Changes to Your Business Bookshelf

No longer a classic.

Good to Great… it’s time to put it away along with Collin’s Build to Last and Tom Peter’s In Search of Greatness. They made a lot of money off us over the years, but their philosophies were false, and they are outdated today. At the bottom of this blog, I have a list of 11 books that I would recommend.

Between those three aforementioned books, Tom & Tom named 50 successful businesses that were destined for long-term success. 19 of those companies beat the market… 13 succeeded to meet projections. That leaves 18 that failed including Maytag, Ford, HP, IBM, Delta, Kodak, Citicorp, Motorola, Sony, Pitney Bowes, Fannie Mae and Circuit City.

What did the Toms have wrong? Only two major things:

1. They had NO IDEA what technology was going to do to these titanic companies. I can forgive them here.
2. These companies are all running their companies on short-cited decisions that focus on profits NOW. Their stock value TODAY.

I won’t delve into the technology boom and unpredictability of the internet that brought Wi-Fi and an astronomical shift to cell phones and smaller devices. Only a few of the technology greats predicted it would happen as quickly as it did.

But #2 has stuck in my craw throughout my lifetime. Why are we making stupid decisions in major companies and pretending its wisdom? Everything I’ve seen in publicly traded companies is based on squeezing the most out of the orange this quarter. Even the model companies like Apple, Facebook and Google are under this same pressure.

The leading companies on this list are following the same path. Sure, go ahead and invest in them because half of them will succeed and pad your retirement – but we must make some changes in America. Or at the very least, in your business.

Don’t run your business like a publicly traded company. Stop looking at Wal-Mart, Philip Morris, Merck, Disney and Johnson & Johnson like they have something to teach you. They are hiring and firing without emotion, they are destroying our environment (or at least China’s), they are gluing our eyes to screens like never before and they are propagating an epidemic of “medicines” and mental health into our U.S. culture.

Instead, build your business making long-term decisions surrounding profit – and an authentic culture.

A few books to read in 2019:

• DO NOT put away Carnegie’s How to Win Friends…
• …or the Art of War by Sun Tzu
• The Snowball -Warren Buffet
• Crush It! -Gary Vaynerchuk
• The 4-Hour Workweek (becoming an oldie but goodie) -Tim Ferriss
• Drive -David Pink
• Predictable Revenue -Aaron Ross and MaryLou Tyler
• Smartcuts -Shane Snow
• Learned Optimism -Martin Seligman
• Mojo -Marshall Goldsmith
• Rework -Jason Fried and David Henemeier

Next week, I will write about one more book that should come off your shelf as well as recommend a list of business books focused on sales management and business development.

I’d like to hear about what’s on your bookshelf. Please comment or drop me an email!

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

blueoctopusllc.com

Pivoting around Chickens Rabbits and Zip Lines

Drew SchmitzSales Recruiter (Blue Octopus LLC) | SalesContingent Coach (Grow Faster LLC)… See more74 articles

Since “pivot” has been a common theme of mine the past month, I thought I would share a couple stories about personal pivoting – which is obviously a key strategy in any organization trying to make a profit.

We use the verb version of the word pivot in business to describe a rotation, turn, spin, swivel, twirl or whirl in our business strategy. You might be selling to European truck drivers in 2018 and suddenly you find there is a better market for plumbing and HVAC companies in 2019. It often doesn’t make any sense until it starts to happen to us…

PART 1: HOOPS & ZIP LINES

About four weeks ago, I was putting the finishing touches on a basketball hoop for my 14-year-old son, Jonah. It had literally taken me a YEAR to complete – the pole needed to be cemented into the ground… then I had to fill it with cement which took four additional days (when it wasn’t raining). But slowly, and surely, we were building the world’s coolest basketball hoop for my future NBA All-star (hopefully he turns out taller than me)!

The last step was attaching the glass backboard, rim and net. I was beyond bored with the process and had other backyard tasks, so I hired David, a handyman, for a 1/2 day to help finish it as well as assist me with a couple of other projects.

As they were tightening the bolts on the backboard (my son holding it, David attaching it and me running back and forth with tools), the basketball hoop’s post snapped in half and almost killed my son. Jonah walked away with a bruising scrape on his back but was otherwise, entirely intact. I have no idea what happened and had an attorney come out and take pictures; I followed every bloody step of the instructions (and I hate instructions) and even re-examined the process after-the-fact.

A week later, I asked my son, “Jonah, how about we skip the stupid hoop and I finally build that zip-line off the treehouse that I’ve been promising for years?”

