LinkedIn has changed over the years, but right now there is a door of opportunity that will only be open for a short moment in time. Want to know what it is?
In today’s episode of Influence By Design, we delve into LinkedIn like never before. Samantha sits down with Joshua B. Lee to uncover how LinkedIn is more than just a professional network — it’s a goldmine for genuine human connections and business opportunities.
Joshua, also known as the “Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn,” has spent over 20 years mastering the art of online connections. His journey started from helping Myspace design one of the first social media ads to generating nearly a billion dollars in advertising revenue. His mission now is to shift from monetising to educating, inspiring, and creating advocates on LinkedIn.
The software giant, Microsoft, has welcomed LinkedIn under its wing, and it offers a new opportunity to build your authority positioning. If you’ve been overlooking LinkedIn, now’s the time to wake up to its potential and place your bet on it.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- The value of human-to-human connection on LinkedIn (00:52)
- Joshua’s shift from monetising traffic to building meaningful connections (01:59)
- How parenthood and the quest for personal fulfilment can redirect professional paths (03:16)
- Why LinkedIn stands out in the AI-driven future and how it’s indexing quality content for better visibility (06:23)
- Effective content strategies focusing on quality over quantity and the importance of humanising content (10:50)
- The 10-20-70 content creation method (11:38)
- Why LinkedIn might sometimes have low engagement and how to counteract it (14:43)
- The importance of Sales Navigator for targeted connections and intentional relationship-building (18:29)
- How to give small dopamine hits to build relationships and trust on LinkedIn (20:01)
- How to get great results even if you aren’t selling LinkedIn services (24:47)
- LinkedIn’s collaborative articles as a way to gain authority and get indexed by Google (30:49)
- The future of AI and search, highlighting LinkedIn’s strategic position in this evolution (34:43)
- The SEO advantages in having a well-optimised LinkedIn profile (38:18)
- Tips on creating an engaging LinkedIn profile using the XYZ formula (40:59)
- Why you should leverage LinkedIn as a tool for success with its massive untapped potential (44:38)
QUOTES
“I think that so many people think of social media channels as, how can I sign a client? How can I get a client? How can I sell my thing? And it’s just the wrong thing to be using social media because there’s actual real humans out there who don’t want to be sold to in that way.” – Samantha Riley
“LinkedIn is one of the most indexable sites on there, and Google. So when you have a newsletter, you do your post, your profile, not only do you get found on LinkedIn, you also get highly indexed on Google.” – Joshua B. Lee
“What we’re doing is just being human online again. I think a lot of us have forgotten how to be able to do that because they just see a name on a screen, and they don’t realise that a human being is on the other side.” – Joshua B. Lee
“No one buys from another business — they buy from another human being. And so that’s what we have to be able to kind of go through if you want to be able to have success.” – Joshua B. Lee
“That’s what I want everyone to understand — that the future of business, the future of search, it’s going to be AI. And Microsoft is ahead of the curve with their partnerships with LinkedIn and Open AI.” – Joshua B. Lee
“If you are starting or building your brand, make sure you have a LinkedIn profile – the SEO is so good. If someone Googles you, you’ll pop up right at the top.” – Samantha Riley
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ABOUT JOSHUA B. LEE
Joshua B. Lee is “The Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn”, and he’s proud of that nickname. Over the last 20+ years, he’s built 16 businesses, written a book called ‘Balance is Bullsh*t’, and created a beautiful marriage and blended family of two children, Jayden and Skylar.
In 2003, he started his first online advertising company called LF Media with clients like MySpace and Google driving advertising spends of over half a billion dollars and generating over 35 trillion online impressions. He was a millionaire by 28 years old and featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur and more.
As he looked at the business landscape, he realized he’d focused too much on driving traffic and making money. We had forgotten that we’re all HUMANS. So in 2014, he founded Standout Authority to support high-powered entrepreneurs, business owners and business professionals in humanizing their personal brands, creating amazing content and drawing in massive opportunities on the only professional platform out there: LinkedIn.
In 2021, he brought in his wife Rachel B. Lee to be Co-Owner and CMO of Standout Authority and together they dove into Web3 and launched the $SOA Coin and Standout Authority Community on Discord. He’s also part of the LinkedIn, Twitter, and TikTok Creator Programs with nearly 200K+ fans across social media.
WHERE TO FIND JOSHUA B. LEE
- Website: https://standoutauthority.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuablee/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejoshuablee/
- Twitter: twitter.com/thejoshuablee
- Free Gift: quiz.soauthority.com
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
Facebook: Samantha Riley
Instagram: @thesamriley
LinkedIn: Samantha Riley
Twitter: @thesamriley
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 0:03
Welcome to today’s episode of Influence By Design. I’m your host, Samantha Riley. And today we’re going to talk LinkedIn. Now, this I don’t think is going to be the same LinkedIn conversation that I’ve had before. I have been chatting with Joshua B. Lee, before we started record, he is very aware that this is going to take a very different route. So welcome to the show, Joshua. I’m really looking forward to where this is gonna go today.
Joshua B. Lee 0:27
Samantha, I am excited too, you know, again, bring it on, let’s have fun, bust out the boxing gloves. And let’s go through the whole piece of, you know, all the things that people go, oh LinkedIn, ah, you know, like I get, I mean, there’s, everyone’s sleeping on something that’s going to be massive. And I really hope to be able to enlighten everyone a little bit on what I see in the future and what the opportunity is for them right now.
