Proven Podcast - LinkedIn: Your Million Dollar Network - Matt Cretzman

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

In this episode, Charles dives deep into the world of LinkedIn mastery with Matt Cretzman, a digital alchemist who's turned personal tragedy into a thriving career of connection-building. Matt unveils his blueprint for transforming a static LinkedIn profile into a dynamic, opportunity-generating powerhouse, offering a masterclass in the art and science of professional networking. From his early days in non-profit work to becoming a LinkedIn strategist, Matt's journey is a testament to the power of authentic relationships and strategic online presence. He dissects his evolution from a LinkedIn novice to a networking virtuoso, revealing the DNA of his "Pipeline Principle" that's kept him at the forefront of digital relationship-building. Charles and Matt engage in a candid conversation, exploring the game-changing potential of AI-powered profile optimization and the crucial distinction between a sales pipeline and a relationship pipeline. They unpack the counterintuitive approach of "showing your homework," the magic of creating compelling LinkedIn content, and why understanding the psychology of your connections trumps following trends in today's competitive professional landscape. Matt's insights crackle with practical wisdom as he breaks down his unique LinkedIn strategies, from the innovative "LinkedIn Event Hacking" to the revolutionary concept of LinkedIn Newsletters. He challenges conventional networking wisdom, advocating for a radical shift from surface-level connections to deep, strategic relationship building that resonates with professionals on an authentic level. KEY TAKEAWAYS: • Uncover the secret sauce of Matt's "Pipeline Principle" and how it can transform your professional network • Learn why "showing your homework" is crucial for building credibility and trust on LinkedIn • Discover how AI tools can supercharge your LinkedIn profile without losing your authentic voice • Understand the power of strategic content creation in attracting the right connections and opportunities • Explore strategies for optimizing your LinkedIn presence across different features, from posts to newsletters Head over to https://provenpodcast.com/ to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. KEY POINTS: 8:04 Life-Changing Accident: Details a tragic van accident that reshaped Matt's life trajectory. 10:34 Relationship Building: Emphasizes the importance of genuine connections in professional growth. 12:50 Orphanage Initiative: Shares how a personal project led to unexpected professional opportunities. 16:32 Overcoming Adversity: Discusses navigating personal and professional challenges through relationships. 19:01 Skill Acquisition: Highlights key skills necessary for success in the digital age. 20:40 Profile Optimization: Offers strategies for enhancing LinkedIn profiles using AI tools. 23:58 Digital Networking: Provides tips for effective online relationship building. 25:50 Credibility Building: Explores the role of social proof in establishing professional authority. 29:34 Authentic Outreach: Stresses the importance of genuine communication in networking efforts. 31:11 Relationship Focus: Reiterates the value of prioritizing relationships over sales in networking. 34:11 Outreach Strategies: Shares effective techniques for initiating professional connections. 38:16 Success Story: Presents a case study demonstrating the power of strategic LinkedIn use. 40:51 Avoiding Pitfalls: Warns against common mistakes in LinkedIn networking, particularly spamming. 42:27 Newsletter Utilization: Explains how to leverage LinkedIn newsletters for increased visibility and engagement.

Welcome to the proven podcast, where it does not matter what you think, only what you can prove. Everyone says networking is about collecting contacts. Today's guest, Matt Kretzman, proves it's about rebuilding your entire life. He's proven that strategic relationships on platforms like LinkedIn aren't just career boosters, their life rebuilders. The show starts now. All right, everybody, welcome back. I'm excited about today's show because this one talks about tragedy all the way to radical success.

So, Matthew, thank you so much for being on the show. Oh, no, it's my pleasure, Charles. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be meaningful conversation. And for those that are listening, I think we're going to take you on a ride today. Absolutely. Let's start that ride. You know, you've been through some stuff, and most people have no idea who you are.

And for those of you who are paying attention or don't know, go get some tissues. There's going to be some stuff here. So this hurts a little bit. So let's get into it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I'm actually, right now where I'm reporting from is this little town called Buda, Illinois, which is, it's two hours outside of Chicago.

I'd never heard of Buddha. until one of my best friends moved here. And I just wrapped up visiting my parents and doing a conference over in Toronto and wanted to route through here. But as we kind of get into the backstory, you know, my life has been always about relationships. I, you know, my one of the leaders in my life that I admire, he said, your destiny is defined by your relationships. And so, you know, John Maxwell says, you know, you're the sum average of your five.

Who are your five that you're spending most of the time with? and as I look back on my life, that's always been the constant. Like the biggest decisions that I've made in my life was because somebody spoke into that or somebody had influence over me. And I know, liked and trusted them. And there was a lot of respect. So back when I was young, I went on a couple trips to a few different countries and fell in love with, fell in love with travel.

I mean, I grew up watching Indiana Jones, right? That we were, I think we were from that era. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, man, is that a job? Like, because I want to be that. Can I do that?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Did you know with Indiana Jones, it was originally not going to be him? It was going to be the guy from Magnum P.I. It was going to be Tom Selleck with the original person who was cast. What? But the TV show wouldn't let him out of it. So they had to bring in Harrison Ford.

But now I can't imagine anybody other than Harrison Ford doing it. He's so iconic. He's so iconic. I know, yeah. Yeah, and the young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I don't know if you ever watched that. It's so good. Yeah.

So, I mean, you know, travel. Yeah. Anyways, yeah. That's what I grew up watching that stuff. And I was like, man, I just love the adventure, the travel. the pursuit of, you know, beating the bad guys and winning. And so when I took trips that, you know, like trips overseas and throughout Latin America as a young kid, my first trip to Mexico was 2001. My first trip to the Dominican Republic was 2003.

