5 Steps to Boost Your Confidence on LinkedIn

The next edition of?The Mango Effect is out! ?? If you're new, this is where we talk about all things related to growing our businesses and personal brands "the mango way" on LinkedIn -- from personal branding to growing our networks to attracting more ideal clients to optimizing our profiles... and everything in between!

Each week, I share ONE strategy that you can use to optimize your personal brand or grow your business on LinkedIn. Whether you're a subject matter expert at the top of your field, a business leader looking to get on more boards, or a gritty entrepreneur trying to craft an ideal sales & marketing machine -- you'll find one action item you can take away and implement each and every week to get you one step closer to your goal.

No topic is off-limits. We discuss the good, the bad, and the fugly. I do take topic recommendations, too!

My mission is to help more professionals learn how to use LinkedIn, so we can all "up our game" on the platform, build thought leadership, and grow as leaders in our careers and businesses. And, I like to keep things fun, practical, and inspiring.

Now, onto this week's topic!

?? 5 Steps to Boost Your Confidence on LinkedIn ??

Why are you NOT taking the action you know you should on LinkedIn? It may very well be a lack of confidence. ??

Have you ever noticed that when you lack confidence in something, you are a LOT less likely to take action? This is not rocket science.

Developing confidence in your skills in any domain often requires a lot of upfront learning and a willingness to make mistakes, along with a healthy dose of focus.

Why is confidence so important to making LinkedIn actually work for us? Confidence leads to ACTION.

Guess what? It’s not that difficult to develop LinkedIn confidence.

In this Mondays with Mindi episode, we discuss why confidence is not a fluffy metric, how to measure your confidence level, and five simple steps to developing the confidence level you want on LinkedIn to get results in just 5-10 minutes per day.

Lack of Confidence Leads to Inaction

Have you ever noticed that when you lack confidence in something, you are a LOT less likely to take action? Not rocket science.

Developing confidence in your skills in any domain, no matter whether it’s work-related or a side project, or even a hobby, often requires a lot of up-front learning, mistake-making, and the investment of focus.

When it comes to LinkedIn, I’ve worked with hundreds of clients one-on-one and also in small groups over the years, and I find it funny that every time I ask a question about the one word they want to feel by the end of our time together… it’s always the word CONFIDENCE.

It’s not getting more leads or hacking LinkedIn or the quick-and-easy method to pitch slapping people into buying their product.

Nope, it’s developing confidence on LinkedIn.

Why is confidence so important to making LinkedIn actually work for us?

When we feel less confident, we tend to fall into one of these traps:

• Avoidance of LinkedIn altogether because it seems too hard, too spammy or too complicated
• Bombarding ourselves with all the LinkedIn tips and tricks we can find to reassure ourselves that we’re doing it right
• Outsourcing it because if we pay someone else to do it “who knows what they’re doing” we don’t have to think about it anymore
• Default to taking any type of action, what I call the “throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks” approach to LinkedIn

The thing is that even if one of those approaches gets some type of result in the short term, you’re still not addressing the root cause, which is developing enough confidence to show up on LinkedIn as the best version of your professional self.

Guess what? It’s not that difficult to develop LinkedIn confidence.?

Trust me, it’s not anywhere near as hard as trying to learn to surf as a grownup. But that’s a story for another time.

LinkedIn Confidence Is Not a Fluffy Metric

Every week, I deliver presentations or workshops to groups, associations, memberships, summits, small businesses, or corporations around all things LinkedIn.

It’s not unusual for me to lead with this question at the start, “How confident do you feel about your LinkedIn profile and presence on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest possible score and 10 being that it couldn’t be better? You cannot choose 7.”

If you want to play along with me, then think about the number on a scale of 1-10 (without choosing 7.) What’s that number for you?

Most people choose between 4-6, and I’ve had a few rare birds who will choose a 9 but still want to get to a 10.?

My goal by the end of the presentation is to help them go up in that score by 1-2 points, that’s it. I’m not trying to take most people to a 10, because you don’t need to be a LinkedIn Allstar on LinkedIn to get results.