Samantha Riley 0:52
Totally. Now we’re connected by a good friend of mine, Alex Neom. And he reached out and said, You’ve got to talk with this guy. He’s got, you know, all the tea on LinkedIn. And I had a look at your website. And I was like, actually, you know what, I really liked where you’re going with this. I love that you’re talking about h to h, human to human rather than b2b to b2c. And I’ve got to be honest, that was the one little hook that got me when I’m going to talk with this guy. Because I think that so many people think of social media channels as, how can I sign a client? How can I get a client? How can I, you know, sell my thing? And it’s just the wrong thing to be thinking because there’s actual real humans out there. And they don’t flip the script and think, Well, I don’t like to be sold to in that way, so why are we treating other people that way? What, usually this passion, or, you know, the way that we come from usually has some sort of backstory. What is it that really made you understand, yes, we’re on a digital platform, but we really need to connect with people?
Joshua B. Lee 1:59
You know, Samantha, it’s an amazing question. And, you know, I go back 20 years, right? Like, it was crazy that I can say, my wife always tells me this ages me when I tell people that one of my first clients was MySpace, you know, depending on the gender, depending on the generation, they’re like, it was funny, I was actually talking to someone recently, like, what was, what’s that? I’m like, I’m now old, because I say MySpace, and people don’t remember. But like, I helped them design one of the first social media ads to be able to monetize their traffic that a lot of social media ads are based on today. So I had a huge hand in monetizing the web. I mean, I went through a monetize every acronym you can imagine. I was that guy, right? Like, Oh, you want to monetize your traffic? Oh, I got you. But you know, going through almost a billion dollars in advertising, 35 trillion online impressions. Honestly, it led me to a point that I wasn’t fulfilled, outside looking in, people saw me as successful. But that was monetary, right? Like, that’s how we perceive success these days. But inside, honestly, I was 40 pounds overweight, never been overweight, my life. I had no vision about where it was going. And you know, my friends were monetary, right? Like the people that were hanging around me. So like, I was trying to do this whole work life balance, and being able to be this what we’re taught. And I remember, after having kids, I remember contemplating just staring at my wall sometimes going, man, what am I doing? I don’t, I don’t really need to share this with my kids. Like, yeah, I make money. But like, there’s better things that, it’s all about money, like, what am I doing? And so like, I kind of went through a reset. And at first, I want to be honest, Samantha at first, I was like, I walked away from everything, closed my companies. And I was like, how am I going to reset and like, you know, what, I’m going to teach everyone that I everywhere, all the things that I messed up on I’m going to share. So like I had my man bun, my malabi I was going to be the guru. Realised really quickly, I didn’t want to be a guru. But I was forgetting my past to forge a new future. Right. I was like, so once I realised I needed to take my future and marry it with my past, that’s where standard authority is born. How do we actually shift from monetising to educate, inspire, and draw people in? How do we actually create, like you said, not leads, leads are so exhausting, it’s a one to one relationship. I’d rather create advocates, right? Like how do we create advocates because an advocate can bring me 1000s of opportunities. And so that’s kind of where we got to today. It was a long road. But today, I can look at what we do. And I can smile because I can see the lives that we change every single day. After a billion dollars in advertising. I can’t tell you who I helped. I might have sold some stuff. Who knows I might not have, back then it was the wild wild west. So like, but I know I can see it now. And that’s why I saw LinkedIn as that platform because so many people were going on they’re going Hey, Samantha, you wear a shirt. Me too. Let’s connect. Like, what? What’s going on? And that was the whole aspect. So that’s kind of where I found myself today was I want to be able to stand up for my kids and create a better future for them. And I wasn’t doing that just monetising the web.
Samantha Riley 5:09
I love that. Kids change everything. And unless you’ve been on that journey, you don’t realise, like on my desk, I’ve actually got a picture of my three children right here. I got, we can share.
Joshua B. Lee 5:24
Yeah, I’ve got a 15, I got a 12. And now I have an eight month old, so you know, new daddy again after 12 years.
Samantha Riley 5:30
Congratulations! One of the two, congratulations!
Joshua B. Lee 5:36
I know all the mistakes that I made before, so I can be better, much better this time around. And you know, it’s amazing to be able to have that perspective. And I surround myself with different people today too, you know, I have a different vision for my future. So I think it allows me to be a better parent.
Samantha Riley 5:50
Yeah. I love that. I love that. All right, let’s talk about LinkedIn. You shared, before we started talking, you shared about some big things that are going on behind the scenes and why we need to be on LinkedIn right now. I would love you to share what you shared with me because it’s not the normal, Oh, it’s where all the eyeballs are now, which is the normal conversation. You know, the eyeballs are here. You need to be on this platform now. You talked about something very different. I’d love you to share.
