LinkedIn Profile Mini-Audit Featuring Barb Nangle Ep 134

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 Barb Nangle, who is a coach and speaker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbnangle/

TIPS we covered include:

▪️ Having a zoomed in Headshot Photo, focusing mainly on your face

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

▪️ Linking your company page to your profile

▪️ Suggested LinkedIn Headline updates

▪️ 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

OR if you're a speaker:
I've created a "LinkedIn for Speakers Checklist" which you can download here: https://www.mellermarketing.com/linkedin-for-speakers

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)

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:48

It's Brenda Meller, back again for another LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit. Let's say we're specialing on someone who's a speaker, barb Nangle. Hey Barb, how are you doing today? I'm great. How are you today, brenda? I'm great. I'm looking forward to chatting with you, and you and I know each other from Innovation Women, which is a wonderful community of women speakers. And a week or so back, I mentioned that I was going to offer out five profile mini audits and give you, ladies, instructions to reach out to me. And you were one of the lucky women.

Speaker 2: 1:16

Yeah, I leapt on it and I was like absolutely, I will take any feedback I can get.

Speaker 1: 1:21

Yeah, great. So, as we are getting started here today, barb, why don't you take a minute? Tell us your name? What do you do? Who do you help?

Speaker 2: 1:34

And then, what is your signature speaking topic? Sure, so my name is Barb Nangle. I am a boundaries coach. I got there because I was a lifelong people pleaser, rescuer, fixer, savior, got into 12 step recovery in 2015. It transformed my life and I want that for other people. So I focus mainly on professional women like managers, business owners and nonprofit workers who say yes when they really want to say no and who neglect themselves because they're so focused on other people. And my signature topic is stop overgiving. Reclaim your life from the inside out. Oh, I love it.

Speaker 1: 2:09

I think I'm going to learn from you too as we go through here today. So let me start by pulling up your LinkedIn profile on screen and, as we are getting started, I always like to ask the question. We can do two paths on here. One is do you have specific questions that you're looking for feedback on your profile, or are you open to just some general feedback?

Speaker 2: 2:28

I'm. You're the expert, I'm not, so I'm open to just general feedback. Okay, wonderful.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Great, so I'm open to just general feedback. Okay, wonderful. So we're going to start at the top of your profile because it's such an important area, as people are visiting your profile, whether you're coming up in searches, they click on your name from a post, things like that. It's really important that when we start at the top of your profile, that everything is lined up to support and speak to your ideal target audience. So we've got two very important image areas at the top of your profile. We've got your headshot photo and then we've got your header image, which is like the headboard behind you, so to speak. So, headshot photo.

Speaker 1: 3:01

What I'm seeing in here right now and what I would recommend for you is that you make an adjustment and really the headshot photo space, barb, should really focus on from the top of your head to the bottom of your chin. If you think about that space, the face should be the dominant image inside that circle and I know you've got a nice that you're using inside here. I would say save the poses for your website or for social media posts and things like that. This space should really just be your face, with maybe a little bit of your shoulders in there. The reason that's important, barb, is when we land on your profile. We've only got a second to make that first impression, and actually most people aren't seeing your headshot photo on your profile. They're seeing it when you're coming up in search results, when you're posting, when you're replying or even in commenting, and about 50 to 70% of LinkedIn traffic nowadays occurs on the mobile device, where your face is super tiny.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Yeah Right, so that's going to make an immediate, strong impact by changing that. Okay, all right. Next thing is your banner image in the background and the name of your business, I'm guessing, is firepower coaching and consulting. Is that correct, correct, okay. So how long has it been since you've changed that image? Have you ever changed it or has it been consistent?

Speaker 2: 4:13

No, it's been consistent. So I've had this account for many years. I used to work at Yale and then when I had my business, I probably had nothing, and then one day I was like, oh, I should probably put my logo on there. I am in the process of revising my logo because I've been told that it's not helpful. It's not a helpful logo for being placed in a bunch of different places. It needs to be like either at the top of something and then the yellow. The way it fades isn't ideal. So, anyway, that's my story about that, but it's been. It's probably the only thing I've had there since I decided to brand my profile, okay.

Speaker 1: 4:50

So when I asked you to introduce yourself, you said something at the end, which was the women who are saying yes, say that statement for me again.

Speaker 2: 5:00

So I coach professional women who say yes when they really want to say no and who neglect themselves because they're so focused on others.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Okay, so that was a little bit of a longer statement, but if we could get that succinct, and maybe in the banner image in the background, it's one of your brand colors, maybe yellow is that brand color, so it's a fill background with yellow, and maybe it's just a headline that says are you a woman who says yes when you really want to say no and a subhead underneath it, reclaiming your time and getting better results or some type of a thing that pays off? What happens when you're able to say yes when you really want to say no? What do you think about that?

Speaker 1: 5:41

Yeah, that sounds fantastic, Good, and I always like to think about this header image. Barb is like a billboard on the side of a highway. You got to catch people's attention quickly.

Speaker 2: 5:51

We also want to think about.

