Enthusiastically Self-Employed: business tips, marketing tips, and LinkedIn tips for coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, solopreneurs & small business owners
Enthusiastically Self-Employed is designed for you if you’re self-employed as a coach, consultant, speaker, author, solopreneur, or small business owner. Listen in for business, marketing, and LinkedIn tips, sprinkled in with stories along the way.
Listen to Enthusiastically Self-Employed for education and insights to help you to be successful and support the love you have of your business, while also supporting your bottom line. That means growing your revenue, reducing your expenses, and optimizing your processes.
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Enthusiastically Self-Employed: business tips, marketing tips, and LinkedIn tips for coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, solopreneurs & small business owners
LinkedIn Tips for Coaches & Speakers. A LinkedIn Profile Mini-Audit of Melissa Trumble Ep 140
Are you a coach or speaker looking to get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn Pie? Listen to this LinkedIn profile mini-audit of Melissa Trumble https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-trumble/
Watch this on YouTube: https://youtu.be/o822Swv9BsA
TIPS we covered include:
▪️ Updating your LinkedIn Header Image to match your current business goals, changing it as frequently as weekly, but at minimum once a year
▪️ Zoom in on your Headshot Photo, to make you appear more important, approachable, and personable.
▪️ Creating a company page
▪️ 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
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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)
Hey, it's Brenda Meller, back today for another LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit, and I'm here today with Melissa Trumbull. Hey, melissa, how are you?
Speaker 2:doing today I am well. Thank you so much for your help with my LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:I am looking forward to it, and we know each other from Innovation Women and I'm so excited to have the chance to get to know you a little bit better here on the call. I'm going to pull up your LinkedIn profile and, as we get started, the first thing, melissa, I'd like you to do is introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:So if you could tell us your name, who do you help and what do you help them with? I am Melissa Trumbull. I help people who understand that they are not living with joy, and what we do is reprogram your subconscious so you can get over the trauma, integrate who you are as a whole person and have joy on the daily, because you can do it. It's repetition, it is work. I got you.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and are you working with mainly individuals? Are you working with organizations? Who's your audience there?
Speaker 2:I work with individuals and organizations, I write books, I have a podcast, I do speaking, so if you need your team to be motivated and to understand what's possible, I can help you with that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so teams, but also would you say executives, or are these individuals who are coming? I'm trying to identify your audience because I want to give you some feedback that's specific to them as we get into your profile.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate it. So the goal for me is to help people who are not achieving as they want to be. This can be executives, this can be young people. I have that that's kind of where I go into the Gen Xers, and also then the millennials and Gen Y, gen S, gen Z.
Speaker 1:People who are looking to be more productive in their roles or be more fulfilled in their careers. It sounds like right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fulfilled Yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, wonderful, okay so, and do you have specific questions about your profile or are you open to some general feedback?
Speaker 2:I am open to it all. I think it is terrible. I think my banner is not good. I know I need to redo the banner. I just don't know what to do for that.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, good, so let's jump in. I'll give you some feedback right away. Let's start with the banner and congratulations on being an author. And in your banner right now is a photo of your book. It looks like on a Kindle or a tablet and it says the big book of bad ideas. How long has that book been around? Is it fairly new, or is it something that's been around for a few years old? So how long has your banner been in place on your profile? That's a great question. I have no idea. Okay, so here's what I'm going to tell you Like I want you to think about your banner. So here's what I'm going to tell you Like I want you to think about your banner. Like a billboard on the side of a highway and people that are visiting your profile are like cars driving by Right.
Speaker 2:I read your guidance to change it quarterly. That is so clever yeah.
Speaker 1:I say minimum. You should be changing it at least once a year, but ideally even more frequently, especially if, like you, are a speaker, a trainer, you're frequently going out to organizations. I'm guessing people are capturing photos of you when you're up on stage in other places, and I'm also imagining you probably have a website for your business as well. Yep, okay, so we could look at a couple of different things for your banners, and I'll give you a selection of things to choose from. It could be a picture of you up on stage with the audience appearing, so it kind of shows you as a speaker, and when we first came on the call I was commenting on I love your background. You've got the gold, the teal, the glasses that are popping out of me. When I go to your profile I see that. So I'm imagining when you're on stage you're not wearing drab attire, you're also very colorful outfits and you've got this vibrant personality. So I think that could be one idea and it could be you on stage just illustrating that. It could also be you on stage and maybe you saying one of the quotes that you use in your speeches, one of your common pieces of advice you don't have to be miserable, you can be joyful, whatever that is. You can use that as like a quote laid on.