Joshua B. Lee 6:23
Yeah, Samantha, I mean, look, eyeballs are on LinkedIn. Everyone’s going, Oh, my God. I mean, I’ve been sleeping on LinkedIn. Yeah, it’s been around for 20 years. It’s the longest, it’s been the oldest platform around. So like, it’s been there. And it’s had the chefs and you know, most people go on there. I mean, like, I guess you’re right, I could sit up here and go look, you know, LinkedIn platform, average income, almost triple what other platforms are like, almost $125,000 a year and us. It’s, it’s what the average income on LinkedIn is, or four out of five people are business decision makers, you know, educated audience, all those different aspects. But that’s not the real reason why I think everyone needs to be on that platform. Today, in a world of AI, one of the biggest things is everyone’s an expert. You know, I’m sorry, I’ve got to use my air quotes, if you’re watching. Yeah, no, because they go, Oh, I can be able to do this. But like, we don’t need more experts, we need more authority, we need people that we actually look forward, that we actually believe in, that we align with, that we have commonalities with, and that’s being able to be found. LinkedIn is one of the most trusted platforms. And a couple of years ago, Microsoft actually purchased LinkedIn for $24.6 billion cash, one of their largest cash purchases ever. Yeah. And today, I think it’s closer to 90 billion. So like, they’ve done really well on their investment. They also invested in another little company that I’ll be honest, they own I mean, we can all say they own 49%. But I mean, after a recent events, we’ve seen some things Open AI, aka chat GPT. And so it’s really interesting what they’re doing. I’ve been had the I’ve had the really benefit to be able to work with them on the beta side to be able to see some of the stuff that’s coming out. And most people go, Oh, LinkedIn, that’s where you know, I get spammed a whole bunch of times. Feed sucks. It’s just a whole bunch of people talking about themselves. Or, you know, I go there to get a job. Those are the usually, the three things that people say about LinkedIn, you know. But here’s the cool thing. Like with content right now, content is not king. There’s so much content out there, that it’s kind of like watching Netflix on a Friday night, right? You’re sitting there, my wife wants to kill me. Sometimes she’s like, if you take 20 more minutes to pick a show, I’m going to kill you. Right?
Samantha Riley 8:34
Oh, my goodness, that’s exactly what I say to my husband, just choose something now.
Joshua B. Lee 8:40
Because there’s too much out there, right? Quality content isn’t king any more, quality is queen, we’re looking for that quality type of content. And one of the cool things that LinkedIn is doing right now, they’re doing what Elon Musk really was doing with Twitter, he didn’t care about a social media platform, he cared about indexing that human algorithm. And so one of the best things that I find with what LinkedIn is doing compared with Microsoft and Open AI is they’re actually indexing the type of content on there to be able to not only LinkedIn is one of the most indexable sites on there, and Google, so like, when you have a newsletter, you do your post, your profile, not only do you get found on LinkedIn, you also get highly indexed on Google. And now, look, we live in a world of AI, things are going to change if people don’t know that this thing called generative search is coming where we won’t have listings anymore. It’s going to be looking for content and being citing the people that are actually sharing that content, rather than actually going through the regular way we know Google. And when that kind of launches about a year, a year and a half, we want to be the people that are actually showing up in those results. And that’s what’s happening on LinkedIn. That’s why everyone listening, I don’t care if you go, Oh, my clients are on LinkedIn. I want you to be the one that’s found. I want people to find you, not you having to look for those people. And that’s what LinkedIn is going to be able to do because how they’re indexing it is the basis for generative search within Microsoft Launcher. And I mean, honestly, right now Microsoft is the wealthiest, richest, most, whatever they want to call it, company out there like 2.3 trillion dollar business. So it’s a company I wouldn’t bet against. And that’s why I want everyone to be paying attention. Because if you’re adding that right content, that is educating, inspiring and drawing your audience, you can be found on all the different places that people are looking for people like yourself. So start putting your content out, start being in it, but don’t do it in a way that we all hate. Mostly, we’re like, Hey, look at the shiny thing that I’ve got here. Like, it’s, no one cares, right? But how do you actually educate your audience being able to go in there? And like, Samantha, I’ll tell you, it’s really powerful when you do it the right way.
Samantha Riley 10:50
When you say the right way, what are you specifically referring to?
Joshua B. Lee 10:56
We, no one wants, like everyone likes to talk about themselves on most platforms. But we forget that we’re there to be able to educate that audience. At least me like most people go, Well, I’m there to be able to, you know, get sales, get leads. Well, an uneducated purchase usually results in a chargeback or lots of headache for everyone that you’re working with. We’ve all had it. We’ve all had those people and like and then you’ve got to, you sold them, you have to continue to sell them every single day. I’m with you. Right. Absolutely. Okay, well tell me again, why am I gonna pay you again? You’re like, Okay, let me go through this again.
Samantha Riley 11:33
But at this point, you’re already asking yourself, why, we don’t know why.
Joshua B. Lee 11:38
We’ve all had that. Right. So like, if you go in there and put content that educates your audience, like I believe in the 10-20-70 method of content creation. Have you ever heard that method before?
Samantha Riley
No, I haven’t, I’d love you to share.
Joshua B. Lee 11:49
Alright, so 10-20-70, I think this is the best way to get result. And like, look, it works on LinkedIn, but it works on all platforms. 10% of your content needs to be personal, right? It needs to be human, it needs to be relatable, because it’s look, it’s not Facebook, right? So I don’t need to know when your kids are going to school. But I should know that you have them just like you and I shared pictures. Samantha, you and I have a commonality of a bond now we have a better connection. And so that’s what people need to think about, like, Oh, you have kids? Me, too. As human beings, we look for people that we have commonalities and connections with. So we have to not forget that when we’re sharing online. People go Oh, LinkedIn is a business platform. I can’t talk about me having kids. No. Right. There’s other human beings on that side. Remember, we talked about not b2b or b2c? It’s h2h, human to human. And so, similar content needs to be the, I always say, it’s, I call it my door to the couch mentality rather than me knocking on your door, and hey, Samantha, I’m here to be able to sell you something down the street, whatever it may be. I get those people all the time. Like, Hey, your neighbours are buying new windows, you should buy them too. I’m like, Okay, no, I’m okay. Thank you. But if you and I are sitting on a couch, and I’m like, Man, Samantha, I got this new drink that I’m taking, drinking right now. We’re like, you’re gonna take like, oh, wow, tell me more, right? Because we have that commonality. So that’s a 10% does. 20% of your content needs to be around your company, but not about what you have, what you can do for somebody, what you have done. We have to be storytellers, right, we want to tell people, so they can actually see themselves in the eye of your story, right, in the people that you’ve already helped before. So and the only, to this 20% of time, honestly, because we never want to be that person. We’re like, oh, there’s Josh, that you’d never shuts up about LinkedIn. Right? We’ve all seen those people at events were like, avoid, avoid, the wants to pitch me all the time. So we love to do it 20% of the time. 70% of your content should educate your audience, we want to be an aggregator of value. Right. So like, if I educate my audience enough that they know they have a problem, you’re gonna come to me for the solution, even if it’s not my information, right? Like, if I hear something, and I listen to one of your other podcasts, and like, oh, wow, so and so was amazing on there, right? I want to be able to share that, they’re gonna come to me, that’s what we want. I want to become a destination website on LinkedIn, that people go every single day going, okay, Josh is the one I listen to. Because he’s the authority, he’s always sharing and educating me. Because even if I show someone how to so called make the hamburger, usually most people in this world are going to pay you to make it and once they actually realise how much it goes into making the hamburger. And so that’s that whole piece 10, 20, 70%, 10% personal, 20% around your company, storytelling, and 70% educating, like, take all that valuable information in your head, share it to the world because no one can be you without you.
