This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 035 / What Your LinkedIn Profile Can Do For You with Lindsey McMillion Stemann

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Do you want to leverage social media and promote yourself in the most professional and effective way? Well then this episode is for you! In this episode, I welcome guest Lindsey McMillion Stemann - International Keynote Speaker, LinkedIn Prospecting Trainer, and Creator of The Profile Transformer to share her insider tips and tricks to polishing your LinkedIn profile. Ok, friends, if you’re going to be on social media, you might as well have it work for you. Are you putting your best self out there? Does your profile match your brand? Does it send the message that you are a total badass, and that people would be lucky to work for you? Because it should! You ARE a total badass, so go get that job, get that business, or get that client. This is Woman’s Work To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

This episode of This Is Woman's Work is brought to you by me and the This Is Confidence virtual course. If you want to build, grow, or keep your confidence, this course is for you. It is designed to meet you where you're at and get you where you want to go. With 15 videos by yours truly and a 40 plus page guidebook, I deliver my best coaching so that you can apply this in your life immediately and with lasting results. And when you enroll, you get lifetime access to our online community where you can engage with me and other women committed to being confident in our lives. I'll share tips, ideas, tools, and even failures. You'll get information and insights

I won't share anywhere else. Companies and individuals pay thousands of dollars for one day of this information. And I'm offering it to you for a lifetime for $497. To register, visit NicoleKhalil.com and click on the online courses section or text confidence to 55444 and invite your friends. I'll be waiting to greet you in our online community. I am Nicole Khalil, and I am so grateful you're joining us for this episode

of This Is Woman's Work. Unless you're living under a rock, which let's be honest, sort of sounds attractive sometimes with all that alone time and nothing to clean. But unless you're living under a rock, which, let's be honest, sort of sounds attractive sometimes with all that alone time and nothing to clean. But unless you're living under that rock, you are pretty aware of how much social media is playing a part in our everyday lives. especially around elections, and it can make you question some of the people in your life and trigger insecurities and judgment and other difficult emotions, it also serves a great purpose. It connects us, allows us to share important information very quickly. It gives us an opportunity to brand and promote our businesses and ourselves and learn, grow, support, and share, it can be both a blessing and a curse. So for those of us, myself included, that wants to leverage social media in the most effective way, I've invited a great friend and collaborator of mine, Lindsay McMillian-Steeman, international keynote speaker,

LinkedIn prospecting trainer, and creator of the Profile Transformer to educate us today. She's so good at this that she's earned the nickname LinkedIn Lindsay. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited for our conversation and to give our listeners, mostly women, some insight into how they can be leveraging social media and promoting themselves at a really professional and also effective level. So thanks for joining us. Oh, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks, Nicole. Oh my gosh, my pleasure. All right. So how important is social media? And I know LinkedIn is your jam, right? Your area of expertise. You are the LinkedIn expert. So maybe start there, but how important is social media and LinkedIn really if you're a professional woman, does it matter that much?

Does it matter a ton? So here's what I always have to, like you said, step back and remember that anywhere your name lives online is a digital footprint in the sand, right? So what we have to remember is that most, if not all of that information, all of those footprints are accessible to the world. And so with LinkedIn being the largest social media platform, and I can't believe I just said that, I finally come to terms with LinkedIn, yes, being a social media platform, because the reality is, I mean, business has always been social, right? So LinkedIn is the business platform of choice. It's the largest global network. They're actually older than Facebook. Many folks don't realize that. They were acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $26.2

billion. So all that to say, they're not going away. So yes, LinkedIn is a sandbox that I play and stay in. And I think the thing we have to remember is turning the mirror around and thinking about ourselves and how we do research, whether we're a consumer or we're changing careers and looking for a new opportunity, or we're in sales and prospecting for new business, what are the behaviors that we do? Well, we do our research, right? Some may use the big S word, stalking, right? But it's not stalking, it's research, right? It's professional stalking. It's professional stalking. I like that. Yes. And why do we do that? Well, we do it because we can, because all those footprints are at our fingertips. So when we think about how we behave and how we do our homework and our research, we have to remember that folks, other people are doing the same thing. So that LinkedIn presence, that LinkedIn profile, whether you're using it or not, is accessible and public to the entire world. Yes, you bring up an interesting point

