Enthusiastically Self-Employed: business tips, marketing tips, and LinkedIn tips for coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, solopreneurs & small business owners

LinkedIn Profile Mini-Audit Featuring Jenny Morin Ep 117

Brenda Meller Season 1 Episode 117

Are you a solopreneur, business professional, or coach / consultant looking to get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn Pie? Listen to this LinkedIn profile mini-audit of Jenny Morin.

TIPS we covered include:
▪️  LinkedIn Profile Verification: Necessary?

▪️ Changing a Business Name on your LinkedIn Profile

▪️ Suggested LinkedIn Banner Image changes

▪️ Ways to generate more engagement with posts

▪️ And more!

Want a LinkedIn profile mini-audit? If you're a coach / consultant / solopreneur, download these 15 LinkedIn Profile tips, and follow the instructions in the final email: https://www.mellermarketing.com/list

LinkedIn "Power Hours" (Single Session, x4, x12)
Each package includes: 

  • LinkedIn consulting / coaching, personalized to your needs and focusing on your questions.
  • Review of LinkedIn profile / company page to provide guidance / advice / recommendations

https://www.mellermarketing.com/powerhour 

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)

Speaker 1:

Hey, this is Brenda Meller. I'm back again today for another LinkedIn Profile mini audit, and I'm joined today by Jenny. Is it Morin? I should have asked you your pronunciation, morin. Yep, it's Morin, all right. Well, great to see you, jenny, and we're both fellow Innovation Women members, so I'll give a shout out to Bobbi Carlson and all the great women through that organization and as we get started here today, jenny, why don't you take a minute? Tell us your name, what do you do and who do you help?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I'm Jenny Morin. My business name is Efficient Spaces. I help busy usually busy professional women or executives that are overwhelmed and need to reclaim some time for themselves, need some balance, need to be able to walk away because they're working too hard, they're overwhelmed, they're feeling like they don't have any me time, they're feeling like they're working way too many hours and not only that, but they're feeling the stress and the crunch of that and that is making them unhappy. So I help people with managing their tasks and doing it in a way that they can still have free time, they can still have white space and time to focus on the things that they really want.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful, and you also do public speaking. Is it on the same type of topics productivity and time management or is it something different?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I do. I have a time management workshop that's called Make Time your Ally and it's a full day workshop very beneficial for a lot of the businesses that I've presented it to. One man even said a business owner told me that it's saved his organization thousands of dollars in lost productivity because he has 30 employees and they all learned how to be more productive and waste less time and you know, and really capitalize on that time that they have when they're working. So and I speak to other audiences about productivity and habits and mindset as well- so great.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm going to pull your LinkedIn profile up here on screen and as I'm doing so, Jenny, I always like to pull your LinkedIn profile up here on screen and as I'm doing so, Jenny, I always like to start with are there any specific questions that you have about your LinkedIn profile that you'd like me to address, or would you be open to some general feedback? Let me know which option you prefer.

Speaker 2:

I am open to general feedback. I just want to know. You know, I feel like it looks pretty professional, but I think I could definitely jazz it up to make my profile more noticeable and to make it more me. You know, cause right now it's just my logo and and a picture of me. Uh, you know, I did retool my description after I took your webinar, and so I'm hoping that that's good, but I know everything can always use work, so why don't we just go top to bottom? Brenda, all right cool.

Speaker 1:

So I'll give you a couple different pointers and tips in here for today. And the great thing is, jenny did attend the Innovation Women's Session where I did a LinkedIn for Speakers presentation and I covered gosh. It was probably seven to nine tips in that session, so she's already got a little bit of a running start and she admitted to me in the pre-show she's done some, but maybe not all of the different areas. So we'll kind of focus on that and that will be supporting your speaking business but also supporting your productivity business as well. Is that what you're looking for? Speaking and productivity Exactly?

Speaker 2:

Mostly, this is a place for speaking, but I want to also be known as an expert in time management, because that's what I speak about and I do a lot of coaching.