Samantha Riley 14:43
100% loving this. Now, you’re talking about LinkedIn being the aggregator of all this content. What is the, I guess crossover is the word I’m thinking of, but it’s not quite right, between the amount of views we’re getting more interaction and where this information is going. Because this could be just a personal thing. It could just be me. But it is the lowest amount of interaction I get on any social media platform.
Joshua B. Lee 15:14
The average person gets less than 1% engagement. Yeah.
Samantha Riley 15:17
Yeah. So what’s the, you know, is there a crossover between these two things?
Joshua B. Lee 15:23
There is, and it’s all about, so we go through the condition or audience, like, I don’t care about the LinkedIn algorithm, honestly, don’t care about the Facebook or the Instagram or whatever. Those algorithms change all the time. And usually, we’re mostly, we’re looking for the guru to give them the next hack or the next trick, because guess what, they’re gonna need the next hack the next trick every single time the algorithm changes. The one algorithm that we know doesn’t change, it just evolves very slowly over time, is the human algorithm. And so that’s what we have to kind of play into, right, because right now, we’ve all been conditioned. Have you ever seen on Netflix, we were just talking about Netflix. So The Social Dilemma, have you ever see that show? A movie?
Samantha Riley 16:02
You know what, I never finished it. I only watched the beginning of it. I’m not a big TV person, to be honest.
Joshua B. Lee 16:09
It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s like, I’ll tell you, it’s funny. My mom watched it, too. She’s like, I can’t believe they’re doing this to, again, they’ve been conditioning. The social media platforms have been conditioning all of us for 20 plus years. Yeah. And like to be in this pattern. And I’m, and think and we have to be able to kind of look at that. How are we actually going to get Yes, content is there. But I can’t just put content up there and go, Okay, find me, right? It doesn’t there’s so much content out there. So like, how do we actually start drawing people in? I hate cold call. And I hate cold emails, right? Like, if someone calls me and my phone rings. And I’m like, they don’t say hello, in the first two seconds. I’m like, you know, and then right? Like, they’re about to pitch me whatever it might be auto dialer. So what we do is to condition your audience is appreciate people for what they take for granted. A lot of us learned, we take a lot of things for granted when COVID came around, right? Like we all these things in life are like, Oh, okay, I can’t travel as much as I did, I can’t do all these things. And these are those things that we took for granted as part of our life. Well, in the same thing on social media, we take a lot of things for granted. Someone looking at our profile, someone engaging in our content. What I honestly, how I get someone’s attention, like yourself, let’s say I see you post online, and you get very low engagement. I want to be able to engage with that. Right. So like, what I’m going to do is go hey, Samantha, I saw your recent posts about that podcast with Josh will be the man. Amazing. Thank you so much. Sending, thanking someone for taking action is amazing. Or Samantha, I saw you looked at my profile, just want to reach out and say thank you, love to be able to connect with you. And find out what pushed you to look me up with. Thank you for engaging my recent posts, I love to find out what pushed you to engage. What we’re trying to be able to do is start a conversation that builds a relationship because relationships, great opportunity. Most people just want to go hey let me spam 1000 people to get the one sale. They’re like yay, no, you just pissed off 999 people, there are better ways to do it. And so when you start adding all these different pieces from putting the right content, engaging with people to engage with you, then also drawing in your audience, right? Like most people, I always say play Pokemon on LinkedIn. You got kids, so you probably remember, yeah, Pokemon. Gotta catch them. All right, they just hit the add an add button, like, oh, I have so many connections. That’s what your feed sucks. That’s what you get spammed all the time, because you just started thinking that it was a number, a numbers game. And that’s what we were all taught. But I want to be intentional. So the people I want to get a hold of, we use Sales Navigator, which is LinkedIn’s built in CRM system, and identify my ideal audience. And then I see, I think there’s a little tab on there, says, active on the last 30 days, posted online. So now I can see them. And now I can actually start drawing that audience by going Hey, Samantha, I saw your recent posts. Hey, John, I saw your responses, want to say thank you. So now we’re drawing our ideal audience in that will engage and look for our content that we’re putting out. Does that make sense?
Samantha Riley 19:05
It totally does. How important is Sales Navigator? Can we, you know, you have a LinkedIn, I guess, strategy with connecting with people without it or it really does help to kind of zero in on who that ideal person is?