there, whether you're using it or not. So for those of us who haven't, you know, updated our LinkedIn profile or haven't checked it in a really long time, other people are still looking at it, regardless of whether or not we're using it. Is that a fair statement? Yes, absolutely. So again, many folks don't realize that LinkedIn and Google love each other. So even if people do not have a LinkedIn account and they happen to Google your name, your LinkedIn profile is by default going to be one of those top search results, if not the very first search result. And that individual, again, who may or may not have a LinkedIn account can see your LinkedIn profile. So I just had the conversation this past weekend with a friend of mine. And I said, we looked at their profile and I said, you know, you might want to consider

getting off of it altogether. And he's a dentist. He owns his own practice. And he goes, really? LinkedIn, Lindsay's telling me to get off the platform. And I said, well, listen, you don't have a professional picture, but your information is out of date. You know, you have under a hundred connections and you don't even know your login, right? Like he doesn't even know how to get into the account. So, so he was like, okay, like, thank you for giving me the permission to getting off of this platform altogether, because he realized that he was probably doing his reputation more harm than good. Yeah. And I don't know if there's any data or stats on this, but if you're a professional woman, as most of our listeners are, and you're meeting with a potential client or you're up for a potential promotion, or job transition, or transfer, or job search,

how many of those people, potential clients, potential employers, potential, you know, leaders, how many of those people are actually checking us out? Like, how often do people do their research? Yeah, great question. So the number one activity on LinkedIn is looking at profiles. And so I think, again, the piece that we have to keep in mind is that it is public, it is accessible. And so what we start finding, and I've seen this transition happen really over the last five years or so. Professionals are putting a button to their LinkedIn profile in their email signature. They're adding a link to their LinkedIn profile on their resume.

They're adding a link to their LinkedIn profile on their website. And we're doing that partly to stay relevant, but also to give people entry points and access. Because the cool thing beyond just the profile and that reputation is that people want to understand and know who else you're connected to, right? So they can see that network. I always call LinkedIn the 21st century Rolodex, right? It's the first place people go to update anything that's happened in their professional world, right? Whereas our old dusty business card Rolodex would be out of date as soon as we got a business card because a phone number changed, an email address changed, somebody got a promotion or they changed up. People now,

I mean, it's just second nature. They go to LinkedIn to update that information. So it's kind of a roundabout way of answering your question. But yeah, it's the place that folks are going. And so if you want to be relevant, you've got to be present. Yeah. Okay. So how does LinkedIn differ? Outside of the obvious, it's a professional networking or professional social media site, as opposed to Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, which are designed to be more social. But what do you see as the primary differences outside of that? What do we need to know if we want to make our LinkedIn sites great? Yeah. So I know I keep talking about the profile, but it's so important, right?

So part of my job, I've started to say, is giving folks permission to build out their professional story. So one of the services that we have is called the LinkedIn Profile Transformer, where we interview the client, write their entire profile, and publish it on LinkedIn. And really, the power of that is pulling out their story. Why do they do what they do? How do they get to where they are? What motivates them? Who are they trying to connect with and do business with, right? People don't know how to help us unless we tell them. So one side of the coin is that profile. And I would say another part of the

story or other side of the coin that differs in LinkedIn compared to some other platforms is really the ability to, of course, network, but also bring value and show your expertise and educate people. It has a tremendous publishing platform. So if you have a lot of thoughts and maybe you're blogging, I'll share this as an example. I just finished working with a big agency up in DC, CEO, really impressive gentleman, and he does a lot of writing and he publishes his blogs on his company website and he wasn't putting any of it and publishing any of it on LinkedIn. And he was missing a huge opportunity. So it's really a place,

people may not know your website exists. They may not know that your blog exists, but they see that you're on LinkedIn. They see that people they know that you also know are on LinkedIn. So it just becomes this ripple effect of exposure that can be a little bit more difficult to possibly see on those other platforms.

