey i was in wichita last summer it was really hot literally anything that's personalized i found out recently in linkedin uh because i'm getting messaged through there that i can send voice notes which is something i love more than anything else because i can't spell to save my life my grammar is horrible it's
Starting point is 00:37:17 embarrassing so it's just easier for me to hold it down and go hi blah blah blah blah sure hi and what i found is my open rate with those skyrocket because sending a voice message, you're like, oh my God, this guy actually sent me a message. It's really, really simple. It's really, really easy. And I won't do that with all of them, but I will sit there and every once in a while, I'm like, Hey, normally when I'm driving to the gym or just driving to do errands, I'll just go through and rapid fire. It's also what I do on Graham. It just, I'll just sit there because it seems to a converse. Cause like, wow, this is actually, someone took the time out to do this. So as you're rebranding yourself, which, you know, you had the idea before and you, you,
Starting point is 00:37:51 you front loaded it. You're, you're going through these different iterations. You're now reaching out. You've got the social proof. What is it? What are your next steps beyond that with, if you're going in and you're teaching your, your potential future clients now about how to rebrand themselves and do that. As you started going through and, and hunting their potential future clients now about how to rebrand themselves and do that, as you started, you know,
Starting point is 00:38:05 going through and hunting their LinkedIn, do you hunt to their other socials? Do you go after their website? What are the other things that you found that convert on the highest level if they want to scale? Meaning, can you clarify? I'm not sure I understand. Absolutely. So, you know, it's not just LinkedIn, right? We have these other ideas of you, you encourage people to, Hey, we gotta, we gotta go after your website. We gotta go after your gram. We gotta go after your YouTube station. you know, it's not just LinkedIn, right? We have these other ideas of you, you encourage people to, Hey, we gotta, we gotta go after your website.
Starting point is 00:38:26 We gotta go after your gram. We gotta go after your YouTube station. You know, you've got to publish a book. This is what your lead magnet looked like. No, you don't need to do all that shit. Um, you, you could, but you know, it's like anything else in business. Like there's a list of things in your business that need to be fixed. That's probably 10 miles long.
Starting point is 00:38:44 Right. And, and it's, and it's never going to get any shorter than that. list of things in your business that need to be fixed. That's probably 10 miles long, right? And, and it's, and it's never going to get any shorter than that. There's an endless things, list of things you could do, but you just got to start with something and go on from there. So to your point earlier about playing to your strengths, um, I think it, it, unless there's something out there that's just like glaringly horribly broken and wrong ignore it and just focus on linkedin because nobody's like put it this way when you're on linkedin do you click on anybody's website do you google them and go find their instagram probably not right you don't like i had somebody who um she hired me like months ago and i you know talked to her like fairly often and
Starting point is 00:39:23 she was like oh by the, your website's really nice. I never looked at it before now. Right. It was like, she's already paid me. We've worked together. She never looked at my website. So my point here is like, don't let that stuff hold you back unless it is truly like a crippling liability.
Starting point is 00:39:40 Just ignore it. Like a LinkedIn profile is fine. I know somebody who has a very successful, like six figure agency, the agency didn't have even have a website for the first year and a half it existed. Like you don't need all that shit. And I feel so much better about the fact that I haven't focused on my LinkedIn or my website in years. And I just now starting to update this stuff because it was just, I wasn't paying attention to anything because just, you know, work was coming in. So that makes me feel a little bit better and less wanting to play in traffic at the
Starting point is 00:40:06 moment. So I appreciate that. What are some of the tools? I know what you were talking about. We don't get married to any of these specific tools. What are the things that you found because you have had such rattle success in so many different areas that you're like, hey, this is this book that just, this changed it. Or this is this one supplement that changed it.