Joshua B. Lee 19:21
I look a lot of people like for us. I mean, oh, here in the States, it’s $100 a month. And for me, I know that one opportunity is worth more than $100 to me. I want to be very intentional because LinkedIn only allows us 400 connections a month. So like if I’m going to be intentional with that I don’t want to just randomly look for people, I want to be very intentional with my time to be able to make sure those are really well thought out opportunities of relationship to be able to start those conversations. So it’s with all the other platforms taking away searchability of how we actually look for people, LinkedIn has more visibility than anyone else. And so that’s why I like Sales Navigator. Alright, I’m gonna lay out. So like, there’s a reason why and I’m not sure if you saw like they called on a podcast years ago. I explained this, how I do things. And they’re like they came out Joshua B. Lee, The Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn.
Samantha Riley
Yes, I saw that on your website.
Joshua B. Lee
And the name kind of stuck, right? And so like, that’s what we have to look at. Like, if I asked you, Samantha, like, why do people post online? What would you say?
Samantha Riley 20:29
Well, they post online to get more eyeballs, I guess, because they want more, they want to grow their business, they want more clients.
Joshua B. Lee 20:37
All those are true. But there’s something first, most visceral, that we’ve all been conditioned, right? We’ve all been conditioned to look for those little hits of dopamine when someone likes or comments on our post, then it’s branded, then it’s clients, right? We put it out there, just like you said, I, I put my posts out there. And I don’t get that much engagement. Because at first like, we hold our breath and put it out there like I gotta someone gonna like it. And then we get that first, like when we breathe, right? So we look for that. So we have to become dopamine dealers. And so that’s kind of where it goes, right? Like, we’re first starting with appreciation. Thanks for looking at my profile. And thanks for engaging in my content, or thanks for posting great content, boom, that’s that first dopamine. They connect with us. Once we connect, this is where most people mess up, they usually go, Hey, why don’t you buy my things, right? It’s like, Okay, it’s done. You know, or these days, they pitch you on LinkedIn, and they’ll scrape your email and they’ll scrape your phone number and they’re like, Oh, great. Now you’re spamming me everywhere. It doesn’t work. My mom always taught me when I meet someone new, give them a compliment, right? Like I’ve already I’ve already noticed, like the hashtag influence behind you. And I’m like, oh my god, I love that, right? Like being able to put these things out there. And like when we meet people new or like, hey, oh, my god, I love your shirt, great dress, cool card, love your dog. Like we have a golden doodle. So like, people come up to us all the time. So like on LinkedIn, one of the first things we do when someone connects after we would appreciate them, they connected, we give a compliment, a compliment on LinkedIn as being able to endorse their skills. Right endorsing you for marketing or for you know, influence, whatever it might be. And LinkedIn goes, Oh, Josh endorsed you for influence. Do you want to say thank you? Now I get a lot of times, people go, how can you endorse someone that you don’t know? The number one rule of my house with my kids, is it’s nice to be nice. To fact, think about how amazing our world would be if we were just stuck by that one rule was, it’s nice to be nice, rather than assuming that we’re always trying to be so like I’m giving. So again, that’s another dopamine hit. Josh endorsed you. Do you want to say thank you? Usually most people go Yeah, cool. Yeah. Hey, Josh, thank you so much for endorsing me for influence, that allows that conversation to flip. Now I’m able to be able to ask a question like, hey, know, happy to do it, Samantha, you know, hey, quick question for you. I was, love someone’s mindset. Because that’s how we’re having many conversations. And we continue to be able to give these dopamine hits to be able to understand who they are, what they stand for, and giving to be able to build a relationship with someone. So we, if we’re going to provide value, it’s not unsolicited value. That’s where most people kind of go in, hey, let me teach you how to be able to do this. I didn’t ask. So that’s what I want everyone to understand is LinkedIn is a platform where we look at the influence behind you. It’s not just for thought leaders, it’s for thought leaders with influence. Leaders are great, you put a lot of information out there. But if you’re not influencing people to actually take action, who cares? Yeah. So that’s the kind of situation that we look at, right?Pputting out content that actually adds value. Being able to start conversations and relationships. When you start putting all these things together, it creates massive opportunity, and you treat human beings like human beings. You get people that want to see your content. I get on podcasts, I’m like, oh my god, I just read your newsletter, right? Thank you so much for really, sure. I share everything, everything we do for our clients, I share on LinkedIn, because look, I want everyone to either get there eventually, if they want to get there faster, they can hire us. But I want to be able to make this world a better place for my kids. I tried to change this world on my own many years ago, damn near killed myself doing it the way we can. Only way we can change this world is to be able to do it together. And so that’s kind of where I see LinkedIn, right? Like, it’s multiple pieces of a whole. But it’s nothing then what we’re doing is just being human online again, I think a lot of us have forgotten how to be able to do that because they just see a name on a screen, and they don’t realise that a human being is on the other side.
Samantha Riley 24:47
100%, 100%. Before we go on, and I’ve got some more questions about the content, there’s something I want to ask and I’m sure I’m not the only person that’s thinking this right now. So I did prepare you, I was gonna call the elephant out. A lot of people say to me, and it is a thought that I have too, that the people that do well on LinkedIn are the people that are selling the LinkedIn dream. So it’s very easy to say, Yeah, I’m going to connect, and I’ll connect. And then it’s like, well, I’ve got this LinkedIn thing, and it’s going to help you to do that. And I feel like the most successful people on LinkedIn are the people that are selling the LinkedIn dream. Can you take us through some people in your world, clients, people you know, that have had really great results from using this that aren’t selling LinkedIn services?