I mean, I love LinkedIn for the networking capability. And I really like the concept of telling your professional story. It's sort of boring when you click on somebody's profile and it's like title, place of work. Okay. You know, there's gotta be more to it than that, right? So what are some tips maybe to freshen up? And I'm sure we'll give information for anybody who's interested in the Profile Transformer, but what are just some quick tips if we wanted to go in and freshen up our profile,

whether it's because we're thinking about changing careers or, you know, because we have just realized that our clients are checking us out, whether we like it or not. Where do we start? So to me, the very first place to start is that profile picture. We are visual, humans are visual creatures. And so you could have the best LinkedIn profile out there, which doesn't exist, but you could have the best profile out there, the most complete story, all the sections are built out and it's up to date. And you've got a profile picture that's five years old, right? And you've changed your hairstyle or, you know, you, you, whatever the case may be, right? You look different. And it's not even about that. It's just when somebody does connect with you at this point, you know, virtually via Zoom, we want to make sure that we look like the person they're about to meet and speak with. So that profile picture, even if you, you know, come up in a search result because you've built out all those keywords, they're going to see your picture. And like it or not, it's tough love, but they're

judging and deciding whether or not they want to click into your profile to learn more about you. So that picture should not, not ever be a selfie, right? So ever, ever, ever. One thing that's terrifying. So this is a big no-no. If there's anything you get out of the conversation Nicole and I are having, don't do this. On the mobile app, it's so scary for someone like me who teaches people how to be amazing on LinkedIn, but you can actually take a selfie through the LinkedIn mobile app and update your profile picture with a selfie. So don't be the person that does that. Even if it's cropped, we can tell, right, that there's that sidearm sneaking in there. So I know all of us at this point have a smartphone,

you've got a friend or a spouse or a colleague, you know, smile, look approachable, make sure it's no more than two years old. There's really just no excuse. You don't need to break the bank and hire a professional photographer. If you want to, fantastic, do it. Then you can rotate them every, you know, a few times throughout the year. That picture is number one. The second thing I would say is the, and this is kind of LinkedIn lingo, so I'll describe to you where it's at, but right underneath your picture is what LinkedIn calls the headline. That headline is another piece of real estate that shows up in the search result of all those profiles that folks see. They see your picture and they also see that headline. Now the default headline is your title at your company, which let's be honest, is just not that interesting, right? So I'm the

owner of McMillion Consulting. That literally tells people nothing and who cares, right? So I have more than 100, more, more than 120 characters, including spaces to make my headline something interesting, to make it stand out, to intrigue people, to make them want to click through to learn more about me and my network and who I am and why I do what I do. So the thing to keep in mind with anything written in your LinkedIn profile is to make sure you type it up in a Word document first and then copy and paste it into LinkedIn. Why? There is no draft version of your LinkedIn profile. There is no spell check and there is no formatting. So I don't know about you, Nicole, but I have gotten caught by the good old autocorrect. I call it fat fingering, right? I mean, how many times have we gotten caught in that

web of misspelling something and autocorrect kicking our butts? So please open the Word document, type out what you want to type, and then copy and paste it into LinkedIn. Great tips. As you were talking, I was thinking of a few examples that I've run across in LinkedIn. I remember one person spelled their own title wrong and I was like, oh, that's not a good first impression. Um, and then, uh, the selfie thing is, is such a great tip. I mean, it is a professional networking site.

We want a professional picture as opposed to maybe Instagram or wherever, where you can get away with something. Yeah. And I would even say, cause I do get this question and listen, I grew up being taught that there's no such thing as a dumb question. And frankly, someone else is probably thinking it too. So I want to be clear that, um, you know, we have sometimes professional pictures done of us and our family or us and our team, right? And they look great. And we're so proud of them. Your LinkedIn profile picture should just be you. Just you. It's your name on that profile. It's just your identity, your face, your picture. There are lots of other places in the profile to showcase that team that, you know, you want to highlight, but the profile picture is not one of them. So it should just be you in that particular area. it's no secret that the coronavirus experience has impacted women at a professional women at a higher rate than it has professional men. Uh, women are leaving at 1.8 times the amount of men the workforce. And I think there's a lot to it, you know, the discrepancies in responsibility of care of the household and children and, you know, wage gap and financial inclusion and even the assumption or expectations we have, we as women have in society of what our role is or should be. Long-winded way of getting to this, I'm sure a lot of our listeners are either leaving jobs or thinking about leaving jobs, maybe thinking about

starting their own businesses or trying to find a position or a company that is more flexible or more aware or whatever the case may be. So for those people, any tips around using LinkedIn to job search? Absolutely. So there's, in my mind, there's two ways of looking at, at, at those groups. One is folks who are publicly looking for an opportunity and those who are privately or under the radar, right, hunting for their next gig. So I'll address the kind of folks who are publicly looking. And there's lots of ways to do that. And some of them actually overlap between both groups.