Speaker 1: 5:52

you have repeat visitors, similar to cars that drive by the billboard time and time again. You have people that will come to your profile. Come back to your profile. Come back to your profile so you can change out that header image with slightly different variations of that tagline or headline. Maybe you're offering a retreat, You're speaking at an upcoming conference, You're promoting an upcoming workshop. So don't be afraid to change out that header image periodically and really use that as a space for marketing or promoting yourself as a speaker or for your business. How?

Speaker 2: 6:22

does that feel for you? That sounds fantastic, love it Good, okay.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Next thing is I see that you have no business page, or at least it's not linked to a business page, because on the right-hand side of your profile, next to Higher Power, coaching and Consulting, you've got this gray avatar with the blue buildings. Have you set up a business page yet? I did. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Okay so if you have, and let me just do a quick web search on the search bar here Higher Power, coaching and Consulting. There it is Okay. So there is a company page that exists. So probably what happened is you created your profile first. You created your company page at a later date. What you need to do now, barb, is go to your experience section and, in your view, you're going to see a gray pencil icon in the upper right-hand corner of experience and then a gray pencil icon next to higher power coaching and consulting.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Once you go into that area, you'll just modify the company name, just backspace until you see it appear in the dropdown, and then it will link and it will show.

Speaker 1: 7:21

The logo will then show here in your experience section and it will also show at the top of your profile. So this is a quick fix for you to make in there. Okay, fantastic, love it All, right. Another thing I see in here is in your name field this is you're the first person I've had in the profile mini audit, so I want to address this in here. In the name field, after your name you're allowed to, there's like a dropdown field where you can do your preferred gender affiliation she, her, he, him, they, them or you can do other with a customized text and it says boundaries, coach and speaker. So I want you just to pay attention to this.

Speaker 1: 7:58

As you are posting, as you're commenting, as you're coming up in search results and especially on the mobile device, what will happen sometimes is because you have your first name and last name and then boundaries coach and speaker is a lot of characters. What will happen is it starts to cut off a portion of your headline and what I'm noticing here is that every time you post, we see your headshot photo, we see your name and then the designation in parentheses after, and then immediately below that it also says boundaries coach speaker and author. If it were me, I would either eliminate the parentheses or use the traditional. Use the she, her, they, them, whatever you prefer in there. If you eliminate it entirely, we don't have that redundant text Boundaries coach speaker at the top. Boundaries coach and speaker at the bottom. And also what starts to happen on the mobile device is, because you have so many characters in your name field, we're not going to be able to see many characters in your headline field at all. Yeah, okay. So pay attention to that and, related to that in your headline. Be very intentional about what appears in the first 40 to 60 characters.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Boundaries coach speaker. Author. I want to think about what's the most important thing for your ideal target audience, which is women that you want to get them to say no when they want to say yes, right. So I think we need to work in the word woman or women someplace inside their boundaries coach for women or boundaries coach for female leaders, something in there that says this is who I work with. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 9:31

Yeah, absolutely says this is who I work with. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And then also think about we've got 220 characters in total in your headline, so you certainly can use all of them. The first 40 to 60 are going to appear when you post, when you comment, when you reply, rather when you come up in search results. But the rest will help you with SEO, with search engine optimization. So think about what are the keywords and phrases that someone could be searching for that could lead them to your profile and also help to illustrate the benefits of working with you or the services that you offer.

Speaker 2: 10:06

Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. This is pure gold. As I said earlier about everything I see and hear from you is pure gold. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 10:17

What I love about your headline is you've got some really great elements in there. You have some opportunity to expand it, to make it even a stronger statement, and I have to give you some kudos here, barbara, because you end with something personal which humanizes you and adds some interest to it. You're a hallmark channel enthusiast and I think right now we're in july as we're recording this, so do you watch the christmas in july kick?

Speaker 2: 10:39

off? Of course I do. Of course. I even say that on my podcast, it's in my intro and I'm like, I'm a former closeted hallmark channel fan and I go hello christmas in july I bring it up, we get some conversation started.

Speaker 1: 10:53

it breaks down that human to human barrier that a lot of us have on LinkedIn and starts with the relationship building. All right, I'm going to pause right here.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Barb, was this helpful for you so far, absolutely Very, very juicy Lots and also all this stuff is super easy. None of it is complex.

Speaker 1: 11:09

Easy to do. I look forward to watching your profile updates, barb, and as we start to wrap up here, are you open to connecting with people who are either watching this on YouTube or listening to the podcast later?

Speaker 2: 11:19

Of course, of course.

Speaker 1: 11:21

All right, wonderful, and you can go to linkedincom slash in slash, barb Nangle. That's B-A-R-B-N-A-N-G-L-E. You're on YouTube or on the podcast. I'll have it in the show notes below so you can click on the link to find it. And, by the way, if anyone's interested in getting a LinkedIn profile mini audit, download my checklist of 15 LinkedIn profile tips for coaches and consultants or my LinkedIn for speakers checklist. The very last email you'll get from that series will include instructions on booking a call with me. Barbara, I want to thank you so much. It's been a pleasure seeing you and I'll see you on Innovation Women again, I'm sure, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 11:58

This has been fantastic. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 12:01

All right, you're welcome, barb, and have a great day. Thank you so much for watching.