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

LinkedIn Profile Mini-Audit for Coach Meg Gluckman Ep115

Brenda Meller Season 1 Episode 115

Are you a solopreneur, business professional, or solopreneur looking to get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn Pie? Watch this LinkedIn profile mini-audit of Meg Gluckman, who is a Divorce & coparenting coach

TIPS we covered include:

▪️ Setting up a company page. Video + blog: https://www.mellermarketing.com/blog/how-to-create-a-company-page-on-linkedin-free

▪️  Being intentional with your marketing message in your LinkedIn Header Image and changing the message periodically

▪️  The difference between "Follow" and "Connect"

▪️ Suggested LinkedIn Headline updates, including capitalization of key words

▪️ 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, back again for another LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit, and I'm joined today by a coach. Her name is Meg Gluckman. Hey, meg, how are you doing today? Hi, brenda, doing really well. Thanks for having me. Well, thank you for being on. So, as we are getting our conversation started here today, why don't you take a minute and tell us your name, what do you do and who do you help?

Speaker 2:

Sure, my name is Meg Gluckman. I am a one-on-one coach for parents that are navigating divorce and co-parenting. So whether they're at the very beginning of their divorce, or whether it's been 10 years since they finalized their divorce and they're struggling with co-parenting, I'm here to provide a lot of support. All right, and, I have to say, unfortunately, there's probably a lot of people who could need your help. These days.

Speaker 1:

I'm here to provide a lot of support, all right, and I have to say, unfortunately, there's probably a lot of people who could need your help. These days I'm hearing a lot more and we were just talking about this the other day how, in our generation, when we were younger, there wasn't a lot of divorce. That's happening and it is becoming more common nowadays, so it's good to know there are people like you out there to help those individuals. So what I'm going to do now, meg, is I'm going to pull your LinkedIn profile up on screen and for today's profile mini audit, do you have any specific questions you're looking to get answered, or are you just open to some general feedback?

Speaker 2:

I guess one of my questions is I think about LinkedIn as where I am marketing towards divorce professionals. So this is like referral sources the lawyers that are working with folks, the therapists, the financial professionals that are working with parents that are navigating divorce and I'm curious if that comes across as who I'm trying to talk to, versus on other platforms where I'm speaking to my ideal client.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and are the parents that you're helping? Are these people who've already been through a divorce and they're now looking for some help with the co-parenting, or are they in the throes of it? They're both Okay. They're both Okay, All right, good. So I'll keep that in mind as I give you kind of a once over in the profile here. First thing I'm noticing is at the top of your profile, on the right-hand side, in the white area, there's two items there's Meg Gluckman Coaching and then the Life's Coach School. So the top one is always our current employer and the bottom one is the most recent education or institution where you've completed education. Now, with the Meg Gluckman Coaching, I'm noticing a gray avatar with blue buildings in it. So have you set up your company page yet on LinkedIn? No, I haven't, okay. So that would be. That would be like job number one for you.

Speaker 1:

After you do the call and I'm quickly going to walk through this, keeping in mind, meg, that we are recording this phone call this will be on YouTube if you want to watch it again later, and I'll also include in the playback. I've got a blog and a video that goes into in greater detail, but what you'll do and this is free to set up a company page. So, from your view of LinkedIn and your top menu bar where it says home, my network, jobs, messaging, notifications, me click on the for business. It looks like a little waffle symbol. You scroll down to the bottom, there's a link that will say create a company page and then, when you get here, it gives you three choices. You're going to click on company showcases like a product page and you're not an educational institution. When we click on company and then you just have to fill in the required fields. On here, anything with an asterisk will need to be filled in, so you'll put the name of your company. Linkedin will populate the URL. If you have a website, you'll fill it in there.

Speaker 1:

I'm guessing you probably do have a website. Is that fair to say? I do, yeah, okay. And then industry just start typing in some keywords until the best designation comes up Organization size don't overthink it. If it's just you, it's zero to one. Organization type again, don't overthink it. It can be self-employed, privately held, whatever the organization is.