But LinkedIn actually released the ability to add a banner to your LinkedIn profile picture. It's green. You may have seen it. And it says inside of that green banner, hashtag open to work. So again, when we come up in a search result with hundreds, maybe thousands of other profiles, folks will see that profile picture. And this is another tip, Nicole, that I don't want to forget to mention is make sure your profile picture is publicly visible. So the way you do that is when you're in linkedin.com, click on your picture. And in the bottom right corner, it says visibility, make sure your picture is visible to everybody. A lot of times I meet amazing folks, women who are just like, just incredible, incredible,

incredible. And they don't have a headshot. They don't have a profile picture. And then they say, well, yeah, Lindsay, I do. I do. Look, I'll show you. And I say, but look, look, I'll show you on my end, right? You don't. No, they do. They're just unintentionally hiding it from the entire global LinkedIn network. So that's really important. So check out that hashtag open to work banner that you can add. Use that headline that I mentioned a few minutes ago to tell people what you're looking for. The other thing is add your contact information so that it also is publicly visible. People may not want to necessarily have the conversation or start the conversation with you inside of LinkedIn. So give them other

avenues. If you're comfortable putting that email address and that phone number, it's okay. It doesn't, not everything has to stay in LinkedIn. I'm okay. You know, I'm a realist in that LinkedIn's where I play, but I, we're also in the human to human business, right. And actually building relationships. So those are just a couple of things on the publicly search, searching front, if you will. And then the second group, folks who are, you know, exploring other opportunities and maybe wanting to stay under the radar. This is actually pertinent to the first group as well. And that is leverage your network, leverage your relationships. I mean, I don't know about you, Nicole, but I can only manage so many relationships in

between my two ears. So I really use LinkedIn as my backup database. So I am constantly going back to my LinkedIn network and combing through the folks that I'm already connected with to see if there's a way and an opportunity for us to start a conversation. Don't be afraid to reach out to people. The majority of folks, and I've heard you share this a lot, Nicole, they want to help, right? But they don't know that we need help. And women are notoriously horrible at asking for help,

right? I mean, I just experienced that yesterday. It's a story for another day, but internet was out at my house, no electricity, and I'm leading a global conference. I'm literally speaking at a global conference and the electricity goes out. So I'm like, okay, no big deal. I'll get my car in the garage and I'll go to the office. Well, I can't get my car out of the garage because there's no electricity. And I live in a house that was built in 1934. So there's no door to my garage to release the- Oh my gosh. Oh yeah. So thank you. I'm sweating for you by the way, right now. My hands are still sweating from it. I know, but I have an amazing neighbor who came to the rescue

across the way. And she, she said, don't judge my dirty office. I'm like, please, you are literally saving my life right now. I, you know, it doesn't matter. So sorry for the kind of digression, but I just say this because it's important to remember to ask for help. People want to help you. So if you're looking for something privately, another good tip is to change that primary email address that's associated with your LinkedIn account from your work email to your personal email. Generally speaking, when I'm teaching about LinkedIn, I always say it is a best practice to have your work email as your primary. But if you, again, are kind of on the hunt for a new gig, it would be a good temporary switch to change it to that personal email address. Yeah, I just had this thought.