Simply by increasing your LinkedIn confidence by 1-2 points, you will FEEL more confident, which will lead to a higher likelihood that you will take action on something you learned.

How we FEEL about using LinkedIn is just as important as what we actually DO on LinkedIn.?

Let’s talk about a fun surfing metaphor here. Who doesn’t love a metaphor?

As I mentioned earlier, learning to surf is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done outside of birthing my two babies and growing a business I love.?

Most of the people on the North Shore of Oahu, where I live, grew up surfing since they were a grom (which means a kid) and have an innate sense about how to read the ocean, where to position themselves, what lines they should draw, which boards they like, and what types of waves they actually like to surf.

Locals also make an assumption that when you paddle out to a good break on a decent day on a board that was not purchased from Costco, you likely know what you’re doing because most grownups don’t learn to surf in their 30s.?

Then you attempt to position yourself in a crowded lineup when the waves are just a tad bit above your comfort zone and a bit more hollow than you expected. Wham! You miss the takeoff and smack your melon on your board while getting pitched over the falls.

I must say, it’s very humbling. You try to catch your breath, shake it off, and go for it again. Most locals will give you a poor wave or two, but beyond that you get pigeonholed as a “kook” pretty quickly. You cannot miss a number of waves and get respect in the lineup.

Developing enough confidence even to paddle out to certain breaks takes years because you need to believe that you can “make the wave” before you even attempt to paddle out. Otherwise, you are not only putting yourself in danger but other surfers because you are not prepared mentally, physically, or skill-wise to handle it.

Learning to surf is a long game, and you don’t expect to paddle out to Pipeline and get barreled the first time. You’ve got to pay your dues in a number of ways before you get the reward.

The beautiful thing about LinkedIn is that it’s not nearly as hard to learn as surfing, but many people approach LinkedIn as if they’re trying to get barreled at Pipe the first time they paddle out.

Then, they wonder why they get smashed into the reef and spit up by the shore break, saying that LinkedIn is not for them!

Well, don’t try to create some crazy-complicated LinkedIn funnel that the pros use at the start! All you need to do is surf some really easy breaks with the local surf instructor to build your confidence.?

Truth is, most surfers will never surf Pipeline, and they couldn’t care less! You don’t have to surf the world’s most dangerous wave to be considered a surfer, just like you don’t need a crazy-complex approach to LinkedIn to grow your business or land your dream job or build business relationships.

All you need to do is feel confident enough to paddle out at a nice, mellow break and catch a couple of rollers.

The “Just Paddle Out” Approach to LinkedIn

One of my cohort members from The LinkedIn Accelerator , let’s call her Jill, came to me with a conundrum.

Though she’d had a? successful career in her field, she had spent the last several months pivoting from working up the career ladder to going all-in on her business as a career coach to empower women in leadership roles.

We started working together to dial in her profile, craft connection messages, and design a simple LinkedIn outreach strategy to reach out to decision-makers in those Fortune 500 organizations where she could provide leadership training based on her unique framework and also get guests to come onto her podcast.

A few weeks later, she reached out to me and said “Mindi, you’re not going to believe it! I just sent off a leadership training proposal to a new LinkedIn connection who works at Clorox!”

And, boom. She kickstarted her lead generation machine with enough confidence that came from knowing how to do LinkedIn right and how NOT to waste time on doing all the other things that don’t matter.

Did Jill spend hours a day hijacking people’s posts to get inbound leads? Nope.

Is her LinkedIn network in the thousands of followers? Nope, she booked that call with less than 500 connections

What about pumping out a lot of content on LinkedIn? Nada, she repurposed a bit of content from Instagram.

But what she did right was understanding her LinkedIn strategy and clearly defining her approach to identifying her perfect-fit clients and building the confidence to craft and send messages to get conversations started with new connections.

That’s it! There is no complication, just the confidence to create and implement a very simple strategy.?

Guess what? You can do it, too.

If you can send an email, you can message someone on LinkedIn.

If you can attend a business meeting, you can make new connections on LinkedIn.

If you can start a conversation with a fellow professional, you can build relationships with the people who will either want to work with you or refer you or hire you.

