The Anatomy of a Top 1% LinkedIn Profile

There’s a massive shift taking place on LinkedIn right now and a lot of people are getting left behind

There’s a new generation of coaches and consultants who’ve been able to leave behind all the mass messaging, spamming and stop connecting with 50+ people per day

They’ve been able to consistently generate quality business leads, reach qualified prospects and consistently sign 2-4 ideal clients per month

And the best bit

They’re able to do it while spending just 80 USD per month on LinkedIn Sales navigator

At that cost, their biggest business expense will be the email software subscription to keep track of all the new qualified leads

Meanwhile

The older generation, still stuck in 2018, are

- Still running 50+ connects per day, sometimes 100

- Sending links to ‘valuable content’

- Sending ‘newsletters’

- Sending unsolicited pitches

- Posting pictures of ebooks, links etc in their profile cover images

- Relying on being ‘found’ by keywords

- Posting content, posts, videos into the feed all day every day

In short they are on the prospecting hamster wheel, constantly chasing clients and failing to get deals over the line

They are logging out of LinkedIn at the end of every working day with an empty feeling of having achieved nothing,

All while seeing their competitors post amazing client results, while they can’t even get a prospect to reply to a LinkedIn message

This older generation fit a typical pattern

They are usually reliant on referrals and unable to consistently generate leads with people who were previously unknown to them (cold audience)

And when they do book calls from cold, it’s with unqualified prospects that usually don’t have money

It limits their impact and ability to grow their business and find time to spend time with family and friends and step away from the business to travel

The cold hard truth is that these people will get nowhere, and more than that, all these unsolicited messages and low status messaging will destroy their brand

As Warren Buffet says, It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it

The select few know this, and have worked out a new way to use LinkedIn

They aren’t exceptionally gifted, experts in marketing and haven't spent years studying social selling

They just have an offer that is valuable, a proven track record in a field and a desire to make an impact that goes way beyond a desire to just make cash

And more than anything they understand this:

It’s ALL about the LinkedIn profile

Get this right and there is no need for the time draining activities from the ‘prospecting hamster wheel’

A top 1% LinkedIn profile does all the heavy lifting, get it right and people will be curious to get in conversations, eager to connect and keen to learn more

Here are 3 quick ways to adjust your profile starting today to move towards this outcome (we have tried and tested this across over 300 profiles since 2009)

1. Cover Image - Everyone on LinkedIn is selling something, but nobody wants to feel like they are being ‘sold to’.

So instead of tactics like including a slogan, ebook image, website link in the cover image - focus on something that is universal like a fundamental of psychology and conveying that to the marketplace.

In his book ‘Influence’ Cialdini speaks about authority and through multiple tests we have indeed found this to be by far the most effective

Tactics are temporary

While, human nature isn’t changing anytime soon

I recommend a picture of you presenting to an audience and no text, this will open up a lot more doors and instantly make a profile more human

People buy from people, not tacky images

2. Headline - forget about being found with keywords,

This headline has a far more important role, the headline is actually the number one factor that determines if people accept a connect request and go onto viewing your profile

The connect message itself actually means very little - it’s a red herring

You need to do 3 things with the headline

- Define your audience

- Define the outcome you get them

- Create curiosity around your process without actually naming it or revealing it

And do not use the word ‘coach’ or ‘consultant’ or any derivative of it

Why?

Ask 10 people what it means to them and you will get 10 different answers, and seeing as the foundation of marketing comes down to the control of our perception in the marketplace

This is not ideal and it just commoditizes, last time I ran a search on LinkedIn sales Navigator there were 1.8 million

coaches

Nothing against the profession, there are just smarter ways to market on LinkedIn

3. Have a low escalation next step

If all this is in place, many people have been surprised by how many conversations they get into and how quickly

But, this is useless without a clear next step that is predictable and repeatable and will generate leads with ideal prospects

And that’s why we use the ''15 min CEO Call’'

A low commitment step that allows our clients to book calls with qualified prospects, I’ve booked over 300 myself since 2017

We book so many calls using this call and we use it to transition into our sales process

Now, this is where there should probably be a cal to action, but there is none

The only action point from this post is this: DO NOT get left behind - LinkedIn is changing quickly