And coming from Canada and Toronto, you know, growing up in suburbia, it just blew me away. I was like, how are people living in these conditions? How is this? Like, this is what is actually what most of the world, I think, is actually experiencing as light. And so from a young age, I was like, man, I really want to do something to help these people. and just make an impact on their lives and kind of improve their situation. So very young, like that was inside of my heart and that was my focus on. So later on, just to accelerate the story, ended up getting married in 2007, had my first kid in 2008.

I was 21 when I got married and I was a week 22 when I had my first child. Her name was Aslan. She was born eight days after I turned 22 and she made me a dad. And it was super special. I loved being a dad. I ended up having three girls. So I have no clue what it's like to raise boys. maybe a little bit because I am one,

but from this perspective, like, I'm a girl dad through and through. And so I had Aslan in 2008. At the time, I was working as a used car salesman, though I was not that used car salesman, okay? I was an honest used car salesman.

That might be an oxymoron. That might be. You know, I'm coming upstream, man. Maybe not so much. You know, I'm trying to change the trend. It sounds like a campaign, you know, like, yeah, honest use car salesman, there you go. And so, yeah, I was doing that.

And then, It came to time where I was like, all right, I'm ready to do this thing. I'm just going to launch out. So I started a nonprofit organization in January 2010, quit my job, packed up everything, put a bunch of stuff in storage. This was in southern Ontario. And I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go and live in Latin America.

I ended up setting my sights on Dominican Republic. And being a Canadian, it was pretty easy for me to get into Cuba, whereas Americans, it's a little bit harder. We can do it. Complicated. Totally different. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Side note, there's actually 11 provisions that allow Americans to travel to Cuba.

Um, yes, yeah, we'll save that for the bonus episode. Bonus episode. Bonus episode. So, so, um, you know, as I was traveling, just kind of presenting my mission to people all over the U.S. I went to traveling to 45 different states and I've been all over the place and people love my vision. Like, you know, we get it. Um, we're going to, we're behind you.

We're going to support you. And everything was going great. It was, uh, it was super special. Uh, October 20th, 2010, Maddie was born. And so the height of my travel, which was 2010 to 2013, um, I'm, I had, you know, I had a two-year-old and a newborn. And it was, it was tough. We just, you know, we grinded.

I can tell you many, many stories. Again, bonus episode of driving all night, pulling over at pit stops and falling asleep in the same bathroom stall that I had just driven three months prior. Because I was so exhausted. That's, you know, real talk. You know, but when you're starting an early stage, even company or organization, that's what you got to do. Like you got to put in the grind and you got to put in the work.

And for me, I was very mission driven and focused. I really wanted to make a difference. So it kept me going up until one event that just so radically changed my life. And I still feel the ripple effect of what that was, even to this day. So to set the stage, Maddie and Aslan, Aslin was three. Maddie was 18 months. We had pulled over in North Carolina. We were traveling to Ohio for a conference.

And as I was driving through Northern North Carolina, Mount Airy, other side note, fun fact, Andy Griffith Show was filmed in Mount Airy, North Carolina. And that's really old, I know. I'm not even that old, but I know that stuff. It's good to know these things. There you go. You're driving through. I was driving through, yeah, North Carolina.

And being a Canadian, this was February in North Carolina. And I wasn't that concerned about the snow because I grew up in the snow. But what I learned that day and since is not every state or place has the same infrastructure to deal with inclement weather, such as snow as Canada does. And so as I was driving north with my family, we were, you know, driving along and I'd see a car in the ditch here and a truck in the ditch over there. And I was driving the speed limit, being very careful. And Aslan, you know, she was falling asleep and so was Maddie. And we came to a bridge just before Mount Airy. And as we drove over that bridge,

our tires actually hit black ice. I didn't see it. And so they stopped, you know, they just lost traction. The back of the van started to swing out. Kids were asleep, thank God. And I remember my wife at the time, you know, just woke up just screaming as we're just careening out of control. And so what ended up happening was the van spun off

in the middle between the north and south highways. There was this large green. space and in the green space there was this big interstate pole and our van came to a a collision halt right on aslin's door on that interstate pole and so a bunch of smoke glass shattered um i was you know a little bit disoriented the airbag punched me in the face and it kind of fractured my nose a little bit and um and it was just it was a scene out of a horror movie it was um it was it was unreal And so I ended up, I drive with my shoes off. So I wasn't even wearing my shoes.

My phone went flying. So I jumped out of the driver's side window and came around to the other side of the van. And that's where I looked. And I mean, that side of the of the vehicle is just a complete disaster. It was a wreck. Like it blasted the door. Aslan was there, kind of slumped over. And imagine like being a dad.

Like at that moment, I'm like, I don't know what I do. Do I pick her up? Do I not? Do I, you know, where's my phone? I can't call 911. And so I was just frozen. And I remember just, you know, shouting out, you know, God, don't take my child. I was like, you know, just don't take my child.