Joshua B. Lee 25:38
Yeah, I mean, look, all of my clients. I mean, I’ve been very blessed. I get to work with a lot of men and women, I used to read their books on how to be able to start my own companies. And they understand that what we’re trying to be able to do, the success comes because of that advocacy. Most people will see, don’t see them because they’re like, Oh, well, I’ve got to use automation, I’ve got to be able to it’s a numbers game numbers game. Again, it’s called spamming, if you’re playing a numbers game. And so like when you look at that, like we talked about some of the people that I’ve been able to work with from Dan Sullivan, Strategic Coach, if you’ve never read his book, Who Not How, it’s amazing.
Samantha Riley
I love that book.
Joshua B. Lee
I actually helped him relaunch it with Benjamin Hardy, so they were both nice work. So we did that and used LinkedIn. Actually, it’s funny with Dan, he actually introduced me, hey, this is Josh, he plays me online, right? Because I was the first one that created his first LinkedIn. So he has lots of success on there. Because again, it’s a different type of person. Right? It’s not the people that are always talking about themselves. Joe Polish. We’ve worked with Tony Robbins, we’ve worked with John Maxwell. I mean, very well known human beings. And I get that. But there’s other people as well, too. I had a good friend of mine, I knew his parents. He’s like, Hey, Tony wants to get on LinkedIn. Guess what? He runs a roofing company. Right? And we’re like, oh, you can’t get that. Honestly, you can, guess what? Most of us, especially at least if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably have a roof above your head. Right. And this is the whole piece that people that have success realise everyone on there is another human being, they go, they’re not trying to go, it’s a b2b. Well, I’ve got to sell, no one buys for another business, they buy from another human being. And so that’s what we have to be able to kind of go through if you want to be able to have success. We’ve worked with health practitioners, we’ve worked with doctors, dentists, personal trainers, I mean, like, there’s so much different opportunity, we had the opportunity recently to work with JJ Virgin. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of amazing just human beings on there. But it’s the way you go about it. Anyone listening can have success on LinkedIn, because again, when you do the things that I’m talking about now, treating another person like a human being, you’re lighting it up in a dark tunnel on that platform, because most people are playing the spamming game, the automation game. And so when they get that message says, Hey, thank you, that creates a stop gap on their pattern. Now they can be able to hear, so like when I tell someone, can you have success? 100% right, it doesn’t matter the vertical what you’re doing, it’s about how you go about it. And I think we’re, most people don’t start off the right way first, Samantha, is they don’t set themselves up for success on their profile. Their profile, like, I can teach you how to be able to build content out, I can teach you how to be able to do messaging. But if your profile sucks, I’m sorry, the people are gonna bounce right off. Right? So we have to be able to take that time out to not, what we, most of us did was we created a LinkedIn, we put a resume up there. Last year looking for a job. Honestly, let me take that back. Even if you’re looking for a job, do not put your resume up there. No one likes looking at a bullet point and resume of the different things that you’ve accomplished in your life. What I want to be able to see is I want to be able to read your career journey. Tell me where you’ve been, where you’re at, where you’re going, right, go through all the different aspects of really telling me a story about you and why it matters, building that commonality. People forget to be able to do these things. And I think that’s why most people don’t have success is because they didn’t start with the one thing that matters most, your personal brand. Your personal brand and how you connect starts with that profile. Unless you’re a car person, you know, I could go, I could sit up here Samantha and go Alright, I’m gonna name Mercedes, Porsche, and Tesla. What person’s name comes to mind when I say those three cars? Usually Elon Musk, right. But the only private person, knowing he usually tell me unless they’re really big into cars, who runs Mercedes or Porsche and guess what they’ve been around for decades longer.
Samantha Riley 29:54
Way longer than Tesla. Yeah.
Joshua B. Lee 29:57
And it’s the personal brand right, love him or hate him. Elon Musk has a personal brand. And that draws people in. And that’s what we have to be able to do. We don’t want to work with everybody, we want to, you know, really draw in our ideal audience, our tribe, and push away the people that don’t have alignment with us. And so that’s where really filling on the personal profile going from, you know, every company like if you look at mine, I go all the way back to my first job, when I came into high school, working at a restaurant as a server. Like I want people to, I’m trying to, there’s a gap usually between us and our audience of where we are and where they are. And when you start telling your story, it shrinks that gap and allows them to be able to have a much easier point of reference to be able to connect with. So that’s, that’s some of my different thoughts of that, I think people need to be able to start off with.
Samantha Riley 30:49
Yeah, I love that. You talked about, you know, when we go back to the beginning that there’s a whole heap of data that’s been collected, you talked about your profile, you talked about content, you’ve talked about newsletters. Something that I’ve just recently been doing, and I don’t even know where I got this idea from, but I’d love your thoughts. And I can’t even remember what it’s called. And I think it’s something like there’s some way you can get a badge on your profile. And it’s by commenting on certain topics, what’s this called?