Speaker 1:

Okay, good Now, in the pre-show we were talking about the fact that you're moving a bit away from what you've been doing for the past 15 years, which is organizing spaces, and that's part of the business name Efficient Spaces, and there might be a slight pivot to the business name on LinkedIn and that might be reflected in your LinkedIn profile. Is that correct?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I am toying with another name. Should I say it Effective Schedules. I have the URL, I've claimed it and bought domain name, so I could move to that and and still, and it would reflect better what I'm actually, what audience I'm looking for, and like LinkedIn, so do you think that would be a good?

Speaker 1:

idea? Yeah, absolutely, and I think you know, sometimes we get so tied to what we used to do, and and and. For people looking at your LinkedIn profile, they only know who you are today. They don't know what you used to do. So if they come to your profile and they see efficient spaces, they might kind of, you know, do the head tilt a little bit. Wait a minute. Efficient spaces is this a time management coach or is this somebody who's focused on organization?

Speaker 1:

So, having a LinkedIn banner image that is reflecting the business that you're doing today and the clients that you're seeking today and the clients that you're seeking for the future, I think absolutely.

Speaker 1:

You know, having that opportunity to change out your banner would be really good. And I want you to think about using that space, that header image, space, that banner at the top of your profile, jenny, to really promote your business. Think about that header image as like a billboard on the side of a highway and you want to think about. You know, when they first land on your profile, I want you to like, as I'm snapping my fingers, like what's the first thing that your eyes are drawn to in that header image at the top? And right now it's the name of the business Efficient Spaces. What if we were to take the name of the business out and we say time management and productivity? Or, even better yet, what if we were to ask a question looking for help with optimizing your time and gaining more hours back in your day? Like that, to me, might be an even more compelling message to draw in your target audience. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think asking a question, uh, is always a good idea. In fact, my rat um the promotional material I have. I asked the question what would you do with an extra hour?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I like that. That's very intriguing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So, and now I realize it's actually more than an hour, so I may even be saying what would you do with an extra two hours of productivity?

Speaker 1:

I love it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's it right there. It kind of appeals to your ideal target audience. It keeps them reading your profile, it gets them scrolling down in on your profile, so absolutely All right. Next thing that my eye was drawn to is at the top of your profile we have this white section. It's called your top header card, and in the right-hand side we're going to see your current employer employer as well as your most recent education, and right now Efficient Spaces has this gray building avatar next to it. I'm going to scroll down to your experience section and see.

Speaker 1:

Now, sometimes what we see is logos for other companies, for previous employers, and things like that on your profile. I'm going to pop over to my profile just to show you an example of what I'm looking for here, and that is in your experience section, next to your company name. I want to see your company logo and in order to do that, jenny, what you're going to need to do is set up a company page on LinkedIn. I want you to know it's free to do so and the process is actually really easy to do. So I'm going to illustrate it quickly here, up on screen, where you go to set up the page, and I'll also be putting in the YouTube playback a link with a blog and a video on how to set up a company page on LinkedIn. What you'll do to start is in the top menu bar where it says home, my network, jobs messaging, notifications. Just follow that all the way over to that little work waffle. It says for business, and if you click on that and then scroll down to the bottom, you'll see create a company page. Once you do so, all you need to do is click on company and then just fill in the blanks in here.

Speaker 1:

So if you do create a new division of your business, it doesn't have to be an LLC or an S-corp or anything. You can just create the business name. Let's just say it's Jenny Moore in productivity. I'm just making it up. You fill that in on the name field. Linkedin will populate the company page URL. You'll put your website. So if you've got a new domain for your business, you'll pop that in there. You'll fill in the industry, select the organization, size and type and then this is an important area, jenny you'll have to upload a logo and it has to be 300 by 300 pixels. It's going to be a square version and I typically recommend that it's an avatar version of your logo. It's not the full logo with your company name and tagline, it's just like an avatar version of it, and then you can add in an optional tagline of up to 120 characters. I see some people using that as a description of their business and then you click on I verify, I'm a representative and that's it. Then you've got a business page set up.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay, that looks like something I'm going to do right away, and the good part about that is, once you get that business page set up, then you can link it into your experience section and then next to your company name will be your logo or that avatar that you've uploaded, and when people click on that it will take them over to your company page. Now I'm in as an admin right now so I'm going to click on view as member so you can see this is what the public would see if they were visiting my profile and they clicked on the Miller Marketing logo. It takes you over to my business page on LinkedIn and there's certainly some other information that you can fill out in here and you can also post from your business page. So it almost serves as an extension of your profile and almost like a mini version of your website to help to promote your business and, most importantly, it creates legitimacy, jenny.