“That would be pretty cool…” Time to PIVOT!

PART TWO: CHICKENS

About three weeks ago, my 12-year-old daughter, Amelie, asks me “Dad, can we get chickens?”

“Huh, what?” I asked.

“Well, we are raising chickens in science class and we can buy one for $5 and bring it home at the end of the year.”

“Cool!” I stupidly respond. “Let’s do it! Get two but make sure they are hens,” All she had to do was bring a permission slip signed by a parent to class and come up with $10.

My fiancé rolled her eyes at me as soon as I excitedly shared the news. “We’ll have to build a chicken coop…” I was already running ahead to raising chickens.

“What in the world do you know about raising chickens? What are you going to do with them in the winter? Have you Googled or researched anything?” she asked me.

“Um… it will be fun. If we don’t like them, we’ll just get rid of them at the end of the summer!”

And… so it began (we’ll finish this story after Part 3)…

PART 3: RABBITS

About 2 weeks ago, I stopped by a bar that serves up my favorite burger and the bartender overheard my fiancé and I discussing our pet rabbits (we have two “free range” bunnies that have roamed the backyard for the last 2 years and we almost never lock them in their hutch).

Kevin, the bartender, starts asking us questions leading to… “Do you want my rabbit, Winchester? I’m pretty sure he’s fixed… I got him from a lady that didn’t want him any more…”

A week later, Winchester arrives at our home. He wasn’t fixed and immediately started mating with our male and female rabbits (Jonathan & Domino).

PART 4: BACK TO THE CHICKENS…

My daughter failed to turn in the permission slip (or get me the teacher’s contact info) and so the last day of school came and went and we were chicken-less.

So, Winchester is now in the half-finished chicken coop. We have a vet friend that has fixed the other two rabbits, but she’s gone for the summer. I’m going to build a better coop and am shooting for autumn chicks… that way we can actually have adult, egg-laying hens next spring.

PIVOT! I wanted a basketball hoop and chickens this spring… but I end up with a cool, new rabbit (albeit a bit randy) PLUS I will have a zip-line by the 4th of July.

Have you considered pivoting your sales strategy of late? If you don’t, life has a way of forcing you to pivot. Ideally, you are planning ahead, and you’ll experience less chaos.

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

Blogs Written at a 5th Grade Reading Level are Better?

Surprisingly, blogs (or any of your marketing materials) that are written at lower grade reading levels typically get the most attention. I’m failing. My last three blogs were written at 8th, 9th and 9th grade reading levels. This article is written at an 8th grade level. I’m striving for a 7th grade reading level.

The Wall Street Journal is written at an 8th grade level. My local paper, the Star Tribune (and probably most newspapers), is written at a 5th grade level. Hemingway wrote at a 4th grade reading level and Leo Tolstoy wrote at a 7th grade level. The Affordable Care Act is written at a college reading level! 

4 reasons why I think blogs written at lower levels succeed:

1. Your entire audience can’t read at a 7th grade reading level. 

There’s a book called What Makes a Book Readable that cites:

• 1/3 of adults read at a 2nd-6th grade reading level
• 1/3 of adults read at a 7th-12th grade reading level
• 1/3 of adults read at college levels

If you write at a lower level, everyone obviously has a better chance at being able to understand it.

2. Even the smart people need new material dumbed down a bit.

Learning Solutions magazine says that we forget 50% of what we learn within an hour. The more complicated, the more likely we are to forget. Humans require immediate comprehension of the material to increase our chances of retaining the information; when reading an article, we are often reading about topics that we don’t know a lot about.

3. We want it quick and fast. 

In the internet age, things get skimmed, not read. The most popular blogs are one of two types: Lists and How-to’s. The most attention any of my 100+ blogs have ever received was a recent post I did on the Top 50 Largest LinkedIn Groups (Largest Groups on LinkedIn). Lists are simple – and how-to’s tend to be quick lessons that can immediately be applied. It has been found that on screens, we read faster and consequently, understand less.

4. Reading has changed.

With the younger generation clamoring to YouTube and Facebook for “news” and information – and communicating through short texts and emojis, the demographics have shifted to suit our shorter attention spans. As a writer or blogger, you should embrace this change versus fighting it. If you want to write the next Moby Dick, go for it! But recognize that half of your audience CANNOT comprehend it (granted, it is probably much better material than your average blog).

What is the ideal grade level for your writing? 

The answer is dependent upon your audience, but my overall point of this blog is that it is probably a few grades lower than what you think. A few suggestions for “improving” your score include keeping your paragraphs and sentences short, avoiding complicated and unnecessary words and breaking up your content. And a few pictures and bulleted lists go a long way in keeping the reader’s attention.