And I remember scooping her up and holding her and her body kind of heaved a little bit. And I was like, oh, thank God, she's alive. What ended up happening later on was I found out that that was actually her body just expelling all of the air that was in her lungs. And I, you know, I held on to her to the last. minute. And so there's a lot that I could tell about that story. That's not for this podcast, maybe a bonus episode. But there were so many miracles that happened after that event that just brought so much healing and meaning, I would say, to what was a tragedy. As it obviously ended up

passing away, the community wrapped their arms around us and just blessed us immensely. People donated burial plots. They covered the funeral cost. It was actually live streamed on the local news WXII NBC affiliate. So many people tune into the live stream, Charles, that it actually, it froze and shut down. And it just caught the local, local news. It just went around. And now because of, you know, the nature of my organization, all of our supporters,

which there were hundreds, if not thousands of them, they were all tuning in. And one tweet that I sent out was really what set it into motion. That was the one domino. I remember laying in the back of the ambulance and I had my phone in my left hand. And I sent out a tweet. I was like, we were in an accident, don't know if Aslan's going to make it. Please pray, hashtag retweet. And that got retweeted a number of times.

And that's what kind of set the domino in motion and of just all these people around the world, just loving on us and helping us and supporting us. Now, we carried on. And since this, I think one of the main themes of this talk we're going to have is relationships. And so one of the relationships that came into my life was somebody who he was a past, pastor of a church in North Carolina, and he had been helping people in India for 30 years. And he had a great organization doing great work in India. He invited me to come to India. And I'm like, Indiana Jones style, yo, let's go. You know what I'm saying? And so I went to India. And it again, like I'd been, I traveled a little bit. But when I went to India, that's when another

shock, I was not prepared for what I was about to witness. And I didn't know. There are 35 million orphans in India. And the condition that they live in is, I mean, it's horrific. It's unbelievable. It's horrific. And so I went, one of the guys that I met, he was the one that was in charge of kind of managing our itinerary and driving us around. His name was Danny. We went on that trip to India. We became friends just because we were, you know, side by side, that whole 12-day trip. And at the end of the trip, he kept bugging me, like, throughout the trip. It's like, hey, let me know when you have a few minutes because I want to come and show you something that I'm working on. And so we were just so busy.

But at the end of the week, I had a window and I was like, cool, let's do it. So I jumped on a scooter, drove over to this place, maybe a mile down the road. And I pulled up to this tiny building, this tiny house that was clearly under construction. And what he ended up telling me was he and his wife took out a loan from the government because they were so burdened about caring for the orphans of India that they were willing to take out a personal loan to build a building, build a small house. care for as many as they possibly could. And he just shared his vision with me. And I took a picture, a few pictures that day. I still have it.

I reflect back on it. But what ended up happening eight months later is we continued to have, you know, a friendship and build a relationship and a level of trust. He called me one day and he said, Matt, I'd like to ask you a question. Can we, I'd love to team up with you to build this orphanage. I'd just like to know if you, would you mind if I named it after your daughter? And I was like, you know, tears just streaming like, I would love to, man. It was a dream Sunday, a bucket list.

If one day I could, you know, have an impact like that and just do something so incredibly meaningful. And it came much sooner than I thought it would. At the time, I was probably 26, 27 years old. And, you know, I had young kids. I had Lucy in 2013. And so I had like two young girls. And to find such meaningful fulfillment through something like that, it just, it has become

one of the greatest honors of my life to help these kids. And the interesting thing I'll say about where I'm reporting this from right now, I'm actually in a city where another one of my closest, dearest friends that walked through all these seasons of life with me, he lives here in Buda, Illinois. So I'm here hanging out with my friend Chantah, who's just been such an amazing anchor for me throughout my life. And so to speed up the story,

I ended up moving to the Dominican Republic in 2013, to 16. My heart grew for India so much more. I was like, I need a better home base. I can't base out of the Dominican if I'm going halfway around the world with my family. And so they essentially spun the globe and I'm like, where should I live? Dallas looks great. And so I settled on Dallas, moved to Dallas with the intention of continuing to serve and love and help grow our, you know, organization in Asia, really in India. And that's when real life hit. And the van that was spinning in 2012 felt like it continued to spin. And in 2016, when I moved to Dallas and I had my two kids, that's when my wife left.

And I was now full-time single dad. And I had lost almost everything except my kids. I lost my organization because I couldn't travel anymore as a single dad. I lost my sense of identity because I had done that my whole life and the cost with which it came. I felt a great sense of grieving over all the blood, sweat, and tears. and the life that it cost for me to build what I have built. That was then taken away. You know, my self-respect was taken away. I was used to being flying, you know, flown over to conferences and speaking in front of hundreds, if not a couple thousand people. And, and I had really settled on,

you know, where I am in life. And I'm very happy and I'm content. I'm excited about my future, only to have all of that taken away. And in 2016 to 18, those are what I call my wilderness experience where I was just wandering and I was searching for what's the next thing? I don't know. And I would assume that there's no doubt somebody who's listening to this podcast that is either going through that experience, they've come out of that experience, or they're about to go into a period of time like that, a season. Life comes in seasons. And there's going to be a season like that where the unexpected happens. And it may be very difficult. So you've gone through all these things, which most people will never experience in their lives.

They've never experienced loss on that level where life happens and then a community rallies behind you. And then you build these relationships. And then even after all this healing, life just continues to happen. There's a 67% failure ratio of all marriages in the United States. That's just it is what it is. It's a better change.

I wouldn't get on a plane that at a 67% failure ratio, hence why there's no ring there. So in that, you started thinking about, hey, relationships matter and how we can leverage relationships. And there's different platforms and there's different ways to do it. I know you've written a book about that on how to jump into those relationships

and how to kind of influence and connect in those relationships. When you're doing that and you're going into that, what have you learned? Tell me more about your book on how you can leverage this. Because, you know, I get, everyone has, thinks that their tragedy,

whatever's going on is, is the worst that ever happened. And for them, it is. It's kind of like when, you know, you've got little girls, when they first start crying that first time because they, you know, they hit their hand or they touch something warm.