Speaker 1:

So when we look at the top of your profile you see right next to Brigham Young University it's the BYU logo and it makes it feel like yep, she definitely went there. When I see efficient spaces with the gray building avatar, it almost reminds me of when you visit a website and it says this website under construction or page not found. So it creates a little bit of a question for people inside there. Okay, Okay.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Yeah, that's the thing you know. I knew about the profile, but I don't know if I knew about the business page.

Speaker 1:

So this is good. Yeah, a little bonus for you, okay. Next I'm just going to do a quick once over on your headline. It says too busy to enjoy your success. And I was curious J O Y is all, is all capitalized in there. Is that intentional? Oh yeah, Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Good, I did. It's because one of my talks that I do is about joy. To find your joy, what is it you're missing out on in your life and how do you make time for it? Make time for your joy, but you know it doesn't have to be there. I just thought it was cute.

Speaker 1:

I liked it and it drew my eye to it and I was curious if it was part of your branding. Now I do want you to keep in mind everything on your LinkedIn profile. Jenny should be you speaking to your audience. So one thing I noticed in your headline is you say speaker, author, time coach and office organizer, jenny Morin will guide you. You wouldn't say that you would say I will guide you.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you would use the first person on there, okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, use the first person in there, and I really want you to think about writing your headline in a way that is appealing to your ideal target audience. It's not really about you. It's about you as it relates to how you can help them. So what I love about your headline is you begin with too busy to enjoy your success. What I might suggest is, instead of saying speaker, author, time coast and office organizer maybe that's important, but move that to the end of the headline. Maybe instead lead next with, I will guide you to help take back your time like give them, you know, the the immediate benefit of working with you. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2:

I think that's great and you know, uh, I thought that it would be good to put you know what I did at the beginning, but I'm totally fine with putting that at the end, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you could still move them to the end. That way they can see, hear all the things that you do.

Speaker 1:

You're a speaker, an author, a time coach, an office organizer all that stuff Right, all right, let's look next at your about statement and as I scroll down to your about statement, what I always like to do first, jenny, down to your about statement, what I always like to do first, jenny, is just kind of pause looking at it on screen and I don't like to click on see more because I read the statistic like 95% of people will not click on see more. So it's really important that we maximize that real estate that we have in the first four lines of the about section and I don't like to put any line breaks or paragraph breaks in here until after the four lines, because I want to make sure that I'm getting the most in those first four lines and then after the Seymour break, then I would add some paragraph breaks in here. Okay, no paragraph breaks, not until after the Seymour break. Now what I typically like to see in the first four sentences of your about statement and you're writing this is not about you, jenny, it's about you as it relates to your ideal target audience.

Speaker 1:

So what do they need to know about you? Similar to, you started your headline with too busy to enjoy your success. You know, I will guide you to help take back your time. You know what if, instead of describing you experienced productivity consultant, corporate trainer, with an emphasis on blah, blah, blah, what if you were to say are you looking for someone to help you with productivity, with helping you to become more organized and gain control of your life? As a experienced productivity consultant and corporate trainer, I'm experienced with X, y and Z, so leading with how you help them or what it is that, the problem that you're solving for your audience, and then explaining that you're the guide to lead them there. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I like that. I think, yeah, I think that's a good, great idea.

Speaker 1:

And I have a formula for an about statement. I'll include that in the YouTube as well, so you can see the description. But what I like to do is the first four lines is what do you do, who do you help and what do you help them with, ending with a call to action. So those first four sentences what do you do, who do you help, what do you help them with? Ending with a call to action. And the call to action could be an active call to action Email me at jenny at gmailcom, or whatever it is or it can be a passive call to action Visit my website to learn more, where they can kind of go and search around, do a little bit of research before deciding to work with you.

