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

Visibility Unlocked: A LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit of Kim Groshek Ep 156

Brenda Meller Season 1 Episode 156

LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit with Kim Groshek | LinkedIn Tips for Coaches / Consultants / Speakers 

In this episode, I'm joined by fellow Innovation Women member, Kim Groshek. Kim is the founder of Lifeful Habits and her signature talk is 'Finding Your Voice.' 

I offer Kim a few specific tips to enhance her LinkedIn profile, making it more effective for attracting business clients—particularly executives. 

We cover essential adjustments in areas such as profile visibility, header images, about statements, and call-to-actions. 

If you're looking to optimize your LinkedIn presence, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Want a free profile mini-audit? Download my checklist 15 LinkedIn Profile Tips for Coaches and Consultants and follow the instructions in one of the final emails about this resource. 

00:00 Introductions

00:37 Understanding Kim's Business and Clients

01:34 Profile Header Optimization

03:16 Custom Link and Header Image Tips

05:37 About Section Best Practices

07:50 Final Tips and Call to Action

09:19 Conclusion and Invitation to Innovation Women / Speaker Friends Friday

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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, it's Brenda Meller. Back for another LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit. Today I am joined by fellow Innovation Women member, kim Groshek. Hey Kim, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2:

Hi Brenda, Thanks for doing this for me. I'm so excited.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, excited as well. So, as I am getting started here, kim, why don't you take a minute? Tell us again your name, what is your signature talk about, and the name of your business as well, my name is Kim Groshek and my signature talk is Finding your Voice, and my company is Lifeful Habits.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful and, as we're getting started with the Profile Mini Audit, I always like to ask the question Kim, do you have any specific questions on things you'd like me to cover as it relates to using your profile for speaking or for your business, or are you just open to some general pointers?

Speaker 2:

I'm open for anything that you have to offer here. All right.

Speaker 1:

And in our pre-show you indicated to me that you're using your LinkedIn profile more so for your business than for speaking. So tell me a little bit about what types of clients are you looking to attract to your profile and which services are you offering to them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'm looking for executives, catalysts, people that are making big changes in the world, influencers.

Speaker 1:

Okay, wonderful, and the types of services you're offering. Is it like executive coaching then?

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's the most, that's. There's other things. I actually offer stages and things like that, but the main thing is I offer visibility for people, influencers, that want to make a big change in the world, so that they get that. Yeah, so, and I do coaching.

Speaker 1:

All right. So one thing I noticed was at the top of your profile we have your header image, we have your headshot photo, we have your name, we have your headline and typically we will see at the top of your profile we'll see educational institution and we'll see one company that's listed in here. And I noticed that your employer page isn't showing on here. Was that intentional or was that maybe turned off in error? I don't think.

Speaker 2:

I did that in error.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let me show you what I'm referring to. I'm going to pull my profile up side by side so you can see what I'm referring to here. So in your top header on the left-hand side, you have your name and your headline. On the right-hand side, in this white area we typically will see your company and then we'll see one educational institution listed.

Speaker 2:

So I'm looking at your profile. I don't know what I did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so this will be an easy fix If I were you, and you can do this after the call. You'll click on that gray pencil icon at the top of your profile and you'll scroll down to the area that says current position and just make sure that show current company in my intro is checked, and if you have multiple current positions, just make sure that it's the role that you want to show in your top header card, the company, rather, that you want to show in your top header card. Does that?

Speaker 2:

make sense.

Speaker 1:

Yes, okay, and that's a little thing like sometimes when I'm not seeing at the top of a profile. I'm an experienced LinkedIn coach. I look at a lot of profiles, so sometimes I think that person might be in career transition and they don't have a current employer and they're trying to hide it or downplay it a little bit. And I know in your case you're self-employed, so it's probably just an oversight and it actually realistically came. It might've been something that you deselected without even realizing it. Or sometimes LinkedIn makes changes for us and doesn't tell us, so important to know where those settings are. Okay, all right. So next thing is at the top of your profile, underneath Greater Milwaukee. I see that you're using the custom link, which I really like.

Speaker 1:

Now my recommendation is let's think your typical target audience who's reading your profile. Let's assume they've never heard of you. Maybe somebody has said, oh, you got to check out Kim Groshek and they go to your profile. I want to make sure that everything is as easy as possible and as enticing as possible for using links to get them to click to go over. So if they don't really know what you do, kim's website might not be as intuitive like in terms of the services that you're offering, or why do I want to go to Kim's website? Let me just show you in comparison. I certainly could have just put Mellormarketingcom, but instead I'm directing them to a specific webpage 15 LinkedIn tips checklist.

Speaker 1:

So in this custom link you can actually type something out and you have up to 30 characters in there. So you might want to say something like tips for executive influencers, something, something that's going to get me to go Ooh, I need that. And get you to click to go to your website. What do you think about that? I think it's great. Thank you, good and easy tip. Okay, and then, before we move down, I'll give you one more in the lower area profile, but before we move off of the top header card, these two images are so important your headshot photo and we've got your header image in the background. Tell me a little bit about that header image. It looks like that's you up on stage.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's me speaking keynote down at the School of Education or the Educators Association in Texas.