Speaker 1:

Tagline you can actually use a one-line description. If you don't have an official company tagline, don't worry too much about this. You can just say offering coachings and co-parenting services for divorce professionals, or something along those lines. So I do like to put something in that tagline field to get started, and then you click on, I verify, in addition to most important thing of all here is uploading your logo. So 300 by 300 square is what we're looking for there, preferably an avatar version of your logo instead of the full company name. But then once you have that set up on your profile, then you'll need to actually, once you have the company page set up, I should say, then you'll need to go into your experience section and in your view there'll be a gray pencil icon off to the right-hand side. You'll have to go and edit and into your current experience for Meg Gluckman Coaching, you'll need to edit so that it's properly linked to the company page and that way your logo will appear next to that and it will also appear on the top of your profile. How's that helpful so far? Yes, very much, thanks. All right, and that immediately creates that professional credibility for people who might be visiting your profile, since it sounds like you're marketing yourself to a lot of working professionals, kind of in the legal realm, and you know financial planners and other people like that. So it's really important that we have that credibility. Whenever I see a page that doesn't have a logo next to it, it either means it hasn't been set up yet on LinkedIn or it hasn't been properly linked, and it does provide some credibility. That yep, this is a fully baked business. This is already operating in business, so something to do there.

Speaker 1:

Next thing is I like to think about at the top of your profile there's two very highly visual portions there's your headshot photo and then there's your banner image in the background portions. There's your headshot photo and then there's your banner image in the background Headshot photo. What I typically recommend is your face is like 50 to 60% of the circle. It's really just our head and shoulders only, and I see you've got to pose with your hands that are a part of it. I almost like the banner image photo of you a bit better for the headshot photo space, and then I would probably replace the banner image with some imagery or a key message or maybe a rhetorical question related to the services that you offer. So are um, um, are you struggling with co-parenting? You know and need some help, or I'm? I'm just making this up because you and I see the thing that maybe is speaking to the business that you do, maybe along with your company logo on there. So rather than just showcasing a picture of you in the header image, I'd love to see something that is representing your company or the expertise that you offer. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, thank you, I like that.

Speaker 1:

All right, and then we go into the headline and right away I'm getting you know coach for parents, navigating separation, divorce and co-parenting. Do it in a way you're proud of. Look back on this chapter and say, dang, that was hard and I rocked it, wonderful. And it looks like you've also got a podcast called Welcome to the Other Side. So really great headline on here. What I would encourage you to think about is making your headline what's referred to as headline case, where we capitalize the first letter of all of the important words, and that just makes your headline pop a little bit better. So where you have C is capitalizing coach for parents, and the P in parents is capitalized. Follow that all the way through. So you would do a first capitalize on all of the important words. We wouldn't capitalize in of this on, and so we'd keep those lowercase, but I would probably capitalize those uppercase words. Okay, yep, minor point there.

Speaker 1:

And then we are not yet connected, megan, which is an excellent example, because other people might be coming to your profile who are not yet connected with you. And it looks like you set up your profile when LinkedIn had creator mode turned on, which enabled you to add some hashtags to the top of the profile. It gave us some other bells and whistles. They decided to sunset the creator mode, but they left all the features the same, and one of the features that was enabled when you turned on creator mode was your default button. Instead of connect, it says follow. So in this case, it looks like you visited my profile and followed me, so that's why it's saying follow back. Now, for people who aren't connected with you, they have to click on the more button and then, underneath that, they'll see the option to connect.

Speaker 1:

So for that reason, I want to make sure that it's very clear to people how they can get a hold of you. So let's go into your about statement and we have some descriptive information in here. I want you to keep in mind that if the average person like me is visiting your profile, we're not yet connected with you. How can we get a hold of you. So you say parents, please message me to schedule a complimentary consult. Call divorce professionals. Please reach out to schedule a Zoom coffee chat.

Speaker 1:

I'd love to see some way like how I could do that, whether you're sending them to a landing page where they're providing their contact info if you don't want to make yourself overly accessible, or if you're okay with being a little bit more accessible, giving an email address, so make it super easy for them. Or if you really want to keep this only to connections. Only underneath both of those, do the call to action that says to connect with me on LinkedIn, click on more and then connect. So give them the instructions, because they won't know how to do it otherwise. Alternatively, you could go back into your profile and change your default button from follow to connect to make it a little bit easier for people to connect with you. Does that make sense? Yep, and I just like to ask the question too, because I'm heavy user of LinkedIn. So you know, do you understand the difference between following and connecting on LinkedIn?