5 Steps to Boost Your LinkedIn Confidence

Let’s talk about five really simple steps to help you boost your confidence on LinkedIn by taking a series of actions that should take you on average between 5-10 minutes per day. Yes, that’s all you need to kickstart your LinkedIn confidence and start getting results.

Many of the clients I work with spend about 5 minutes per day on LinkedIn because they either have a solid infrastructure in place or don’t need to do much more than that. Or, they have a great virtual assistant who flags things for them, so that they can focus only on the best opportunities and ignore the rest.?

#1 - Log into LinkedIn every weekday.

This is the most simple (and important) of the five steps because it gets you into the habit of intentional action on LinkedIn.

Every day you log into LinkedIn with the intention to interact positively with your LinkedIn network, look at your profile and do something that builds your personal brand and professional relationships.

Set a timer, if you need to, that is for just five minutes to ensure you don’t overwhelm yourself with all the activities you think you need to do here. Use a simple checklist to keep you on track at the beginning until you develop the LinkedIn Daily Check-In habit for yourself.

#2 - Check your inbound LinkedIn connections.

Every time you log into your LinkedIn account, you should go through any LinkedIn connection invitations you receive, and you’ll also see invitations to follow pages or subscribe to people’s newsletters here.

Ignore the people who are obviously not a fit or look like they’re trying to sell you something. Accept those who might be interesting or aligned with your network or professional objectives.

I usually will go directly to my messages after this just to respond to new connections who looked interesting or led with a question that I want to respond to. Takes usually a minute or two when I keep up with this daily, unless I do a speaking engagement or something that triggers an inundated number of connections.

#3 - Send LinkedIn connections to professionals you meet.

Focus on the people who should be in your inner circle of connections, and be sure to always send a connection to people you meet in real life, at a conference, on a Zoom meeting, and anywhere else in your professional space.?

Do you need to make a formal list of them? You can, but oftentimes, you will come across them organically on social media.

The key is to be specific about who belongs in your inner circle. Most of the time, these will be colleagues from your company or inside your organization, subject matter experts in your space, industry influencers, contractors or referral sources you work with periodically.

No matter what business you’re in or which industry or whether you have a corporate job or a position at a startup or are freelancing and doing your own thing, you MUST build a solid network that is aligned with your current REASON for your LinkedIn.

My favorite iteration of ABC - is always be connecting!

#4 - Optimize your LinkedIn profile.

Many of you know that I teach profiles and that I believe it’s the foundation for everything else you do on LinkedIn. When a profile is crafted with intention, it does the heavy lifting for you.

Building a network on LinkedIn or growing your business is at least 2-3x easier if you have an excellent profile that is up-to-date and accurately reflects what you’re doing now.?

The upfront work pays off in the long run because you only need to do a minor refresh when you make a job change, career pivot or shift your service/program offerings.

Your LinkedIn profile is like a mini-website, especially if you're an expert with a 9-5 and don’t have a website. For those of you with businesses, many times people will look you up here first before they even realize you do have a website.

Your profile sets the stage for every interaction you’re going to have with professionals and prospects on LinkedIn.

Your profile is always evolving, but once you nail it ONE time, you’ll understand exactly what to do the next time you need to update (rather than haphazardly tweaking sections and hoping for the best.)

#5 - Engage with your LinkedIn news feed.

The magic of LinkedIn is in the two-way communication that happens here! It’s not just about broadcasting and hoping a post goes viral. It won’t.

Every weekday when you log in, you look for ONE post that you can engage with in some way, especially if you’re not sharing any of your own content yet.

One idea here is to get comfortable with getting active in the comments on other people’s posts. Respond to comments. React to comments you like. Tag people when appropriate.

The more that you engage in the comments, the more positive goodwill you’ll build with your network and those outside your network.

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If you’re looking for that extra edge to get you started on the right path, get on the waitlist for the next cohort of The LinkedIn Accelerator kicking off in October, which is tailored to take you through ALL of the steps I covered today (and more) in just five days flat - - one week, and you’re off to the LinkedIn races.

Want to discuss how you've gained confidence on LinkedIn? Share your tips and tricks in the comments below!