Starting point is 00:40:23 What are the things that you have found that God, if I could have gone back, if I just knew about this and this on a practical, not as far as a life lesson, because God knows we've had enough of those, you know, it is what it is. What are the things that you're like,
Starting point is 00:40:35 you know what this thing, I wish I knew about this one thing. What are the things that you've had that you've come across that you're like, wow, these are game changers for me. Autism. Okay. We're going to have that. All right. And what have you've come across that you're like wow these are game changers for me autism okay figuring out that all right and what have you done to offset that i don't offset it um it just yeah because that's i mean i'm not going to change it right um so i just have to understand who i am
Starting point is 00:41:00 and how i work and that's the reason why like i am like i i'm like biologically incapable of bullshitting like this is literally the way my brain works autistic people are not good at this and so i've just decided to lean into that for example with my linkedin content i make it like very like no bullshit like brutally honest type stuff because those are the people i want to work with because i know from past experience if you're the type of person that you know wants me to be gentle and you know whatever like it's just not me like i'm a very thoughtful like caring kind person but the way i express that it'd be like charles your website fucking sucks we need to fix it here's what we should do and and you're and i want to work with the type of people that go, oh, awesome.
Starting point is 00:41:48 Thank you for telling me that. And yeah, that sounds good. Let's do it. I don't want, I don't want to work with people where I have to go, you know, stroke their ego and blah, blah, blah. So very pretty. No, you're in my way. Move.
Starting point is 00:41:59 Yeah, absolutely. So, but anyway, you don't, you don't want life lessons. Um, man, honestly, like if you want to share no no no uh honestly man i i the the biggest tactical tool tip i would say is to just don't fucking worry about them because it's a total waste of time everybody i know who like obsesses over using the latest new you know gee whiz tool and stuff they're never the most productive people the most productive people i know all use the dumbest most basic shit like apple notes you know and fucking gmail and like i i don't know i mean i'm just not the person to ask about that because i don't think that stuff matters very
Starting point is 00:42:38 much just decide on your goal and use the the the least complex tool you can use to execute on that goal is my advice i agree it's one of the guys who is the the best trader that i've ever met as far as doing high frequency trading uh i was in his it so this is 20 something years ago i took his keyboard away because it was missing all the keys i said oh shit his keyboard's broken i'm going to give him a new keyboard and he came out and he's like where's my keyboard and i was like i gave you a new one he'll give me my old one back and he wasn't he was just he was he was absolutely on the spectrum and he crushed it i was gonna say it worked very specifically don't touch my keyboard it's like copy that i'm not gonna touch your keyboard the people i know that i just did a podcast with somebody he's manic bipolar and he sat there and
Starting point is 00:43:21 there was this whole guilt loop that he had for years and years and years about being manic bipolar and then it took him about three, four years ago, he just leaned into it. And he's like, yeah, this is what helped me crushed it. I've realized that this was a strength. It wasn't a weakness. I'm going into this and I'm only going to work with people that that doesn't rustle their feathers off. I'm like, listen, if I do, I'm not your person. I'm not your guy. The pool's big enough. There's enough people on the planet. Get out of my way. I'm just going to get into it. Well, it sounds like I need to get out of your way so i can go fix my linkedin profile because it's horrible so having someone like you i might have to pick your brain i'm like excuse me sir how do i fix my shit it's
Starting point is 00:43:53 really broken happy to chat oh i'd be it'd be really helpful um i really appreciate you coming on and being direct and to the point and not doing any flop i think people walked away with an immense amount of tangible things how do people find? How do people track you down? And where do you want them to track you down if they do? FinnMcKenty.com is my website, which you can look at if you want. But I would say LinkedIn is probably the best place to look me up.
Starting point is 00:44:14 So just look me up on there. F-I-N-N-M-C-K-E-N-T-Y. And always happy to chat to anybody if you think I can help. All right, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on. Of course. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the I Am Charles Schwartz Show. We hope you found Finn McEntee's journey from invisible to influencer
Starting point is 00:44:33 as inspiring as we did. A huge thank you to Finn for sharing his unfiltered insights and unconventional strategies with us. Your authenticity and no-nonsense approach to personal branding on LinkedIn are truly refreshing. To our listeners, your commitment to personal growth and branding excellence is what drives us to bring you these valuable conversations. We're grateful for your support. If you want to dive deeper into the strategies we discussed today, don't miss out of Finn's tactics, including step-by-step guides on optimizing your LinkedIn profile, creating engaging content, and leveraging your unique traits for brand success.
Starting point is 00:45:11 You can grab your copy of the companion guide at podcast.imcharlesschwartz.com. It's your personal playbook for LinkedIn domination. Remember, your quirks are your superpowers, so go out there, be authentically you, and watch your personal brand soar. Until next time, keep it real and keep scaling.

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