I don't know if it's helpful or not, but there are some women who, you know, are figuring it out or are having some flexibility with work or are recognizing that their environments and their leaders are really great during this time, reaching out to some of those people and finding out where they work or, you know, if they know of any great environments or know of any open positions. I don't know. What do you think of that? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And another thing to keep in mind too, this is whether you're in transition right now or you will be at some point in the future, is making sure on that experience section of your LinkedIn profile to close out that employment. So very often, you know, we'll come across somebody's profile and they'll say that they're working, you know, 10 different jobs, but the reality is they forgot to go back into their

LinkedIn profile to close out that work experience. So on the employer side, I train business owners to make sure as part of their onboarding and offboarding process with employees that before that employee leaves, they make sure that they have that employment closed on their LinkedIn profile. So, again, just remembering that we've got to look at ourselves in the mirror and make sure that everything's buttoned up right before we or as we're using it as a networking tool. I've learned quite a bit from you about this already, but for those women who are maybe thinking of going the entrepreneurial route and maybe starting their own business or doing something on the side during all of this, how might they best leverage LinkedIn to promote themselves or their idea or their services? Well, can I ask you a question? Yeah, of course. What comes to mind of what you've heard me teach that stands out? I'm curious. Yeah. So a couple of things. Number one, I don't love the self-promotion. I, you know, I feel like there's that line between letting people know

what you do and what you're working on and annoying and bragging and like, oh my God, it's always about me and what I'm doing. And so you actually had said a couple of times about promoting how you can help others versus promoting myself or what I'm doing. And so I always think about that is, you know, how do I put what I'm doing from a frame of how, and that's actually what I care about the most anyways, is how's my work going to impact and help other people. But I always have in mind. Of course, my profile picture has been updated, thanks to you. Super old. And my headline, I think is what it's called, doesn't say, even though I made my title much cooler, it's Chief Woman Whisperer for what I do now. That's better. Oh, I love that. But just making sure to think about how I can send the message and everything that I do,

what I actually do, um, and, and that story and how it impacts others and then making that profile hopefully appealing and attractive. And I don't mean like that I look pretty, I mean that people want to learn more that itiques curiosity and they want to dig into it a little bit. Yeah. And I would say, I would say that one of my favorite things to teach when I'm specifically speaking to women is collaboration. Because women inherently, I mean, we were, we're cultured, we're brought up to not brag about ourselves and not boast. And frankly, you know, part of us, like, we don't want to do that anyways. Like you said, you don't want to, there's that fine line of self, over self-promotion and then, you know, using it as a platform to share your voice and what you bring to the table. So what I would recommend is going back to, you know, one of your best friends or your colleagues, you know, your. You're forgetting something totally amazing about

yourself that needs to be shared with the world. So collaborate, ask for help, goes back to that too, right? Ask for help, ask for feedback, and you'll be blown away, you know, what folks will say, because you're probably way more awesome than you're giving yourself credit for. Yeah, those are such good points too. Even if it's, Hey, I'll write an endorsement for you. If you write one for me or, you know, I've just found if I like or comment on certain people's stuff, they have a tendency to like and comment on, on my stuff. So thinking of it as a collaborative experience. And frankly, I think people believe more what somebody else says about you than they do what you say about you anyway.

Yes, I love that. That's such a great point. And something that I would even, again, give permission to is when you think of that study group or that posse of people, you know, the allies that you have in your back pocket who are always in your corner and cheering you on is thinking about those five to six folks. And, you know, if you are going to put yourself out there on LinkedIn, whether it's updating your LinkedIn profile or sharing a post and, you know, telling the world what, what you bring to the table is, um, you know, sending them a little text message and say, Hey, I just posted this thing on LinkedIn. Do you mind hopping in there and making a comment for me?

Right. It's okay to campaign, right? So permission granted, um, reach out to that, that, uh, you know, 18, your your board of directors, and ask for their support because I'm confident that they want to be able to support you and it makes them feel good too. Yeah. So such good points. Okay. So as women, there are nuances, there are differences, and not all of them are bad being a professional woman. Some of them are to our advantage. Are there any do's or don'ts or tips or tricks unique to women on LinkedIn? That's a great question. I would say that what we have to remember is the phrase equal business stature. I was taught through one of my mentors and good friends that, you know, and this can pertain to gender. It can also pertain to different positions within an organization, right? So if you're newer in launching your career and

you're younger, you can't help how old you are, right? You can't help that you just might not have as much experience under your belt, but approaching that conversation with that CEO or that male counterpart, right? With equal business stature. And I believe there's truth in fake it till you make it, right? If we wait for our feelings to catch up with what we're saying, we'll never make progress. Sometimes it is a bit about like, okay, I'm going to go in there and visual. I don't know about you, Nicole, but I'm a, I'm really big into visual visualization and visualizing. I see myself in that conversation. I see myself, um, you know, having those wins and those successes and, and it makes me that much