That's the worst pain they've ever felt in their life. So, yeah, there's other people who have inoperable bone cancer who are going through much more, but to that individual child, it's the worst they've ever come across. So everyone's pain they're going through is the worst they've ever gone through. But when you have the ability to look at other people saying, hey, you lost a daughter, you lost the wife, you lost everything, all of these things.

And yet you're still done this. Okay, how do I get out of that hole? How do I get back up and running? And you've always said it, you know, relationships are core of that and how to access this and leverage this and make sure that you present yourself in a way that you are engaged with. So tell me more about that and the platform you use. and the book and all that.

I love this. I love this. And thank you for the segue. This is perfect. So, 2019 was another year that changed my life. And for the better.

That was the pivotal moment where in that year, I figured out a couple things and it set me on a different trajectory. And I will say like, you know, the mindset that I had all through those years, though there were certainly highs and lows

and ups and downs. And I felt good one day and horrible the next day as I was just on this constant pursuit for what's next. 2019, I met somebody who became a mentor to me. And so I always tell for people that are going through a tough season or they're looking for a transition, who are the people that are where you want to be? Who's gone through what you've gone through?

They've come out successful and they are at a level of life that you want to experience. Reach out to them and ask them for help. And maybe there are some that will accept that and be open to that and some that might reject that. Fortunately for me, it came through an intro. A friend saw where I was at. He's like, hey, you seem to have some marketing skills. you've done a number of marketing things. Let me connect you to Brad, who runs a marketing company, and see if he's got a spot.

And so I met Brad, talked to Brad, he offered me a spot, hired me. In 2019, I figured out everything that had to do with starting a marketing agency and running a business. And these are the skills. And this is what I love about where we're at in society. We live in the gig economy. We're in a skill economy. Where I went to school meant nothing. It had no bearing on my success in business and into the next stage that I was going to step into.

It was 2019 all about learning skills. For me, and there's a lot of skills that you can learn. There's more skills than ever that you can learn. So what are some of those skills that you learned that you got to leverage into? Because a lot of people are going to want to have some really practical, tangible, what do I do? How do I get out of this? I get finding a mentor. What are the skills that we get in?

We get to that point. Yep. Yep. Okay. So for me, the skills that I learned, LinkedIn became, you know, for whatever reason, I had a draw to LinkedIn, a poll to get into LinkedIn. So I jumped in on LinkedIn. my perception of LinkedIn was a place that I would spruce up my profile if I needed a job.

It was essentially a digital replica of my resume. What I didn't know, but soon discovered was LinkedIn is, it is, in my opinion, one of the biggest gateways to unbelievable opportunities, more so than any other social media platform, in my experience, and for a number of different reasons. Because on LinkedIn, it is, yes, now it's become a content hungry platform. 1.5% of the total user base on LinkedIn consistently create content and they're approaching a billion users. That's a lot of empty space. Like LinkedIn wants people to fill that empty space. But the second thing and why I love LinkedIn the most, at least initially, was it's a platform to connect with people. It is a business first platform where people are expecting and get on there to do business. And that business is done through relationships. And it's also done. Those relationships are formed by having the

right conversations. And so what I learned, was, and to get to your question about what skills, my skill set that I developed was I became really, really good at finding and starting, finding the right people and starting the right conversation with the right person in the right way. And we're talking about total strangers. So that's really the question. And I think through this all the time with my clients. Like, how do you find the right person and start that conversation at scale that doesn't make them feel like they're being spammed or they're a sales target or they're just the number, right? And I think that's why, you know, only 0.5% or whatever it is,

and LinkedIn actually creates content and pushes it out because they don't know how to do that. So if I'm in a situation, and one of the things you love going to is getting really tactical, if I'm sitting there and going, listen, I thought LinkedIn was just my resume in a different format, which is what most people think of Lincoln is,

how do I present myself so that it is in a way that is going to get that engagement, that is going to build that relationship. What are some of the things that people can do that are tangible, that they can sit down and say, oh, crap, I just heard Matt, this is awesome. I'm going to pull over. I'm going to do this on my phone.

I'm going to do this right now on my laptop. I'm going to stop listening to podcast. I'm going to write down and I'm taking immediate action. What are some of the things that they can do immediately? Here's a step. And I just did this. Here's a process. Very, very tactical.

And I just did this with my dad two days ago. It took us about two hours. And you're probably going to need to be on your laptop to do this because I don't think LinkedIn lets you do it from your phone. But, but, you know, listen to this later and follow the process. Step one. Go to your LinkedIn profile and you can download your profile as a PDF. Download your whole profile as a PDF. Step number two, sign up for a clod.AI account.