There is a measurement called the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Reading Formula to determine the level of any piece of writing. It was first published in 1948 and it relies on the structure of the English language taking sentence and word length into consideration in order to determine readability.

How to figure out the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level:

• If you are a user of Microsoft Word, go to the Review option at the top of the screen and Check Document.
• This will give corrections (like spelling, as you probably know) and other refinements; after running through those, the Readability Statistics window will pop up.
• Listed are the word counts and averages as well as the readability score which shows the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of your document. This will pop up after you run through the suggested corrections and refinements.
• If you aren’t a Word user, you can also go to this site to measure the documents readability: https://readable.com/
• Here is another site for editing lengthy and complex sentences: http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
• Lastly, there are a few other formulas if you’d like to try them out: the Gunning-Fog Score, the Coleman-Liau Index and the Dale-Chall Formula.

Now, my title is a bit deceiving… I don’t think 5th grade level blogs are “better”. But if our end goal is to garner attention and educate, we need to be thinking of our audience and cater to them. I personally need to do a better job of making it easier to read my material. It’s not about dumbing it down but rather making your point clearer and more concise.

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew Schmitz

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

blueoctopusllc.com

 

Adios Data.com … Hello 2.0 CRM’s

In 2010, Salesforce purchased Jigsaw and renamed it Data.com… On May 4th, 2019, they will be calling it quits.

As a recruiter and salesperson, it has been a tool for many years providing phone numbers, email addresses and titles of prospects. Like Wikipedia and LinkedIn, Data.com was good at getting other people to contribute just-in-time information and share it through their platform. That was a novel idea many years ago when we were still collecting business cards and putting them into our Rolodex (or Outlook if you were tech savvy). The mass amount of DATA (primarily free of charge) was wonderful and we dreamed that the site would only benefit from the Salesforce acquisition.

Salesforce couldn’t make it really work (or didn’t want to make it work) and now Data.com, a once powerful place to acquire and manage CRM records, is a dinosaur. The primary reason for shutting their curtains is that it was full of a bunch of junk – inaccurate records in terms of titles, phone numbers and email addresses. Today, their data is more inaccurate than ever.

So where do we go from here?

There are many options to gravitate to in 2019 and within the universe of CRM’s, they are all a little different from one another. Most of them are going to cost you some money… and I’m going to let the companies battle a little bit before understanding who will be the quality, long term players. They are going to grow (CRM software grew faster than any other software segment in 2018) and gobble one another up – and I don’t see it sorting itself out quickly.

What is a CRM in 2019? The definition is changing every day. A CRM (customer relationship manager) was created to move us past an Excel spreadsheet to organize and manage all of our interactions with customers and prospects. Today, a CRM is certainly focused on doing that, but it is becoming more interactive pulling records from sources outside of your organization.

Recently, SelectHub provided a 2019 snapshot by looking at a sample set of 254 companies (CRM Survey):

• Outlook is the CRM tool for 29% of these companies
• Excel is 22% (what?!)
• Gmail is 14%
• Salesforce is a mere 6%
• Mailchimp has 5% of the market
• The remaining 24% includes HubSpot (3%), Microsoft (2%) & Oracle (2%)

How accurate is this sample set? Admittedly, the list is made up of primarily companies under 1000 employees (84%) and a majority of those are under 500 employees. For small businesses, I’ll assume this is a pretty good snapshot. 

60% of these companies are using Outlook, Excel and Gmail as a CRM! It definitely surprised me that Salesforce has captured a mere 6% of the CRM market. It’s no wonder that Salesforce is hiring salespeople like crazy as they are probably drooling over the market potential. I’m reminded of Coca-Cola in this instance… In 2011, Coca-Cola had over 40% of the carbonated beverage worldwide market. At the time, 55 billion beverages were consumed world-wide per day (excluding water) and Coca-Cola sold “only” 1.7 billion beverages per day. With only 3.1% of the beverage market, they have incredible potential!

Here is another take on who owns the market: CRM market share? Salesforce cites that they have 19.6% market share (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft & Adobe making up the next 20%). This article also says that Salesforce is fudging their numbers a bit – part of this is because it’s difficult to completely define WHAT-IS-A-CRM. Even if this is accurate, the top 5 still own less than 40% of the market.