Joshua B. Lee 31:20
Collaborative articles. And this is what they’ve been doing to be able to index and this is where, if I was going to tell people to spend their time, it’s 750 characters, it’s not hard. And they, what they did was they really gamified the way that they are collecting information to be on the different categories and humanising it for generative search when it launches. So you can get a badge like, look, everyone’s like, Oh, I got a shiny badge, right? Like, yes, but right. Like, it’s not even about the badge. It’s about I want to make sure that when someone’s searching for Joshua B. Lee or LinkedIn, like on Chat GPT, how do I do this? I want my information in my name to be able to come up. Right? So those are the ways that I want people to think about it, what you need to be able to do, you have to be able to put, find a vertical that you want to stand out in, and then go through. And really, what you need to be able to add is three different pieces of content, 750 characters, on different aspects, what they’re doing is they’re creating an AI article. And each paragraph has a basic statement that kind of breaks it down. And then they allow the human beings to add their perspective on that, you get thumbs up or thumbs down. If you get more than three thumbs up on three different pieces that you’ve added, you get the batch, and they reevaluate that every six months pushing you to continue to be able to do that. It’s an amazing way to be able to get your information out there. I think so far, I am, I have had more badges than anyone else. I think I had 21 badges at one point in time. Wow. But yeah, right, it was great to be able to do it, I would push everyone Hey, find that one thing that you want to be able to be known for. And it says right at the top right. I was a, you know, I LinkedIn, I was a AI top voice, right? You know, these are the different aspects of what I want to be able to share with everyone. And it gives you that authority. And that’s what we’re looking for, like you can’t go out there anymore, and just drop someone in a funnel, and sell a $10,000 product. It doesn’t happen. I can’t just use cold advertising traffic, and drop in a funnel. I think we were, I was at a mastermind and I think we really kind of came down to it. Like, if your offer is more than $500, you’re not going to be able to sell that off of cold advertising traffic without getting on a phone call with somebody. So like we live in that world now that you really have to be able to have that authority, that influence, that people go, I mean, look, you looked me up. I looked you up. One of the first places I looked you up Samantha was on LinkedIn. Most people do that these days. They go to LinkedIn, not to lose themselves in someone else’s life like on TikTok or Instagram. Right? We can follow on these Instagram. Yeah, that’s a really good point. Yeah, they go there to either get information, to get information to make a purchase. You know, they’re looking there to get educated and be able to make decisions. They’re not going there to go, man, I want to go watch Josh play with his kids and his dog all day. Yeah, talk about my shoes, right? Like, you know, that’s not what they’re going there for. And so that’s what I want everyone to understand. You have to be able to ship the content too. Comment on articles. 100% do it. It’s an amazing way to be able to get yourself out there. And that’s what I want everyone to understand that the future of business, the future of search, it’s going to be AI and Microsoft is ahead of the curve with their partnerships with LinkedIn and Open AI. And so like, people need to pay attention like the mosque or on LinkedIn and if anyone listening doesn’t know because that’s how SEO is kind of ranked is 100 out of 100. So like every, every piece of content, like when I put, Samantha, do you have a newsletter that you send out to your audience?
Samantha Riley 35:11
I do have a newsletter that I haven’t used for the last six months.
Joshua B. Lee 35:15
Okay, well, everyone listening starts signing up for Samantha’s newsletter. So she started putting it out there again.
Samantha Riley 35:21
I was gonna say so as I’m backing myself now, now I need to get it out again.
Joshua B. Lee 35:26
But let me tell you, so like most times, we send a newsletter out here, someone’s email, once it’s there, it’s done. One of the cool things that I love about LinkedIn is they have a newsletter feature. Not only does it have 100% deliverability in someone’s inbox, but they also give you a notification on LinkedIn. So I can do long form content and newsletter form, I can link off site without getting dinged. And so now I can create opportunity. And the best thing about it is it doesn’t just die in someone’s email, it gets a, it gets indexed by Google. So when I send a newsletter out, within an hour, I get my Google Alerts, it shows me that my newsletter was indexed on Google. I mean, think about that, right? Like, that’s where everyone’s going right now to be able to do most of their search. So you get, that’s the opportunity that I want everyone to understand is like, it’s not just going to one platform. LinkedIn is a search engine. The two platforms that are the best search engines out there right now are LinkedIn, and YouTube. So like, when you’re looking at these aspects, you want to be able to be that person that’s found that’s that’s that people are looking for that or people are coming every single day to be able to dig in to really go find the answers. Those are the platforms I want people to really take the time out to be able to spend on because they’re not only getting found on there, like so this will blow your mind, Samantha. And I apologise, I’m just throwing up information at you.
Samantha Riley 36:46
I love that. I love it. As you can see, I gotta have fun, because it’s not gonna happen.
Joshua B. Lee 36:50
People. People look at it wrong. And I’m like, Look, there’s so many cool things that just, I don’t think people are looking at it. So like, you say you don’t get much visibility. So there’s over a billion people on LinkedIn right now. Right. So with the growth that they’re having over there, there’s still only about 4 million people actually posting on a weekly basis.
Samantha Riley 37:12
New job opportunity.
Joshua B. Lee 37:14
If I told you that there’s 10 billion content impressions weekly, that those 4 million people are getting access to, would that push you more to want to be able to find out how to be able to get access to that content? 100%. I mean, those 4 million people are getting access to 10 billion impressions with people that we go back into it. Twitter, aka X, whatever, average income around $48,000 US a year, Facebook’s around $64,000 US a year. LinkedIn is around 125,000. So you got to average income, more than double of the other most of the other platforms, four out of five people, this is makers. And still to this day, 50% or more of those audiences have a college degree or higher. So you’re talking about an educated audience that has buying power and can afford the product and service that you’re looking for. And they’re not on there to be able to just watch you dance, you’re on there to get information and be able to make buying decisions. I mean, to me, that’s a win win, win win. So you know, today, that’s what we’re looking for.
Samantha Riley 38:18
Totally, and you know, on what you were saying there in regards to the SEO, I often tell people that are just starting their brands or like you know, doing something with it. First thing you do, put up your LinkedIn profile, just because the SEO is so good on it, if someone looks, at least that pops up right at the top.