It's free. If you pay the $20 a month subscription, you're going to get access to Claude projects, which I'm a big fan of, go and do it. It's 20 bucks. It's totally worth it. Okay, that's step number two. Step number three,

you're going to go and upload that PDF on the Claude, right? And then you're going to tell Claude. You're going to tell Claude this. Because the first thing that's really important for you is your profile. Your profile is, it's your digital billboard. You've got to have a dialed in profile, right? And you're like, oh, I'm not a good writer. I can't think about how do I position myself

as an extra being anything. You don't have to do that anymore. Exactly. 100%. Exactly. So take all of this stuff, go into Claude, give it your PDF and tell Claude

in just like you were talking to a human. Hey, Claude, my name is so-and-so. I've given you a PDF from my LinkedIn profile. I want you to help position me as an expert. Look at my experience and here are some things that I'm passionate about. Let's work sequentially through my profile

so that I can produce something that's highly optimized and professional. Love it. Enter. Boom. Claude's going to analyze all of it. It's going to do all the hard work. And it's going to spit out this amazing copy for your headline, your About section,

your experience, maybe even like your banner and just work through it. Go back and forth. Hey, Claude, I like this, but I don't like that. Tweak this, fix that, whatever, just like you were talking to an editor or a graphic designer and it'll do all the work. And then you can go to Canva. You know, Canva, of course, like update the banner and stuff like that, clean up your profile. And you'll be amazed.

Like, you'll be amazed what happens when you just do that one thing. You'll feel better and that will give you the confidence, which I think is the reason why most people shy away from being really active on LinkedIn is because they're either insecure or they don't feel like, you know, they present themselves in the right way and they don't have any clarity on, you know, what's my authority? What's my expertise? I love that. You started with that. And because I've had this conversation with people all the time. They're like, okay, what do I say to someone? I was like, listen, if I told you the absolute perfect thing to say in a networking environment and you walked in naked, covered in dirt with your.

hair messed up having bedhead. I don't care if you should, what you say, it's probably not going to convert. I love that you said, we got to start with your profile. We got to clean you up because if you're walking into a room, this is digital networking. You've got to present yourself in a way that integrates and connect in a really, really high way. So using cloud AI, and I am, there's a lot of people who are nervous about AI. I'm not nervous about AI in any way you should perform. I think it's the greatest tool on the planet is a virtual fleet of employees for me. I use it all the time. I absolutely love it. Do I think it's going to take over a bunch of different stuff? I don't know. I don't know, Christopher.

I don't know. All I know is that for a lot of companies that I've worked with, like content creators and all that, I'm like, y'all guys might want to get more skill sets because it's going to change. You know, ghost riders got eaten alive, eaten alive.

Yeah, all of us. 100%. It's over. It's over. Sorry, guy. If you're a ghost rider right now, contact Matt, he'll teach you some new skillsets.

You're going to need them. That's what it is. Sorry. It's like the people used to be the window knockers back in England. They would knock on your windows in the morning to wake you up. And then a long o'clock's happened. You're like, well, sorry. You got a pivot.

It is what it is. Sorry. Sorry. So, okay, so someone goes in. They use Claude. They've redesigned this. A lot of stuff that people run into that is a problem is, how do I connect? I mean, we connected over LinkedIn.

How do I connect? How do I reach out? How do I do this? Obviously, the best way is just to send naked pictures. No, that's not right. No, that's Instagram. Yeah, that's only fan or something. But I also love what you said that, you know, LinkedIn is specifically designed.

They're there for a specific reason. You know, you go to an event that's all about knitting. You don't go and talk about how to make sushi. It's a knitting event, for God's sakes. Same thing here. They're here to do this. There's so many people who try and do business on Instagram, and I'm like, it's a little harder, guys.

Go to the path of least resistance. So if you're sitting there and you've gone through cloud and you've optimized your profile. Yeah. How important is social proof? You know, I know you've written a book. I've ordered them as well. How important is social proof now? Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, the time. old formula and it's never going to change is no like and trust. Right. And so you got to put yourself in the, you know, the other person's shoes and look at you from an objective perspective. If I see me on LinkedIn or in town, like do I exude trust, right? Is there any evidence of my expertise? That's essentially it. You know, so I love these, you know, these philosophies or, you know, approach to life that's like build in public, right? Show your homework. And there's never more an important time for you to show your homework and work in public, build in public than now. It is the proof of your work. Right. So that's, that's, that's, that's.

super important. There's a couple of easy ways to do that. One of which, you know, you can do through content. So let me give you, again, like really low hanging fruit, easy takeaway, super tactical. And again, I did this with my dad two days ago and I do this all the time. So this works. All right? So now that you've gone to Claude and you've cleaned up your profile, the next thing that you can do with Claude, and here's how I juggle Claude with Chat Chbett. I would then go to Claude and say, based on all this information, what is your, what would you say are some topics that I should be talking about to build the right audience? Boom, it'll give you topics. If you want to take it a step further and build the roadmap to LinkedIn voice, which I've done,

go to Google, LinkedIn voice, top LinkedIn voice topics. You'll come up with the website, grab the website, give it the chat, GBT, and say, and actually, I would compare both with chat chv-t. Copy all that, get the PDF, give it the chat, TBT with that link, and say, I want you to blend my expertise with LinkedIn top voice topics and tell me what I should be speaking about on LinkedIn. Boom, it's going to make sense of all of it, make it super easy. If you want take it a step further with Chat Chb-T, which is great for research and strategy, then tell Chat Chabit, hey, what are some newly published books on these topics and authors that I can use to create content or possibly reach out to? And here's the magic, right? So now it gives you all

those books, the authors, it'll even link to them. You can click those, and if you're really smart, you're going to find those authors on the sleepiest channel to connect with high performance ever, and that's LinkedIn, right? Yeah, you see where I'm going with that. I, I, I, I've done this multiple times. Yes. And it works. Exactly. Not only does it work, it's a game changer.

I remember there was an individual that we wanted to come out for an event. And I reached out to him and I said, hey, I'm going to buy 500 copies of your books and give him away. Do you want to come speak at this event? And he's like, I'm sorry, what? And I was like, I'm going to give me away for free. It would be great if you were there, if you want to sign them, if you want to do a remote thing.