With the removal of Data.com, Salesforce is going to push their product called the Lightning Data Engine. They have a head start because Lightning has partnered with many players (via their AppExchange which has over 5,000 “solutions”) and they’ve become an aggregator of your CRM options which include:

• Dun & Bradstreet Optimizer as well as D&B Hoovers
• Equifax (Business Connect)
• ZoomInfo
• Bombora
• HG Data & HG Insights
• Datafox Orchestrate (Oracle)
• Clearbit
• MCH Strategic Data
• Compass
• InsideView
• Owler
• Business Watch
• Aberdeen
• Relationships promised to come include Thomson Reuters and others

Salesforce’s product isn’t great, but they are winning. Their partnerships may be the driver that moves them from good to great. Another reason they are a decent choice for a CRM is because they have been around for 20 years. This doesn’t mean Salesforce is better – but they have become a name brand. This has driven them way beyond expectations to a net worth today of $122 Billion. Also, Salesforce has a reputation of taking good care of their employees – you can’t underestimate the power of a company with a great culture.

Is LinkedIn going to be a player in this universe? Microsoft will claim they already are with their CRM Dynamics 365. I’m disappointed in the results so far but since Microsoft owns LinkedIn, I would imagine that they have a gold mine if they can figure it out as quickly.

8 Bullets on 13 Players:

1. Based on history, I’m concerned that Microsoft isn’t moving fast enough.
2. It feels like Salesforce is trying to think for us by driving its users towards any old CRM tool.
3. Does Oracle or SAP even care about being a solid CRM for the small business community? Is Adobe going to be a major player?
4. Is Google’s Copper CRM (formerly ProsperWorks) making a dent in the market?
5. What about the unified CRM’s like Pega, BPM Online and SugarCRM?
6. HubSpot, Zoho and Mailchimp have garnered significant growth over the last five years. Are they going to take us to the next level? I think they can push everyone to innovate.
7. I’ve heard good things about Intelligent CRM by Avtex – which so far hasn’t partnered with Salesforce’s AppExchange.
8. There are many others that aren’t even on my radar (yet)…

I’m disappointed that Data.com didn’t survive… I wish they’d continued with a shared platform and just made it better. The fact that it was free made it pretty cool too. I’m not investing in any of the above at the moment, but I’m curious to see how this plays out and what innovations are to come.

I’m not the expert on this topic. I’m just another user of the products that is trying to understand how it is shifting. Per usual, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

blueoctopusllc.com

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/adios-datacom-hello-20-crms-drew-schmitz/

 

 

The Friendly World of LinkedIn

In February, I wrote a blog that I thought had a shot at being featured on a channel of LinkedIn Pulse (link to article here: The 50* Largest Groups on LinkedIn). It’s not really an “article”, but a list filling a void that I couldn’t find updated anywhere on the world wide web. After publishing and getting some organic steam, I decided to drive as much traffic to my post as possible. I did some considerable research on the topic of getting featured on LinkedIn Pulse and certainly got a lot smarter along the way as I interacted with a lot of friendly connections…

The primary way that my post received a lot of attention was by reaching out to my network one by one and asking for their support with the article. I certainly didn’t have time to invite all 14,000 of my connections, but I asked about 400 people and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of support from my network.

I used the opportunity to reconnect with 100 people that I hadn’t communicated with in some time and I shared it with 50+ clients asking them for a ‘like’. Then I rolled up my sleeves over the weekend and really dug into mining my connections and asking the biggest influencers in my network for help.

Who were the last 250 people I asked?

1. LION’s aka LinkedIn Open Networkers. I may go a little overboard as a recruiter connecting with other LION’s (I have over 2,000 of them), but they have real value and I saw this in action. I didn’t invite all of them, given this was actually me doing the invites (I don’t let my virtual assistant touch my LinkedIn due to it containing many real relationships, so I don’t want them to feel spammed). Instead, I searched through the LION’s that were most active, the ones that had the most connections and the individuals that also wrote articles that I could help to cross-promote. LION’s typically have a lot of connections so their resharing value is exponential.

I sent them different versions of this message (within LinkedIn):

Hello Susan, I’m trying to get this article featured on one of LI’s Pulse channels. Is there any way I could get you to reshare it and/or comment on the article? Let me know how I can return the favor. Many thanks! ~Drew

2. The Busy Bees. I asked people that were more active on LinkedIn. I view my newsfeed almost every morning, so I’m aware of who is most involved in using LinkedIn. These connections certainly got an invitation.

3. Recruiters and HR Professionals. They use LinkedIn probably more than any job title. All of the recruiters and HR folks that I know well received a message from me.