Speaker 1:

I don't think so yeah that would be it, and don't feel bad. Most people when I say that they're like no, not really, I'm not, you know, I think I know, but I'm not quite sure, and this actually might help our viewers and listeners as well. So follow is a one way action. I can visit Meg's profile and I can click on follow back, and I don't have to wait for her to do anything. When you follow somebody, you start to see their posts in your homepage feed, so you start to see more of what they're posting. But if I click on contact info, the only information I can see is information that she's choosing to make public. Typically we only see URL and that's it. Sometimes we see websites, like we're seeing on your profile, but we won't see your contact information, your email address and your contact information unless we're connected with you. So that's one reason, and then the other reason it's I think sometimes it's better to connect is when you connect, you have permission to message the person. You can see all of their contact information, but you also have permission to message them, and then you can send them a direct message. So I typically don't recommend that you turn on the follow button until you're over 5,000 connections. But creator mode messed everything up for everyone, and LinkedIn didn't really tell people about these implications. So in your case, I think, if your goal is to grow connections, I would probably advise that you turn your default button to connect and in the video playback, meg, I'm going to include the link and how you can adjust that setting to make it a little bit easier for people to connect with you. Would that be helpful for you? That would be awesome. Thank you, you're welcome.

Speaker 1:

All right, I'm going to do a once over on here just to see if there's anything else. I clicked into your about statement. I'm going to refresh your profile because I want to show you something that's really important about your about statement, and this is something that's different on LinkedIn versus Instagram and Facebook and other networks. A lot of people that are coming to your profile, meg, are what I like to call readers, and they're skimming. They're not spending a lot of time pouring through and expanding fields and things like that. So they get to the about statement and I think the stat I've last read was like 95% of people visiting your profile will not click on see more.

Speaker 1:

Now, the right people will, but only if we've captured their attention. But even then you've got, you know four lines, basically, that are in the previewable area. So if I were you, I'd put another sentence and a half in there to maximize that very precious real estate that we have in the first paragraph, typically in the first paragraph of the about. I like to see what do you do, who do you help, and then how can I get ahold of you if I want to learn more. So an easy fix for you would be to get started. Connect with me here on LinkedIn by clicking more, or email me at meg, at gmailcom or whatever that email address is in there.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that's an easy thing to add in there. Okay, all right, let me see if there's anything else. Is this helpful so far for you? Yeah, it's great. All these good nuggets. I love it. Good little nuggets. Yeah, I see that you're posting regularly. I see that you're using some hashtags. Let me give you a pointer based on maybe a recent post or two that's in here. So you say GM, so I'm assuming good morning family law folks. Here are three topics I coached on this week. Are you following the hashtag family law yourself?

Speaker 1:

No, make sure that you're following it because you'll start to see more posts from people that are using that hashtag, and that way, you can see, you can interact with those other people as well, and that's an easy way. I don't know if you noticed when I just clicked on it. Your post will always be the first, the one that you're coming from that's using that. Yours will always be first in there, but then, underneath, you'll start to see other people that are using that hashtag, and this then becomes immediate connection opportunities for you. So invite Fiona to connect with you. Mention that, hey, you found her post from the hashtag family law. Let's connect on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Perhaps we can be referral partners to each other, and as you scroll down, sometimes you'll see some ads in here, and other times you might see company pages. Is what we're seeing in here. But spend a little bit of time looking at who else is using the hashtag and even with the company pages, you can go to their employee list and invite some of their employees to connect from in here. Okay, all right, so I'll wrap this up, and I don't want to give you too much on here, because I've already given you a good size and I don't want to overwhelm you. Was this helpful for you today, though?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is great. It helps me just clarify things, make it easier for people to especially just connect with me Like, yeah, reach out. I love that.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Well. I am delighted to have the chance to chat with you today and we're not connected on LinkedIn. I will send you an invitation to connect as soon as we're off the call here today. Connect as soon as we're off the call here today. But I want to thank you so much for your time and for joining me on the call here today. Thank you, brenda.

Speaker 1:

This was great, wonderful and for our viewing audience. If you are interested in connecting with Meg, let me pull her profile back up on screen real quick for you. Here. You can go to her profile on LinkedIn and we'll put the link in the show notes. So, whether you're watching this on YouTube or listening to this on the podcast, you can go into the show notes below to find that. But on the web you'd go to linkedincom slash.

Speaker 1:

In slash, meg Gluckman and it's M-E-G-G-L-U-C-K-M-A-N. I always like to spell it out because I feel like sometimes if you're listening it's a little bit easier just to hear it in your head. So we can visit there. And if you are interested in getting a LinkedIn profile mini audit from me and you're a coach, consultant or a solopreneur, go to mellormarketingcom slash list where you can download a copy of my free checklist 15 LinkedIn profile tips for coaches and consultants. And pay attention to those emails that you get from me after downloading that checklist, because the final email will say here's a link that you can schedule your free LinkedIn profile mini audit. With that said, this is Brenda Meller. If you found this video helpful, please give me a comment below and have a great day.

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