He's like, I'll come out and I'll speak. And he's like, okay. And all it costs for me, instead of having to pay him to come speak, I just bought 500 copies of his book. Really. And we got the author's price, which is very, for those who haven't published a book, we authors get a very different price than you do. So, like, my book is the cheapest I can make it, which is like 14 bucks, 15 bucks.

My author's copy costs me $4 free shipping. So just we will, whenever I go speak at events, I will literally ship boxes of my books to the event and just give them away. Because if you're in the process of writing a book on a complete little tactical tip, books are nothing more than a sales funnel. There's social proof to create your sales funnel. It's building KLT, which Matt talked about earlier, which is no like and trust, but it has to be written in a way, which is feel-felt fix. I feel what you've gone through. I have felt it to you.

This is how I fixed it. And that has all your content needs to be done. And if you're not doing these things, it's brutal. One of the things that you mentioned also that I think it's just, I love it. I think we need to bring back the age of authenticity, the ability to sit there and say, hey, I'm doing this live. For example, I sat there and we were doing an event. I'm like, I'm the Beyonce podcast.

They're like, I'm sorry, what? I was like, the Beyonce podcast back in when she was on Star Search and she got kicked off because she had no idea what she was doing. and to be a podcast. I have no idea what I'm doing. But it hooked enough that people were like, oh, and I was self-deprecating enough to be honest. Like, I don't know. I was doing it on a webcam.

You and I talked before we started recording. I was like, I don't know math. And you're like, really? You're going to love it. I don't understand how to do anything. So having that authenticity is a huge fact. It's huge. When you do this outreach, what are the ways do you have templates?

Do you have normal ways that you do? It's a hey, this is how I'm going to outreach. How do you do it? Yeah, yeah. Depending on the type of the campaign, right? And the campaign strategy, I tell people like tools, tools and data, both of them are a commodity nowadays. I don't use whatever tool you want, right? They're all going to do a good job.

If you want to use our tool, lead store, may I go for it? Like, but they're all, there's a ton of them. They all do a good job. Data is everywhere. You know, don't buy lists from people. Just go get like a, you know, like a $99 subscription. Thank you. Thank you.

Go to warp leads. It's $49. And you can export unlimited contacts at word leads. Okay, there you go. That was free. So that doesn't really matter. It's your strategy. And what we do and when we're talking about outreach is.

is we look, I do, at least, and you probably do too, right? We look for commonality. What's the commonality between me and them? And this is what I teach, you know, called, this is like my pipeline principle, which most people, they think about pipeline and they hear sales. When I think about pipeline, I hear relationships. Yes. How do I, how do I fill my...

I think everyone listening to this needs to stop thinking sales and start thinking relationships. Correct. Your network is your net worth. And the better relationship you have with them, it changes it. So, yeah, I love that you have that difference. That's it. And I even say, you know what, a little bit. little bit of a tangent. I don't say your net, I'm going to redefine that one. I don't think your

network is your network is your fund is, is your conduit to expose your net worth. Because my net worth doesn't come from people around me. My net worth is intrinsic to who I am, but my network is necessary for me to express and exchange that value. You know what I'm saying? It is, it's a way for you to spend those dollars and, you know, do do business in the economy. But, but no, you're right. And your, your, your, your net worth does increase with the quality relationships, which is really important. So you look for commonality. And some easy ways to do that. There's a couple of different hacks that I've used over the years and they continue to work well. Alumni campaigns are easy, right? Like did you graduate from a certain university?

You know, like we did one for president of a basketball team. He graduated from Notre Dame, lives in Dallas. And we just, you know, Notre Dame peeps in Dallas. Hey, I'm holding a luncheon. I'd love for you to come. Super easy. Like that one works. Commonality. And the other one could be, you know, beliefs or values. Go to, you know, you know, maybe organizations may be a part of where you might view the world the same way or care about the same topics. Do you volunteer a part of an organization? The other one that works really well is LinkedIn event hacking. So go into LinkedIn in the search bar, put yourselves in the mind of your ideal client. What events would they attend? Put that in the search in LinkedIn,

filter by events. You can do it from your phone. And then you're going to scroll through all the events. If you put sales, they care about sales, they have problems with sales, you're good at sales. Boom, there you go. Now there's thousands of people that are looking for. for what you're trying to offer. And they care about leveling up. So those are like, you know, little strategies that I'll use.

And then as far as templates, depending on, okay, go ahead. That's where I was going. I was like, so I get how you find the people. Yeah,

yeah, it's not like, okay, I find someone who wants to do personal growth, wants to do sales, wants to do whatever. Yeah. How do I do outreach?

Because it's, it's interesting because some of the people I work with are like, well, how do I find people that I like-minded that I want to date? I was like, it's not that hard.

Where do you want to hang out? it's the same idea. It's the same commonality. Where are they going? And then go to those events. And you're going to find like-minded people. Correct. Not a good idea.