4. Groups. These weren’t individual people I messaged; I went to almost all of my LinkedIn groups and posted my article there. In turn, this generated a lot of visibility from 2nd and 3rd degree connections. Since I do not promote very often in my groups, I don’t think any took down my post. A lot of them were listed in the article, so it was certainly relevant material.

I assumed I’d get help from 1 out of every 10 people but that ratio ended up being closer to 1 out of every 4. The number of reshares was my biggest surprise and more than not, they reposted with a nice plug on the blog post and me. The comments were awesome as well and many of them came with thoughtful questions and meaningful feedback.

Ongoing, I realized who in my network could help again if I asked. I’m guessing half of the aforementioned connections would be annoyed if I asked for another “favor” this month, but the other half offered to help anytime. These 75 or so connections (you know who you are) recognize the enormous value of a supportive community on LinkedIn. I will be liking their posts, reading their articles (and reposting if I like the material), joining some of their groups and likely asking for their help in the future.

As of today, I have over 800 views of my article, 168 likes, 47 comments and 97 reshares. Woo hoo! Of course, it never got featured on a channel of LinkedIn’s Pulse, which was my original objective… but it did garner a lot of attention, my answer on Quora is on the first page of results when you Google “largest LinkedIn groups”, I have a meeting with a new prospect and last Friday, I got a call from a radio host that wants me to be featured on his program. Listen to me live on Cover Your Assets with Todd Rooker on ESPN 1500 AM 8:00-9:00 am on April 13th!

I have been loudly reminded all over again of the utility of LinkedIn and the value of my 1st degree connections. The key is to actively engage with them on a regular basis. We all have only so much time… but I don’t think you can afford not to comb through your relationships and communicate with them on a regular basis. Thank you, Microsoft and LinkedIn, for your imperfect but valuable social media site. A thousand thank-you’s to my network for your ongoing support!

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

blueoctopusllc.com

P.S. Can I still get featured? If you like this post, please give it a thumb. If you benefit from reading my articles, please go here and give me a like, comment or reshare: The 50* Largest Groups on LinkedIn

 

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/friendly-world-linkedin-drew-schmitz/

Getting LinkedIn Recommendations

In my blog posts over the last six weeks, I’ve covered LinkedIn as a part of a 7-part series (this is my 7th and last post!).

In my opinion, recommendations (not to be confused with skill endorsements) are the most important section on LinkedIn. Recommendations are probably a bigger differentiator than anything else on their site.

If you are a job-seeker or salesperson, recommendations may be the number one thing that make people comfortable hiring or doing business with you. We can all tell people how great we are – but someone else’s words mean a lot more. Get at least 10 recommendations on your page.

How do you get recommendations? Give them. I make a concerted effort to write them on a regular basis – and in most cases, it’s an opportunity to ask for one in return. Don’t make this a bigger deal than it is; write 3-4 sentences about why you think highly of them (and if you don’t, do not give them a recommendation!). And don’t get caught up in making it perfect. 

My recommendations say something like:

“I worked with Joe when we were both at ABC Company. I had the opportunity to see him in action and he did SOMETHING really well. I’d highly recommend Joe – please reach out if you have any questions!” (under SOMETHING describe 1-2 specifics).

This took me about 90 seconds to write.

Here are the 3 steps for writing a recommendation:

1. Go to their LinkedIn profile and click on the 3 dots in the right corner. In the dropdown menu, choose Recommend.
2. Choose how you know this person and your position at the time.
3. Write your recommendation.

Clients and people that you’ve reported to are the best recommenders, but colleagues you’ve worked with can also provide a recommendation. Just like the ones you give – only ask those that think highly of you and/or love the service you provided them. So don’t be shy and ask for them! Then ask again… if they say yes the first two times, then politely pester them a third time until they actually write one for you.

People are heavily influenced by these so don’t wait until someone asks for your references after interviews – put them out there for the world to see! 

It has been fun breaking down some of the best features of LinkedIn over the past 6 weeks. If you took my suggestions to heart, you understand better how to sell, recruit, find a job, join groups and receive recommendations… and you probably have one of the better profiles on LinkedIn. The quality of your profile will have ongoing benefits.

Despite the length of my 2019 LinkedIn entries, we have not exactly covered the breadth of this site. If you have questions about anything on LinkedIn, feel free to reach out to me.

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

http://www.blueoctopusllc.com

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/getting-linkedin-recommendations-drew-schmitz/

#linkedin

 

How to Maximize LinkedIn Groups

This is my 6th entry in a 7-part series about LinkedIn. Feel free to check out my previous posts at: BlueOctopus. Next week, I’ll finish this series by covering recommendations.