Speaker 1:

So I like to include both an active as well as a passive, because some people are ready to take action right now and they want to get a hold of you and other people might want to shop around a little bit, figure out, you know, do you have the services I'm looking for? And do a little bit of shopping in there. So do that in the first paragraph. Second paragraph what I recommend is a description of your company and I'll just make this up Jenny Morin. Jenny Morin Consulting was created to serve busy women executives with productivity and time management, and I also do public speaking on these topics. And maybe a bulleted list underneath there Keeping in mind your about statement, you can actually put 2,600 characters in total in here.

Speaker 2:

So I want you to think about.

Speaker 1:

Most people are only going to read the first four sentences in here, but the right people are actually going to take the time to look through your entire about statement and they're going to learn more about you and your products and services that you offer. I'm going to pull up my about statement as an example here, so I've maximized those first four sentences. Then, when you click on see more, you learn about my company, you learn about my background and I have a list of the resources that I offer as a speaker. I always recommend doing a bulleted list of your signature talks to make it super easy for people if they're thinking about booking you as a speaker. Just like an innovation, women in our speaker friend Fridays, we always start with like, what's your signature talk? Let's not make it hard for people to figure out. What do you speak about. Let's list out. My signature talks include, like here's three topics right to draw from inside.

Speaker 2:

Can you show me how to get the microphone again?

Speaker 1:

So this is a little hack I'm going to teach you.

Speaker 2:

And are you using?

Speaker 1:

a PC or a Mac, jenny PC. So if you want to use the symbol to access your emoji keyboard, I'm going to send you a message right now to illustrate this on screen From your PC. I want you to click on the Windows key and the period and it will pull up your emoji keyboard and then you simply start typing in the word or phrase for the emoji. So I'm going to type in the microphone symbol and then just close out of that pop-up and that is how you get that to appear in there. So again, it's the Windows symbol which is on the lower left-hand side of your keyboard, the Windows symbol and period, and that will pop up the emoji pop-up box. So you can grab those emojis from the desktop there.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Thank you, I love that.

Speaker 1:

All right, wonderful. I want to wrap up our conversation here today, jenny, and give you a couple things to work on here. Was this helpful for you today?

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely yes, and you know, I was hoping that this call would get me motivated to keep working on it, since I had this other class that lasted eight weeks. I didn't really work on it very much, except for the initial burst of energy I got after the webinar. So, yeah, this is great and it is I am motivated to do it because, you know, just even having a template for me is very helpful and I regularly kind of I don't, I wouldn't, I'm not going to say copy, but I regularly look at what kind of things people put first and then what they put second, you know, on their website. When I'm building my website, I did that, and when I, when I do any kind of marketing, I like to see what people are doing and what's really working. So I really appreciate your, your suggestions. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And I I like to think of it as it's not copying. You're not going to, you know, copy and paste verbatim, but I think there's certain formulas to success that are out there, and why not learn from people that are doing it? You know already that are already out there, that are well established and that are successful. And I like to think of it as research and inspiration. So you're doing research, what are others doing? And then you're gaining inspiration from them, and then I think the important thing is you're just not copying and pasting, but you're modifying it to fit your personality and to help to reach your ideal target audience.

Speaker 2:

If that makes sense, oh, exactly, yeah, and so I think that I've definitely gotten some inspiration, and it helps to know the technical steps too for me, since I'm not super technically gifted, as many people in my life will tell you.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I appreciate that, and it's a pleasure chatting with you here today, jenny, and I want to just thank everyone, whether you're watching this on YouTube or listening to this in the podcast later. Well, first of all, I should spell Jenny's profile. Let me share that back up on screen real quick. If you want to visit her profile, if you're listening to this on the podcast, go to linkedincom slash in slash, jenny dash more and that's J E N N Y dash M O R I N and you can see her profile up on screen. And if you are interested in getting a LinkedIn profile mini audit, go to Mellormarketingcom slash list and you'll download a copy of my 15 LinkedIn profile tips for coaches and consultants. Watch the emails that you get from me, because the very last email will contain a link where you can book and audit as well. With that said, take care everyone and thanks again, and we will see you on LinkedIn.

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