Joshua B. Lee 38:36
It’s usually the first or second thing that pops. Yeah. And that’s that whole piece of metal like I don’t know, if you’re telling me like, go through, fill every piece, every piece on your profile is another indexable point. So that’s where I’m like, I get 18 jobs on there at different companies I’ve worked for all different places that I can index. I have my volunteer work. So like I’ve you know, over the last couple years, I’ve been the resident SpiderMan at Dell Children’s Hospital here in Austin, Texas, right? Like, that is so cool. I want people to understand that. Like there’s other aspects about me when I tell my, at my About section. It’s about where I’ve been, where I’m at, where I’m going, right? I’m telling a story. I’m talking about my kids, I’m talking about my book, I’m not just going, here’s why you should hire me, right? I’m trying to build a relationship with somebody. And that, all that information, as you said, it’s highly indexed on Google. So why not spend the time if you, if anyone was going to go on here, you don’t if you don’t spend time on LinkedIn at all, just take time out and fill out every piece of information on LinkedIn, on your profile. Because overall, how many times I see people they’re like CEO of let’s me, CEO sent out authority and that’s the only I might really? That’s all you’ve done. I’m like and that was like three years ago like I know you were born the CEO of your company or whatever like well, my own, my other jobs don’t relate I’m like, they don’t relate. They’re part of you. That builds commonality with your audience. Like me, people like the restaurant that I mentioned that I was, my first job. People go, Oh my God, you worked at Chili’s? Me too. And now we have commonality. And so that’s what I want people to think about when you’re actually building that, take time out. Like Samantha said, it’s one of the first things that pops up on Google, fill that thing out like crazy, I’d rather have audience brought to you just by doing that we’ve seen usually, most people show up on search results on LinkedIn, zero to 100 times with that half finished profile our clients, when we’re going to their profile, we’re doing the content, like we talked about doing that engagement engine, you know, being able to appreciate being able to connect all those things show up anywhere from 3000 to 10,000 times a week, because of how much more opportunity is coming to you, rather than you having to go find it.
Samantha Riley 40:59
So we’re talking about profile here. For people that have got a profile that says I’m the CEO of X Y Zed, I know that you’ve got a free resource that helps people to write this. I’d love you to be able to share that because I think that’d be super helpful.
Joshua B. Lee 41:11
Yeah, no. That’s amazing. And yeah, it’s, I always say like, you don’t need that right already says that you’re the CEO of a company, right? So like, we have the X Y Zed. See? I’m gonna say it like you.
Samantha Riley 41:25
Yeah, cuz you say Z, don’t you? Of all the things I could have chosen.
Joshua B. Lee 41:29
It’s okay. so here’s the thing. X, the X, Y, Z statement is I help X to achieve Y. So they can have Zed. So this is what I want everyone to understand. Right? I help X, identify who’s your ideal audience, right? It allows you to be polarising, I only work with, its women, right? Being able to go through, you need to be able to say that so people go, Oh, that’s me, or that’s not me. Right? Next, I help X to achieve Y, right? Why to do, why like, you have to be able to tell people what you do, but honestly, no one makes buying decisions based on what you do. They make buying decisions on the outcome Zed, right? So they can have so they can achieve . As human beings, we are emotional beings, we make decisions emotionally based on some degree of love or hate, we do not make decisions being indifferent. And even if you think I don’t, I don’t make, I guarantee you somewhere, your psyche, there’s an emotion that’s been tied to that decision that you’re making. And so we have to be able to give that Z right, that Zed. And so that’s when you say I help X to achieve Y so they can have, so they can accomplish whatever Zed, that that’s where the magic happens. Because most people when you look at your LinkedIn profile, that’s right at the top. And 80% of people don’t go past the fold. They go to your LinkedIn profile, and they stop there. So how are you actually going to draw them into it being able to so we have a free gift. Do you want the website, I can just give it to you or you want me to email you the PDF. How?
Samantha Riley 43:30
Well what about, well tell us the website for anyone that’s listening will always link it below. Everyone knows that. We link everything in the show notes below. But give it to us, people that are standing there right now that wants to plug it straight in.
Joshua B. Lee 43:44
So we made it really easy. It’s quiz dot s o authority, so it’s so authority.com. And so it goes through and it walks you through the entire process and ask you the question on the how to build a business? How can you craft a couple of different ways to be able to actually create this XYZ statement? And so like for me, if you get that done, it really will start allowing that for those real people to be able to start building those conversations, creating those relationships and opening up massive opportunity for everyone listening.
Samantha Riley 44:15
Love that. You’ve shared a whole heap of really great information. If there’s one thing you want to leave people with in regards to LinkedIn right now, that if this is the only thing that they take away today, which it isn’t, but if it was, what would that be?
Joshua B. Lee 44:38
So many people are sleeping on LinkedIn. It’s a massive opportunity. And with what Microsoft’s doing, if you’re betting against Microsoft, you’re betting on the wrong horse. And I’m telling you right now, take all your content. And we all get told this all the time. Oh, well, I can’t repost content because of the SEO score on LinkedIn, you can do that you’re sitting on. All of us have been creating content for years. Go back, start filtering that out and pushing it across LinkedIn to start getting indexing and start going out there. Because, you know, there’s an opportunity for every single person here. And it starts with an opportunity on LinkedIn. It’s one of the most powerful platforms coming out and you were ahead of the curve if you’re listening to myself and Samantha right now.
Samantha Riley 45:18
Love it. Joshua B. Lee, thank you so much for coming and chatting with us today. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Joshua B. Lee 45:25
Thank you, Samantha.
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