Last August, LinkedIn updated the group section of their site and now have a dedicated team of engineers to support and focus on it. For a while, many of us were wondering if they were abandoning groups altogether – but even though their changes were subtler than I’d prefer, it’s a great sign that LinkedIn is now recognizing the importance of groups.

There are 6 primary reasons to join a LinkedIn group:

1. Find a group that is specific to your industry.
2. If you are looking for your next job.
3. You are hiring.
4. Your organization sells something.
5. You’d like to lead a niche group (specific to your industry or otherwise).
6. Discover various learning opportunities outside of your industry.

Searching groups on LinkedIn is a bit clumsy but can be done one of two ways:

• Go to Groups by clicking on Work in the upper right. At the bottom of the page of your groups, you can click on Search other trusted communities that share and support your goals.
• Otherwise, just use the normal search box in the upper left. Then you will have to define your search under More and change to Groups.

SUPER GROUPS. The largest groups have the most activity. That doesn’t always translate to being the best options, but it’s a great place to start. Here is a list of the biggest LinkedIn groups as of 2019: Top 50. By joining some of the larger groups on LinkedIn – including some specific to your industry – you give yourself further exposure to others.

GET A JOB. If you are looking for a job, there are some obvious groups to join. If you aren’t looking for a job, you probably will be in the future, so joining a job group still isn’t a bad idea.

Here are three options for you: Linked: HR, Hub.Careers & Engineering Jobs Worldwide. These are larger group options but don’t forget to find smaller ones in your area and industry (LinkedMinnesota, Minnesota Job Seekers & Minnesota Jobs.com are examples in my home state). Also note that any and all groups can help a job seeker. They usually allow openings to be posted and can be extremely supportive for someone promoting themselves for work.

RECRUIT YOUR NEXT HIRE. If you are hiring, there might not be a better place to find your next hire than on LinkedIn. The Recruiter.com, The Recruitment Network and HR Jobs are great for full time recruiters and HR professionals. Also, join the three job groups mentioned above. And again, find a niche group to your industry and look for those specific to your area.

LAND A NEW CUSTOMER. If you’ve read my past articles, being active on LinkedIn as a salesperson is a no-brainer. Figure out where your prospects hang out and join all those groups. Worst case scenario, join all of the largest groups as this will allow you to directly message more people.

 

FIND INDUSTRY & NICHE GROUPS. If you are in marketing, social media or just curious about this industry, join SocialMediopolis, Digital Marketing, Marketing CMO Social Media Business Digital, Marketing Communications and Media & Marketing Professionals Worldwide. These are huge groups because marketing folks are among the most active on LinkedIn for obvious reasons. But if you are a project manager selling SaaS software, join a project manager and SaaS group… if you are fascinated with cryptocurrency, join those groups.

Niche groups are wonderful for everyone. Join a few and determine which ones are the most active. Even the smallest can be wonderfully effective depending upon their activity (and the manager that runs the group).

BE A LEADER. You may want to consider starting and running your own LinkedIn group. As a promotional tool for you and your business, this is a great way to build awareness, position yourself as an expert, showcase your company, generate interest and nurture relationships. You may also be a part of a smaller group of people that you just want to “collect” for internal discussions (I’ve done so for two alumni groups). Just make sure if you start one, that you are actively leading the group and contributing to discussions at least on a monthly, if not weekly, basis. For more detail on starting and managing your own group, here is a resource: https://buffer.com/library/linkedin-groups.

GROW YOUR BRAIN. Sometimes the benefit of LinkedIn isn’t a job, a hire or a new client. LinkedIn is a great place for educating yourself about the latest and greatest trends in business, technology, your industry/interests and other happenings in the world. There are people like me that post articles but within groups, there is all sorts of additional content – and you can post questions to the group. People love helping people and LinkedIn can be a great example of that.

If you want to join groups privately: 

1. Click the Me icon in the top right of your LinkedIn homepage.
2. Select Settings & Privacy from the dropdown.
3. Click the Communications tab at the top of the page.
4. Under the Channels section, click Change next to Email frequency.
5. Click the Right icon to the right of Updates from your groups.
6. Check or uncheck the box next to the group you’d like to receive updates from.
7. For more detailed control, click Manage to the right of the group name.

Once you’ve joined a few groups, you can message other members directly, post new conversations within the group (like “I have an opening!”) and comment on others’ posts without requiring a first degree connection. 

I highly recommend doing some work searching and joining groups. There are too many benefits, so join a few more this week!