Because you're just pissing in the window. So when you do this and you're like, hey, I found Bob, Susie, whoever it is that I want to connect with. Yeah. What does the outreach look like? What does it look like? How do you communicate in a way that's effective? Yep. If I'm going to do the event hacking one, for instance, I like to open up my connection message,

which, by the way, if you put no connection message in your connection request, about 30% are going to convert anyways. If you have a really clean profile. So have a really clean profile, reach out. You'll get that connection. You'll get that success, especially if your profile speaks to what they care about. And they're like, oh, it's super obvious. Right. But if you're going to put a connection message into your request, I like to open up with a question or with, you know, a relational value statement. For events, I usually start with you attending event name two first name, question mark. Really cool bumping into somebody else who

cares about growing, you know, leveling up in sales or leveling up in whatever. Right. Because that question, psychologically, the human wants to answer the question. So we've seen that one work really well. You might even say it's a little bit cheesy, but it still works. If you're reaching out to people that do fit the, you know, the ICP, ideal customer profile, you still working at company name, first name, question mark, right? Just to clarify. And because not everybody updates their LinkedIn profile.

They may have moved on and you don't know about it. So they're not a fit anymore. So that clarifying statement, we've seen crazy, crazy good metrics just with that one question. in the connection request, sometimes even 80% will accept the connection request, and maybe 40% will just directly reply without even accepting the connection request with things like, yes, I am. Why do you ask? No, I'm not, you know, or whatever. And it just starts the conversation. You know, it's just a conversation starter. So that's the easy way. I don't think there's any substitute for the manual, like, highly, highly personalized, like, I'm going to do it myself.

I don't think there is a substitute for that. The next best thing is a bunch of sophisticated tools like clay.com and, you know, hyper-personalization, as we would call it, as the intro message. Subsequent messages, I'm big on video. Put a video in that second message. Get it up as early as you can get people to see you and build rapport through video,

the better your campaign is going to perform. Because I'm curious, when you do that, there's this weird thing called KLT that seems to come into play when you send a video. It's weird. It's wild. Yeah. It's wild.

Crazy. One of the things that, you know, even on Instagram, because there's different things and different platforms, whenever I try to do outreach to someone, if it's on Instagram, I'll send a voice message. I'll never type it all day long because voice messages get opened on an exceptionally higher rate. And also, I hate typing. I can barely spell my own name. So it's just easy for me to go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And just fire them off and just rocket fire those. Those convert on such a higher level. And you're not going to get it all the time, which is okay, but they convert on high. And at least their team's going to get it. That's correct. Same thing on, yep, same thing on LinkedIn. I do the same thing. A great little hack, shout out to my friend Morgan Ingram. He's got 160,000 followers now on it's on LinkedIn. He's crushing it. I've learned a ton from him over the years. And here's the one hack that he's always been teaching and I learned from him. Voice message on LinkedIn, followed by this sentence.

Any thoughts on my message above? Right. Push them back to the audio message. Get them to listen to it. That's really the same thing with video. Thoughts on my video, Buster Mark. Leave it ambiguous so that it forces them to listen to it. It's a great, it's a great little hack. That's beautiful, very tactical. Yeah. So they're going through and we all know the basics of the profile. Like, you know, have a picture, look at the camera, so on and so forth. Some basics up there, which I don't do. I don't think I've logged into my LinkedIn. My team does for me. So I might, you know, we'll have a different conversation about that. Yeah. That's a lot of trust right there. It's not my focus at the moment. But as they're going through this and, okay, I've got this relationship going. My profile is updated. are we sending out lead magnets? Do lead magnets work? Do you want to have booklets there?

Do you want to send a website? How long do you want to keep them on platform? Those are kind of things. Beautiful, beautiful. Yep, here's how we think about lead magnets. Put a lead magnet. And again, not everybody knows this, but your LinkedIn profile,

you can add additional features on your profile. So if you're looking at it, there's a button that says add section. Look at section. And then there's another section that says recommended. Click that one. And then it's going to go featured section is one recommended, which is another.

Your banner. and then the featured section are the two biggest parts of your profile. Put lead magnets in the featured section. Whatever your top of funnel thing is, put it right there, make it easy, enticing, design it so it's really nice, get people to click it.

The second place that you can put lead magnets, right, I think it's right below your headline. You can actually put a custom URL. So, and that's an additional feature. Go into the settings, add a custom URL, and you can actually change the words, and then there's a hyperlink behind the words. So I would say something like,

grab your free, whatever. here. So that's the next question. What is the free whatever? Because people are going to like, do I want a video? Do they want a course? They want a checklist. What is the free whatever that converts the highest? Great. And the third place where you're going to do lead magnets is in your content. So to answer your question, good segue, lead magnets work unbelievably well in content. Here are some very simple ones that you can do. Listicals work really well. Come up with a list of, you know, whatever thought. Hey, top 10, whatever here. You know, best templates for this. Most successful that. like listicles are great case studies are great right um depending on what industry you're in like for

instance AI or automation like AI it's like oh my gosh I don't even know where to start clarify for people by putting together a case study here's what I did to use this to help this company over you know overcome this and achieve that put that case study in there um uh the other thing that you can do is like uh you can do carousels work really good of course walkthroughs if what you're doing is you know involves software or tech, put a walkthrough together. Here's how I use these tools to accomplish this. And that's clarifying. If you wanted to do like a mini, you know, a mini course,

I see people launch these all the time on LinkedIn and they're great. Whatever, whatever extremely valuable, time intensive thing that you can create and give away and put a call to action at the bottom of it and say, if this helped you or will help somebody in your network, please share. Right. And you will get people, because they feel good, right? Like, they're now like, you know, they're the dealer. They're just like dealing out, you know, good resources to their network.

So. Because a lot of them are being a tad bit lazy in creating their own content and their own lead magnets and they're just going to appropriate your stuff, which is absolutely fine. Don't mind at all. So these are some of the things that work really, really well. What are some of the things that people make mistakes that are like, oh, God, I just, if I don't do these five things, just, please for the love of everything, don't do these five things.