Speaker 1:I use canvacom to create my banner images. It's, you know, like it's like PowerPoint, but it's kind of like graphic design for dummies. Another thing that you could do is look at your website imagery and I want you to think about having brand continuity. So if somebody leaves your profile and goes onto your website, is there brand continuity with imagery, with logo, with fonts, colors, things like that? So there should be some type of a connection between your banner image and in your website so you could easily change it out with that.
Speaker 1:Alternatively, if you ever are leading web shop, web shops, shops or webinars I combine them. I call them web shops that this happened right now. If you were leading webinars or workshops, you could use that banner similar to a billboard at the side of a highway where you're promoting register for my upcoming workshop or check out this new webinar. So you can use it similar to billboards that are swapping out periodically. The Baconator is back at Wendy's and then they take that down. And McDonald's says have you tried the glass meal? And they take that down. And there's a new message on there For me as a LinkedIn trainer, I change my my header image at least once a month, sometimes more frequently, sometimes weekly, depending on what I'm promoting. But don't be afraid to change it too frequently, because you do have repeat profile visitors that will come and see whatever it is that new message that you're delivering, does that?
Speaker 2:help. Oh, okay, so like if I I can change it every week for, like, my podcast episode or you know whatever.
Speaker 1:Okay, yep, absolutely Change it frequently, because you have people that are repeat visitors. You have new visitors that are coming all the time, and what I like about that changing it weekly you're going to get people come in and go. What's going on this week? You know what's the message, what's the new episode that's in there.
Speaker 1:Okay, next thing is your headshot photo. The one change I might suggest on your headshot photo is just to zoom in on it a bit more, so that your face is about 50 to 60% of the circle. It's close to that now, but when you're a little bit further back, like you are in your headshot photo, it starts to make you look a little bit more diminutive, which starts to make you look a little less important, less approachable, and you seem to be this larger than life personality and I want that to come through in your profile. So the good thing is, in LinkedIn, you can just click on that circle. There's a zooming tool and you can zoom in. What I would do if I were you is, the top of your hair would be like the top of the circle, and then you're zooming in on your face. So your chin is about where it is right now, but it's more of your face and most people, melissa, aren't looking at your profile from this view. They're looking at your headshot photo as you post, as you comment, as you're coming up in search results, and it's super tiny. And LinkedIn is even saying nowadays, 50 to 70% of LinkedIn traffic is occurring on the mobile device, and just think about how small things are on our phone too. So having it a little bit more zoomed in gives you a little bit more of that approachability, importance, engaging, type of a quality. Got it Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Next thing I'm noticing at the top of your profile is on the right-hand side it says ZVG LLC and then Loyola University. So the way that it works is the top one is the top experience in your experience section and the bottom one is the latest education. Unless you have chosen to reorder, those Is the name of your company, your current company, zvg Living, zfg Living yep, zfg, I'm sorry. And do you have a company page for ZFG Living yet? Nope, okay, so I would get one set up, for two reasons. One is we see the gray avatar there, which gives me the feeling like is this not a real business yet? Is she just getting started? Is she working out of her basement? Is this like a side hustle type?
Speaker 2:of thing. Oh, I need to put my logo up there to your experience section next to your organization.
Speaker 1:It will appear here and their benefit is having a company page. It almost serves as an extension of your website and an extension of you as well. So it gives you another place that you can post about events, information, offerings, things like that. And I'm just gonna demonstrate. If I click on the Duval Wheeler logo, it pips me over to the company page and the company page should be posting or not. The company page can be posting as well as you as individual in there. So I would get set up soon as possible. I'll let you know in this video and I'll also include the instructions and the playback the way that you would get to the place to set up a company page. You go under the for business icon. It looks like a little waffle. You scroll down to the bottom Whoops, I hovered out of there. Scroll down to the bottom where it says create a company page. You will choose company and then you will go in and fill in the required fields. The important thing here is to upload your logo. You can add a tagline or not. I recommend it and then click on I verify and then it will set up the page. After the page is set up, then you'll need to go back into your Spain section and link it into your profile. Then the logo will appear here and automatically will it, so it will also appear at the top of your header as well. Got it All right, good. The good thing is this was recorded, melissa, so you'll be able to watch the playback and kind of go through the instructions again. I know I'm going quickly through here. Let's see if there's anything else.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's the other thing In the about statement I want you to think about. It's you speaking to your ideal target audience? In professional biographies and on websites, we would use the third person Melissa Mel Trumbull is a life. Like if I were to meet you and I'd say, hi, I'm Brenda. You wouldn't say Melissa Mel Trumbull is a life transforming force. You wouldn't say that. You would say hi, I am a life. I mean you would like use the first person. So I want you to think about your about statement. You are reading it to your ideal target audience as if you're sitting across from them or standing in front of them, and I want you to think about those first few sentences describing what I asked you in the beginning of the call what do you do? Who do you help? I want you to end the paragraph with how can I get a hold of you if I want to do business with you or hire you? So, someplace at the end of this first paragraph to learn more, visit my website at this or email me at this. So give them those instructions.