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

blueoctopusllc.com

The 50* Largest Groups on LinkedIn

Over the past month, I’ve been trying to find a way to cull a list of the largest groups by searching on LinkedIn and the web… apparently, it’s not that easy. There hasn’t been an updated list (that I can find) since 2017, so I’ve assembled the 50 LinkedIn groups below and would like to share them with you. There is an asterisk next to my title as it required a lot of inefficient hunting and pecking, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve missed a group or two or three that tops 300,000. If you know of one, please make a comment (or email me) and I’ll get this updated!

Please see my blog series on the LinkedIn topic at: blueoctopusllc.wordpress.com. I go into further details about selling, recruiting, job seeking, groups and recommendations.

There are many groups that have 200,000-300,000 members but the list below contains all that currently surpass 300,000 (note you can click name to link to any of the groups listed):

1. SocialMediopolis.com (1.9 Million members)
2. Software & Technology Professionals (1.8 Million)
3. Digital Marketing (1.2 Million)
4. Harvard Business Review (1.1 Million)
5. Linked: HR (969K)
6. Finance Club (900K)
7. Forum VAGAS.com  (894K)
8. The Project Manager Network (865K)
9. The Recruiter.com Network (833K)
10. Marketing CMO Social Media Business Digital (743K)
11. Dubai Recruitment (715K)
12. Marketing Communications (700K)
13. On Startups (638K)
14. Telecoms Professionals (599K)
15. Media & Marketing Professionals Worldwide (582K)
16. Lean Six Sigma (572K)
17. Pete Asmus’ Real Estate Networking (565K)
18. The Recruitment Network (543K)
19. Sales, Marketing, Social Media, Advertising and Technology (542K)
20. Future Trends (534K)
21. Retail Industry Professionals Group (525K)
22. Engineering Jobs Worldwide (515K)
23. Banking Careers (504K)
24. Finance Plus: Private Equity Venture Capital and M&A News (481K)
25. Consultants Network (468K)
26. Digital Marketing: Social Media, Search, Mobile & more (464K)
27. Cloud Computing, SaaS & Virtualization (460K)
28. Oil & Energy Recruitment (453K)
29. Oil & Gas People (445K)
30. Hub.Careers (423K)
31. Cloud Computing (410K)
32. Information Security Community (399K)
33. Event Planning & Event Management (379K)
34. Project Manager Community (379K)
35. Procurement Professionals (374K)
36. MarTech Advisor BD Guild (368K)
37. Vagas & Jobs (368K)
38. Pharmaceutical Jobs (351K)
39. SAP Community (351K)
40. Big Data and Analytics (348K)
41. Executive Suite (333K)
42. Java Developers (326K)
43. Information Technology, FinTech, Blockchain and Bitcoin (326K)
44. Oil & Gas Industry Professionals (316K)
45. Marketing Pros – Largest Marketers Group (312K)
46. Sales Best Practices (310K)
47. Sales Management Executives (310K)
48. Business Development – the Missing Link (309K)
49. International Export Group (307K)
50. .NET Developers (302K)

Who did I miss? Let me know!

If you enjoyed the post and are a LinkedIn user, please do me a HUGE favor – click on this link to the Pulse article and reshare or give it the thumbs up icon: LinkedIn Pulse article Thank you!

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

blueoctopusllc.com

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedins-35-largest-groups-drew-schmitz/

#linkedingroups #largestlinkedingroups #linkedinrecruiting #linkedinsales #sales

Selling with LinkedIn

In last week’s blog, I introduced this 7-part blog on LinkedIn  (https://bit.ly/2Gcmsnh). This is the second in the series (Recruitment, Job Seeking, Groups & Recommendations to follow).

I think the number one use for LinkedIn is for selling you – and your product or service. Below are six ways in which it helps you sell.

#1 – You can search and find the right prospects by name and title. Not only can you find people within companies you are targeting, but you will also see the connections that you have in common (hint, hint – maybe you can get an introduction). If someone works in a white-collar business, they are likely to be found on LinkedIn, so this is a great place to mine information.

#2 – It also allows you to learn a little more about that person. It’s incredible how much information we can gather about someone through LinkedIn before even speaking to them. I’d suggest using a plug-in tool called Crystal. It gives you a detailed summary of the personality of the individual (it gives you 10 free profile views per month and a paid account provides unlimited views). It’s amazingly insightful, using an algorithm for the way a person communicates on the LinkedIn platform. Crystal is a simple tool that is just another way of making this social media site even more effective.