It'll convert better because I know they don't have so much time with you. What are the five things that are like, oh, I wish they would do this. Yeah. Things that they shouldn't do. Correct. I see this all the time. These are common mistakes. What are the five things?

I think, I mean, look, I mean, the big number one, the big number one, please just don't just don't. Just don't. If you think, if you think quantity is better than quality, you are dead wrong. So just just don't. If you think, you know, like LinkedIn is a numbers game to an extent, but it shouldn't be. Like, it's different, right? You want to come with a sniper.

You don't want to come with a, you know, an Uzi. So just just don't get that automation tool. It's cheap and easy and whatever. I don't really care. Don't. You're going to burn more bridges than you're going to build. So just, you know, number one, don't do that. The second thing that I would say is, man, don't, don't be a lurker.

Don't be a lurker. You know, I think, you know, a lot of, a lot of, a lot. lot of people I see, they just, they're fearful of getting on camera or just, you know, putting themselves out there and don't. Like, just overcome that, you know, that fear. And you'd be amazed that how many people will just rally behind you. Yeah, I think it goes to a point that you said earlier when you found, I believe it was Danny, who was a mentor who came up and connected with you, find a map, find the people out there that are already done it who can say, listen, I know you're scared. I've been there before. I know where the rocks are. I know how to walk across this.

It doesn't take a lot of energy. You sit down and you have that conversation, get the, the buildup of it, because there's so many, as you said, did what, 0.5% of the people are actually doing anything on LinkedIn. And this is basically like going back to Instagram a decade ago. This is, you know, this opportunity of a lifetime is only going to matter in a lifetime of this opportunity. It's not going to be around much longer,

especially as we walk into a massive recession, which is going to be brutal. Everyone's going to start optimizing their world in LinkedIn. And they're trying to get this and they're trying to fix this exceptionally fast. Yeah, there are two other things that I'm going to add to that. just to jump in two other things. LinkedIn, if you pull up the app, the app on LinkedIn,

if you look at the bottom, and this is an SEO strategy too, we've used this for years. If you want to figure out what does this platform, whether it's Google or LinkedIn, want me to contribute, go into the platform and maybe put a little search term on Google, and it'll show you images, videos, maps, articles, whatever order that is, that's what it wants,

Google wants, in order for you to rank. On LinkedIn, it's the same thing. Open the app, look at the bottom, home, video, network, notifications, and then profile. So LinkedIn is making it very obvious. We want you to create videos. And now you have TikTok style videos on LinkedIn with that feed. So it's definitely video hungry.

The second thing that I'll say that it's highly tactical, and I do see this all the time and I wish people would stop, not because it's a bad thing, but it's not the smartest thing, is if you're going to post an article or a long form post on LinkedIn, but especially an article, do it under a newsletter. because a newsletter is very easy on LinkedIn for you to build subscribership. And so brand your newsletter towards your audience,

publish the articles under the newsletter, and here's the cool thing. There's lots of benefits. I could talk a lot about newsletters on LinkedIn. But number one, you can embed long form videos off LinkedIn's platform in an article on a newsletter, and LinkedIn won't slap you for it. So if I wanted to embed a YouTube video in an article,

I could do that in an article. You can't do that on a post. They'll penalize you for it. The second thing is subscribers to your newsletter, they get a push notification on their phone whenever you publish an article. Nice. Dude, do you know how, like, how valuable that is to, like, creep up on the old a sudden you pop up on someone?

Huge. It's absolutely. There's so many of these little secrets and these little hacks. And I know you've written a book about it. But there's so many these little things that we could probably talk for five or six days just on this. And there's a reason you coach people new to this. If someone's listening to this and all of a sudden, they're like,

Holy crap. This, I didn't even know that you could even do a newsletter. I didn't even know about, you know, Claude and I didn't know about all these things. How do people track you down? How do people get a hold of you and say, listen, this was great. I understand how much I don't know now. I need to book some time with you. I need to figure this out.

I need to get access to you. How do people track you down? How do they find you? I love it. You know, the obvious would be LinkedIn. Surprise. You know, it's prize. Number two.

Yeah, the book, the LinkedIn advantage. Yeah. We didn't get to talk about it as much. I would like, but, but I would say, like, the book is incredibly special. It's with a co-author of mine who's written 100 books

and found him through LinkedIn. Like, my life has changed because of LinkedIn. And I get to write an amazing book with a guy like Tony Geary. But, yes, that next step, if they wanted to reach out and get started, go to LinkedIn, the LinkedIn Advantagebook.com.

And that's a good place for you to get started. You can, you know, look up information about the book. But the best thing there is the assessment. I developed. It's called the LinkedIn Power Score. it's free, go to the website, take the score, see where you're at, and then you can figure out how you can improve. Love it.

And so they reach out on LinkedIn directly to you. And it was your Instagram or emails or anything like that. You want to have them track down to? Or is that always the best bet? Yeah. Snapchat, you know, my only, no, I'm just kidding. Just give them on. I appreciate there.

There are so many things you gave in this that people are like, okay, I've got it. I knew how much I didn't know. I got a couple things to get me going. There are things that I need to change. on my LinkedIn as well, man. I really appreciate you coming on. No, Charles, it's a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, reach out. Happy to help, you know, any way that I can.

Stop treating your network like a contact list and start treating it like a lifeline. The most successful people don't just collect connections. They cultivate relationships that compound over time.