Speaker 1:One other thing I noticed right underneath the about statement is you have your resume. Are you looking for a job right now, a full-time position? No, I would take that out of there because that to me it almost reminds me of when I worked in corporate and somebody would accidentally leave their resume on the copier and you're like, oh, johnny's not happy, and you would bring it over to his desk and you'd be like you know, and he'd be like freaking out, like, oh my gosh, you know. So I wouldn't put it in here. Even for people who are actively job seeking, you want to know who has a copy of your resume. You know and and that to me, if you're looking to be hired as a trainer, as a coach, a lot of the information from your resume is sprinkled throughout your LinkedIn profile. But the resume, the goal of a resume, is to get a job, like to find a full-time job I wouldn't want to hire you for my trainer, if I think.
Speaker 1:Well, she's going to be getting a job in another month and she's not going to want to work with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is leftover from when I used to do taxes honestly.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, and a lot of times because we neglect our LinkedIn until we don't. And then I was just on another call this morning with somebody who's coming out of retirement and she hasn't looked at it in five years and she's wanting to get back into a job In your featured section. I want you to think about this as like an end cap at the grocery store and what are they featuring this week? And today we're at July 3rd as we're doing this recording, and the 4th of July holiday is happening here in the US. So if I were to go to my local grocery store, there's probably like the graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows on one end cap. Another one probably has the fireworks and sparklers and the USA flag paper plates. If I go in next week, everything's going to be changed out. They're going to be featuring other things for the next holiday. Back to school is going to be like with us in another two weeks before you know it.
Speaker 1:So I want you to think about what are your main goals for using LinkedIn and what are you trying to feature to your ideal target audience? Feature to your ideal target audience Now, if it's speaking and training, you might have a speaker sizzle reel video in here, or a photo of you up on stage, or if you've got, like a speaker, one sheet document, you can upload that in there. Alternatively, you can feature recent posts that you've done on LinkedIn. Maybe you're highlighting some tips or techniques or a favorite inspirational quote, but let's make sure that we ever had. Whatever we have inside the featured section is intentional and it supports your business. Okay, got it All right, so let's stop here. I want to pause for just a second and just ask the question Is this helpful feedback for you, melissa?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's really helpful feedback and I am obviously newly on the LinkedIn train, so yeah, it's, I love it. Education by Firehose it's excellent. There you go.
Speaker 1:And just the big thing I think for you is just keep in mind, when you're working on editing your LinkedIn profile, do a scan of it from top to bottom, and imagine that you are your ideal target audience reading your profile, and I want you to question why is this relevant to me? You know, what do I, what do I need to know about this? Why is this relevant to me? And you'll it'll be through that lens, it'll be a little bit easier to think about. Oh yeah, I wouldn't say that I want to have this information in here instead. With that said, I just want to thank you so much for being with me on the call here today and are you open to connecting with people if they happen to be watching the video or listening to the podcast later? Yes, definitely, please reach out. All right, wonderful, and I'll just spell it out for those of you that are listening on the podcast. You'll go to linkedincom, slash in slash, melissa dash Trumbull, that's M-E-L-I-S-S-A. Dash Trumbull, and you can find her LinkedIn profile and you'll also have in the show notes the link to the YouTube video so you can kind of see where she was and and maybe where she is today when you're looking back at the profile and I want to thank you, melissa, so much for the opportunity to get to know you a little bit more on the interview today. I hope that you found this helpful and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. Thank you so much, brenda.
Speaker 1:I shall my pleasure and, for those that are listening or watching, I'll let you know. If you're interested in a LinkedIn profile mini audit from me, please reach out and go to Mellormarketingcom. Slash the list. You can download my profile 15 LinkedIn profile tips for coaches and consultants. You'll get a couple emails from me. Pay close attention. The last email that you get regarding that checklist will have a link where you can book a profile mini audit with me. With that said, have a wonderful day, stay enthusiastically self-employed, and I'll see you all on LinkedIn. Take care.
