4 Tips for Getting Through My Third Recession on LinkedIn

I first joined LinkedIn in 2003 when the network first launched. I am not sure what my LinkedIn number is, but it is within the first 100,000 people to join the network. My sector was telecommunications and it was depressed after 9-11 and the dot com crash. LinkedIn offered a new place to network.

Fast forward to 2020. I am now entering my third recession on LinkedIn, and this one may be the worst one yet, perhaps even a full-on economic depression. So far the effects for me have been relatively mild, but dark storm clouds on the horizon threaten.

If this is your first recession, they can be pretty scary, threatening you and your family's financial well-being. A healthy fear makes sense to me. The good news is you can work your way through a recession and propel yourself into success.

In 2008 I lost 75% of my business in 48 hours after the financial collapse that initiated the Great Recession. Seven months later I sold that business for a profit, and one year later I was hiking Patagonia in Argentina. It took work, but I made my way through the dark times.

LinkedIn can play a central role in that work. Here are four activities I am committed to during these tough times.

1) Get My Head Right First So I Can Serve Others

LeBron James credits his successes to meditation and mental preparedness.

Every morning before work, especially now since the Coronavirus impacted my work-life, I take actions to get my head straight. Through meditation, quiet time, and a long walk with my dog, I get centered and prepare for the day. Getting my head right before touching a keyboard and beginning my work helps me serve others.

If I am acting out of unbridled fear, then I will make mistakes and fail. I guarantee it. I have done it too many times to expect any other result. Acting out of fear causes me to act so I can get something to protect my well-being rather than help others. This incurs errors and missteps that can damage reputation and business opportunities.

Getting centered prevents these kinds of errors. I take care of myself so I can serve others.

Fear is a normal thing. I am not one of those people who will tell folks to shove their fear aside. It just doesn't work for me, why would it work for you?

Instead, I embrace fear, see it, and accept it. There are many factors that are beyond my control in play. However, there are also many things I can do to move forward. There is always "the next right thing" to act upon.

Getting grounded on a spiritual plane, lets me act with courage and faith. Courage doesn't shove fear aside but it does empower me to act in the face of it. My faith is grounded in trust and experience that when I do many right things, the right outcomes occur.

Those outcomes may not be what I expected, but they tend to be pretty cool. Sometimes I simply walk forward in an intentional direction and let the chips fall where they may, working on the opportunities I like as they present themselves. Being open to the unexpected, I move forward with a sense of adventure and curiosity.

None of this happens until I get my head straight before I begin my daily tasks.

2) A Constant Process of Product Marketing

Product marketing requires a balance of many priorities.

When markets shift dramatically, so should my offering. Doing the same thing will always deliver diminishing results, especially during a recession.

The coronavirus has changed the world forever, and nothing will be the same. That's not drama, it's reality. Some questions I am asking myself right now:

1. How will my offering fit based on what customers are saying in this era of social distancing?
2. What are the right markets to serve with that offering?
3. Where do I need to develop skills and techniques to stand out and build value for those markets?
4. Am I positioned correctly to appeal to those markets and customers?
5. Is the pricing structure right? What do I need to do to get the cost structure correct?

These questions push me to innovate. One of the things I am looking at is professional training and certification to answer questions 3 and 4. Leveling up and providing proof points to customers is just smart.

When you are in a competitive down market, little extra steps like these can be the difference between winning and losing. No contract or customer relationship is safe without delivering consistent and evolving value, especially during a recession.

Even if you are super innovative in your offering, competitors are always catching up.

Livingston Campaigns sold in 2009. I started a similar company in 2014 called Tenacity 5, which was a disaster. Yeah, we won some business, but the truth of the matter was the same offering was no longer unique. There were many, many brands offering social media marketing, and I was losing deals to newer brands doing it faster, cheaper, and with more specialization.

The chief failure of Tenacity 5 was not innovating to meet the market of then. I learned from that error and moved forward.

This process of looking at my service offering is ongoing until I hit a winning formula. But having an idea of what you want to offer is essential. You can't help people if you don't know how you are going to do it.

3) Prepare to Serve

Before you run down the networking road, make sure your approach is right.

Notice we're not talking to people or marketing yet? There's one more thing to do, which is making sure the approach is right.

Client relationships for me in 2020 are like partnerships. There is an authentic desire to help people and be of service to their initiatives. I feel better about the work, and clients appreciate it more. If I cannot help others, then I am not going to win work with the kinds of clients I like.

The big problem with acting out of fear is it causes me to act out of self-interest. The lizard brain kicks in and motives become terribly simplistic, "Get business" or "Make money." The resulting behavior is transparent and counter-productive at best. It repels potential business partners.

Just look at the LinkedIn invite spam you are getting these days where you can see someone's invite as a shameless attempt to friend you and then sell you on services. This typifies selfish behavior, and I think that's a negative contact and a wasted activity.

The desire to serve others cannot be faked. It has to be authentic. If my head is straight and my offering can authentically help people, people will want to work with me. My outreach efforts then are really about finding people and brands that like me and want my help.

My biggest growth point over the past five years is understanding when there is no match. I walk away from potential opportunities that I don't like, for whatever reason. Whether it's the offering, expectations, price challenges or culture, if I don't believe I can actually serve someone, then it's time to pass.

Being disciplined in my networking and resulting conversations creates more success. Those relationships are more meaningful for all parties because value is delivered and clients are happier about the results, including working with me. That's just good business.

4) Do the Footwork No Matter What

Footwork will take you through the darkness and into the light of better times.

Now let's talk about finding customers. It's time to network and market. This is the footwork, talking to new people every day, and building meaningful useful communications.

For my marketing business, I reach out to and communicate with five people every day. In some cases, I know them but haven't talked to them in a while. In some cases, they are old friends, and in other cases, they are new contacts.

In all situations, I try to be friendly, ask them how they are, and see how they are holding up during this very strange time. This is a common challenge, after all, and we are all human.

We share information about the market and what we are seeing. I see if there is anything I can do to help them in a general way.

Specifically, it may not be my offering that can help them, but perhaps just listening, sharing resources, or providing an introduction can help. Sometimes simply saying hi and letting that person know I am thinking of them is enough to make a positive impact for them, and make me feel good. And yeah, numerous times in my career those types of outreach, at first seem like nothing, yield positive business results.

Usually, they ask me what I am looking to do, and they may offer help in some way. Win-win.

It's called networking. LinkedIn is a place for me to do some of this networking work. But if I don't do it, nothing will happen at all. No opportunities appear.

I have to do the footwork no matter what.

I do it before work, during my coffee break, while I am walking the dog. If my client work is done and I have yet to complete my daily outreach goals, then I continue until they are done. Even when I am fully billable, an eight-hour billable day is not a finished day until I have done my part for my business. Sometimes I have to do the outreach before the billable work, again creating a longer day.

This is a time to work hard and hustle. That often translates to twelve-hour days and six and seven-day workweeks.

If you tell me you work a four hour work week, I say bullshit. Outreach, networking, writing, taking and editing photos (this is for my second business, Geoff Livingston Photography), negotiations, accounting, taking the time to strategize about business, reading and learning, on and on, are all part of the extra time factors.

Successful entrepreneurs work hard and hustle. There is no other way.

Conclusion

There are many distractions that can pop up, but if I am meditating and centered (step 1), they tend to fade away into the background. Focused with direction and prescribed next right steps, the path forward unfolds.

These are some of my tips. Please keep in mind, they are based on my personal experiences, and as such are just opinions. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions on how to make it through challenging markets.

Most importantly, I encourage everyone to keep centered, and move forward. Together, we can make it through the coronavirus recession successfully.