Speaker 1:

That's a really great photo and I love how they have the letters up on stage and everything. How often do you change out that header image? How long has this been on here, would you say?

Speaker 2:

I just did it about two weeks ago.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wonderful. Okay, that's what I'm looking for there in terms of currency and recency of the photo. So typically I recommend swapping out that header image photo at least once a year. And for someone like you who's got really a dynamic business you're speaking, you're doing these different sessions, etc. Think about this almost like a billboard on the side of a highway and we think about advertisers. Don't leave those signs up all year long. They're swapping them out. Now they're going digital, so they're swapping them out like every 20 seconds. That's too fast for LinkedIn, but I would say at least once per quarter, or you could even go monthly with a new image. And the good thing, kim, is it doesn't push it out as a notification. So when you swap something in, it just gives profile visitors something new to look at. But seeing that you just updated that, you're in great shape there, so let's move on.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to scroll down, okay, in your about statement. Now I want you to consider the fact that in your about statement, you've got 2,600 characters to tell your story. Now, I am an opportunistic marketer, so if LinkedIn says, hey, we're going to give you a box for 2,600 characters, I would say use all 2,600, use as many as you can, but I also like to think about the psychology of how people are using LinkedIn and user behavior. So one thing that we know is that most people will not click on see more Now. The bright people will, but we've really got to capture their attention in those first four sentences. So my personal recommendation is that we don't have any spaces in there between your first line, kim Groshek, and have you ever felt overwhelmed? Because those first four lines I think you get about 400 to 450 characters really precious real estate. So if you're going to keep everything in as is, I would move, have up to the end of legacy builder in there, or even better.

Speaker 1:

Yet maybe you want to start with. Have you ever felt overwhelmed, constantly busy, not truly progressing? Because if we see what else is listed in here, we want to think about is this maybe more compelling for for your average, for your ideal target audience? And then maybe, if this is being used for keywords, for SEO purposes, maybe we move that someplace else in the about statement. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1:

I think that's great, thank you, okay, good, and then, while we're inside here, what I'm also looking for is a couple things I'll give to you. One is could we add a little pop of color? It's pretty hard to do this within LinkedIn because it's not an HTML editor, but what you can do is you could swap out your bulleted list. Instead of just using a little bullet emoji, you could swap it out. Let me just show you as an example here. You could use, like, the green checkmark emoji in there instead. Or, if you're talking about your speaking topics, you could use a microphone emoji or something. Now, I wouldn't use 12 different emojis. I would say pick one, but think about adding something that adds a little pop of color. I'm even looking at your name now that I'm looking at this and you've got like a sunburst icon. Is that something that you're frequently using as an emoji, kim?

Speaker 2:

I'm frequently using it by my name and it does get a little bit, by the way.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you can think about using that or just something else to add a little pop of color. And then, while we're inside here, I'll give you one final tip, which is I want you to think about the average person who's visiting your profile. Let's assume they're not yet connected with you. Maybe they're not sure if they want to connect with you yet because they don't know if you're the right person for them to do business with or you're still earning their trust at this point. So they're kind of looking around your profile and we want to give them links where they can go to do more research and learn more about you. If they're not connected to you, when they click on contact info, there's a good likelihood they're not going to see your email address or any links that you have inside there. Just because of the LinkedIn settings. They will see the Kim's website link that you have in your top header card If you change that to something you know learn more about executive services or something that can help draw them in. But also, I'd love to see at least one call to action inside your about statement. Now the call to action could be contact me at Kim at gmailcom whatever that email address is. It could be call me at put your phone number or Google voice number, or it could be visit our website at kimgroshekcom whatever that is to learn more. But let's make it easy for people who want to do business with us, either right away like send them to the booking page inside there or, more than likely, they're still shopping around. So where do they go next to get more information to learn about working with you, whether that's a website or reaching out to you through email?

Speaker 1:

Sometimes people will put a discovery call link inside here as well, but some path of continuing on to learn more about you. Okay, is that helpful there? Yeah, it is Great. Thank you. All right, wonderful. Well, I want to start to wrap up the session here today and I hope that you found this helpful. You picked up a couple of new tips for your profile. I know you mentioned in our discovery call you're thinking about changing up your signature talk topic. Can you remind me what that signature talk is about again?

Speaker 2:

Finding your voice.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. Well, lots of opportunity for that in today's market, especially Kim. So thank you so much for being on and thank you for giving me the time and the opportunity to give you some profile tips today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you Wonderful and for our listeners and viewers. I want to encourage you. If you're interested in learning more about getting a speaker profile mini audit, come on a Speaker Friends Friday. I think it's called Innovation Women's Speaker Friend Friday phone call with us. I'm going to put the link down in comments. The calls are really amazing. They're organized by Bobbi Carlton and we're always sharing links and resources with one another. So thank you so much for listening and watching and have a great day.

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