Inversely, when people are buying from you, they probably go to your LinkedIn to gather information about you (just as often or more often than visiting your company website). In 2019, your prospects and customers are more informed than ever prior to meeting you. It isn’t just about your company and products/service – they are becoming more knowledgeable about you personally… so building a great profile is key (especially your Headline & Summary).

#3 – Like Facebook, it’s great for staying connected with people. It’s your 2019 Rolodex – and this Rolodex updates itself for you.

#4 – Networking. It’s ideal for ongoing networking before and after you’ve met someone in person. And it’s also cool that you already know what they look like when you are meeting someone at a busy coffee shop for the first time!

#5 – InMails. LinkedIn has a variety of pricing plans which offer you a certain number of “InMails” (messaging within LinkedIn) for reaching people that aren’t first degree contacts. I don’t think paying for it is a must – but if you do consider a paid plan, I think InMails are the best part of paying for an upgraded subscription.

#6 – LinkedIn Open Networkers. Last week, I talked about being a cat or dog on LinkedIn… but, you actually want to be a LION! LIONs (Linked. In. Open. Networkers.) are willing to connect with anyone. If you are a salesperson, why wouldn’t you want to make a connection with as many people as possible? It may be an employee of a company you are trying to sell into – or it may be a person that lives in another city that is willing to grab dinner with you when you are in town (I once had drinks with a LION connection in Stockholm). As a salesperson, why not open more doors – at the very least, those specific to your industry?

The key to being a LION is basically the “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game… LinkedIn shows your 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections: You know George Smith who knows Amy Larson (a 2nd degree) and she knows Margaret Thatcher (3rd degree). The trouble with searches is that you can’t see profiles unless they are 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree connections (and in many cases, it doesn’t even show 3rd degrees). If you want to find more people, you need to be connected to more people. So, advertise yourself as a LinkedIn Open Networker or LION on your headline. I have over 14,000 connections and I receive 5-10 invitations a day from other LIONs – the overall effectiveness is exponential.

You can search for LIONs (see “People filters” for different categories) and send them invitations. They will always accept your invite and not put you at risk. Typically, if someone receives your invitation and they don’t know you, they can click “I Don’t Know” this person… and that’s a red flag. If you receive some of these flags (the number is an undisclosed LinkedIn mystery) – they can suspend or shut down your profile.

If you aren’t doing so already, use LinkedIn to aid your selling efforts. As a salesperson, it’s a must. 

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

blueoctopusllc.com

 

 

 

 

Are You a Dog or Cat on LinkedIn?

From a simplified perspective, there are essentially two ways to use LinkedIn: Like a cat or like a dog…

Dog: You want to meet and connect with EVERYONE even if you don’t know them well (that’s me!). If you are meeting new people on a weekly basis, this method might make sense for you as a place to collect your connections; if you are a recruiter or a salesperson, I highly recommend being a dog.

Cat: You are more careful about your connections on LinkedIn. This is your core group of trusted colleagues and you don’t want to overload your contact list. You cats out there will probably be annoyed with my recommendations to join a lot of groups and connect with as many people as you can. You’ve kept this program simple and therefore a little more manageable.

Even though I’m a dog, I can appreciate the cat strategy. My personal LinkedIn is overloaded with connections and given its limitations, it can be difficult at times to sort through and remember my interaction with all my 1st degrees.

In 2003, LinkedIn went into business and then in 2016, Microsoft purchased it (for $26 Billion). It was ahead of its time – to compare, Facebook was launched in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. If the Rolodex wasn’t a thing of the past in 2003, it certainly got thrown out once LinkedIn came around.

Sixteen years later, LinkedIn is somewhat of a name brand in social media for business. It’s still very practical but not as user-friendly as I’d like it to be. Even with the best $120 monthly subscription, the ability to export specific information (like location) is poor and you are probably going to find a few aspects of the interface clunky.

That said, whether you are a dog or a cat, LinkedIn is the go-to web site for professional networking and that probably isn’t going to change any time soon. Since their basic membership is free, at the very least, have a profile on it and understand a few basic methods of using this social media tool.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to break down LinkedIn in further detail to highlight its strengths:

• Selling
• Hiring
• Job Seeking
• Groups
• Recommendations.

In this upcoming blog series, I am not going to give much detail about building your profile. It has been written many times so instead, my focus will be on the list above. However, just to recap the basics: use a good profile picture, build some detail under your work history and create a profile highlighting your personality and strengths. Make sure it is well written!

Have you identified yourself as a Cat or Dog? Whatever your animal, let’s make the most of LinkedIn! I look forward to diving into more detail in the coming weeks.

It’s time to grow faster

~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com