more confident when I am in that real, real conversation or situation. So not necessarily directly related to LinkedIn, but I think important nonetheless. Yeah. So there's a lot of good things in there and I have a spin on fake it till you make it. It's the same thing. I've just repackaged it basically. But it's choose it till you feel it. And I love that. I think of it in the framework of confidence. Like I do a lot of things, but I I've come to realize that confidence is not just a feeling. Confidence is a way of being that we can choose anytime we want. Sometimes it's easier to choose it than others, but we can choose it anytime we want. And so kind of in that flip on fake it till you make it is

choose confidence until you feel it. And I love the visualization and seeing yourself standing in your confidence or acting and behaving confidently, whether that's on LinkedIn or real life, I think that's always great advice. So if you want to learn more about Lindsay McMillian-Steeman, you can follow her on, you guessed it, LinkedIn. So let me just spell her name. It's L-I-N-D-S-E-Y, McMillian, M-C-M-I-L-L-I-O-N, last name, Steeman, S-T-E-M-A-N-N. So check her out on LinkedIn. You're going to get a great example of an

awesome profile. Also you can follow her on Instagram at LinkedIn Lindsay. And, um, I know you have an online course that's out now. It's open for registration as of, I think yesterday. Um, tell us a little bit more about this online course and why you created it and what it provides because I know you I know it is designed to impact and help people right away yes oh Nicole thank you so much so I am I mean you want to talk about stepping out into courage and vulnerability and I'm just going to be real with all y'all. So that's my South Carolina twang coming out. This has been a whole new venture for McMillion Consulting in my business. And the analogy that I've used, and I keep giving folks permission, hey, if you have a better

analogy, like bring it on. But right now, what I've got is up to this point, my business has been structured like the Yelp restaurant rating scale. Right. So to hire me privately and coach, get coached by me and the profile transformer, the kit and caboodle, right. Everything is three to four dollar sign. And I didn't have any way to reach and impact those folks that have the one to two dollar sign budget. You know, so they want to get better. They, they want to be empowered and equipped. And, um, and I didn't have a way for them to do that. So this course, so it's hashtag the CLPC. So that's the complete LinkedIn profile course is a four week journey to your transformation. And, um, it's really built for, uh, small business owners who may have staff who they've been really disappointed with their lack of improving their own LinkedIn profile.

Right. Go figure. Right. Your staff aren't LinkedIn experts. Or maybe, you know, business owners who don't have staff or sales professionals who are just really frustrated with the way that they look on LinkedIn and they're uninspired and they know that they're missing out on opportunities, but they have no idea what to do about it. Right. And then lastly, it's really also for young professionals who are wanting to reach those awesome employers. And I would even say not even young professionals, right? Women who, as you shared, is just incredible and just really mind blowing statistics about women leaving the workforce and maybe even re-entering as a new brand, a new person. They have a lack of confidence with how they look on the platform. And so if you're any of those people that I just described, the course is for you. And it's really exciting. I am excited to, Nicole, with your permission, I wanted to give your listeners access to

a freebie that we put together. It's a guide called Rock Your Profile, right? It's just like pretty straightforward. So it's about nine or 10 pages. And if you go to linkedintuit.com forward slash Nicole, so linkedintuit.com forward slash Nicole, I would love to give you access to that guide so you can help move the needle in LinkedIn and build your confidence. Yes. And thank you. We love free stuff. Oh, absolutely. Definitely look more into all of the things that

Lindsay provides, whether it's the profile transformer or this new online course, depending on your budget or how important LinkedIn is to you right now, I will tell you she is the best resource I know to get your profile where you want it to be and to send the message of your value and the impact that you get to have in this world. So Lindsay, thank you so much for joining us today. It was really fun to connect with you. Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thanks again for having me. Okay, friends, if you're going to be on social media, you might as well have it work for you. Are you putting your best self out there? Does your profile match your brand? Does it send the message that you are a total badass and people would be lucky to work with you?

Because it should. You are a total badass. So go get that job, get that business, or get that client. This is woman's work.