Business With Benefits vs Getting a Job + Let’s review LinkedIn posts

When I first started out doing web design, I really did not know what I was doing.?

I had no formal education on web design but what I did have is PASSION for computers and technology.?

Graphic design was fun for me and HTML was like a puzzle that I had to just figure out.?

Fixing computers, building networks, and designing strategies was a gift I had from my curiosity.?

You see, I love to touch every button.

I keep asking myself, “What does this do?”

I'm always exploring and asking lots of questions.?

Sometimes I broke things but I learned how to fix them.

When I first started a family I went for an interview because people were telling me that getting a job is the way to go.?

The CEO of a web design company agreed to meet with me and I told him that I enjoyed building websites for businesses.?

He told me I was very qualified to work for him but asked me why I would want to work for him if I make in a week what he is willing to pay me in a month.?

I did not have an answer, we both agreed that it made no sense for me to work for him.?

So I got an office space and started offering web design to clients. I even got a few interns to help me do the work.?

Then we had a major setback in our personal life because my first child was born stillbirth.

At first, I was in denial but after going from doctor to doctor to try to fix it, I realized that I would not be able to change this reality.?

I was devastated and did not want to work anymore.?

I told my interns to go home and I was throwing in the towel.?

I'm done with business and I'm done with life.?

For weeks, I would mope around and mourn for the loss.?

I felt like I had no reason to live if I was not able to be a father.?

My mind kept telling me that God was punishing me for something I did wrong.

It was a very dark time in my life and I felt very alone.

A friend asked me to do him a favor and come to his office on Wall Street as they had a job opportunity that was perfect for my technical skillset.

A job? Hell no! Not me, I am not employable.?

I procrastinate, do not focus, plus why the heck would anyone want to hire an idiot like me?

My wife at the time encouraged me to go because I was depressed and she had to get me out of the house.?

So I went to Wall Street and the energy in the office made me feel alive again.?

I realized I was up for the job but I accepted on one condition.?

The CEO agreed to my condition because I had an entrepreneurial heart.?

I would be able to run my businesses on the side if I ever want to.?

The freedom of having a job with a steady paycheck was wonderful but it sucked up all my time.?

I had very little time to run my businesses on the side.?

One job led to another which led to another which led to me meeting my business partner.?

Once we connected, I realized that this is the person that I want to build a million-dollar business with.?

Together we built one of the fastest-growing companies in the US and I saw that having a business with benefits was much more powerful than just having a job.?

The main benefit I got from growing a business was personal development.?

The more successful I got, the more integrity I had to have.?

There was no guaranteed salary. I had to eat what I killed.?

At the same time, although I had no official boss, what I did have were clients and the employees that I reported to.?

I went from having ONE boss to having hundreds of bosses.?

When you have ONE boss, you are putting all your eggs in one basket.?

You can lose your job in a matter of minutes.?

But if you have your own business with many clients and employees, things can get complex because you have to make many people happy but if one is not happy, you do not lose everything.?

Having a job is like having ONE big client that gives you all your revenue.?

Personally, I never want a client to take up more than 5 to 10% of my total revenue.?

Why? Because I want to have a business with benefits.?

A business with benefits is stable, has reliable clients, solves a problem for a specific audience, and you enjoy the business.?

You can still have a job with upside potential and you will feel entrepreneurial for example a commission-based job is like running your own business.?

Growing a business means learning all the aspects of having a business from sales and marketing, finances, and operations.?

Although I never went to school for business, the fact that I ran a business for so long and went through so many cycles has taught me so much about the aspects of running and growing a business.?

I also learned that I can only grow my business as much as I grow myself.?

Key Message: Go out there and help solve problems for people in your life doing what you love to do and you will feel energized. Even if something goes wrong in your life, you can always help other people and you will feel the passion again.

People in your network have to know what you do and how they can help you.?

This might sound obvious but I guarantee you that 80% of your LinkedIn connections do not have a clear picture of how you want to meet.?

If you do not have a one on one with someone and educate them about who your exact ideal client is and who your center of influence is, you will not get a referral.?

I am part of a networking group and each time I meet with a member of the networking group, I educate and remind the member about who my most ideal clients are.?

The follow-up after the meeting has a recap of exactly who I want to meet.?

Here is an example that you can use for yourself:

First, I make sure my relationships watch this video. Then I send them the text below the video that explains who I am looking to meet and how they can introduce me.

Ajax Union Full Service Digital Marketing Clients

Looking for introductions to companies that have a marketing director and are over 5 million in annual sales. We create marketing strategies and digital marketing funnels to help those businesses have an ROI.?

We work with 3 types of companies:?

1. Professional services firms (Legal, Accounting, Technology, Consulting, Business Services, Software & Saas, Financial Services, Engineering, Logistics)?
2. Manufacturing and Distribution (Electronics, Vending, Materials, Medical Devices)
3. Real Estate (Services, Construction, Installation, Management, Investment, Agencies)

The one thing that they all have in common is that they are B2B, 5-500 million in sales, have a marketing director, have high-value clients, and are interested in taking a more strategic approach to marketing.?

Who to introduce Joe Apfelbaum to?

• CEO, CMO, COO, or any executive that is interested in having a conversation about improving marketing ROI.?
• Marketing Director or Sales VP that can use a more strategic approach to generating qualified leads and opportunities.?
• Marketing Consultant and Business Coach that mentions they have clients that are in the above categories and talk or work with the sales and marketing teams.?

How to make an intro for Joe??

Here is a blurb: “Allow me to introduce you to Joe Apfelbaum, CEO of Ajax Union, a Marketing Agency that works with companies like yours. Joe is a marketing expert with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and business strategy. I highly recommend speaking to Joe about your business goals and he will share with you his approach to getting an ROI from marketing using a unique marketing funnel approach that has been very effective for his clients. You can find Joe on LinkedIn at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/joeapfelbaum and he has a great presentation on his website at www.ajaxunion.com - Will let you guys take it from here.”

Resources: 10 Company Industry Examples of Ajax Union Services

Ajax Union One Sheet: Ajax Union Business Networking One Sheet

If you are an idea monkey and have lots of ideas but do not have a real business that is generating revenue you need to find a person who can help you implement the idea.?

You do not need a great idea, you need great execution.

It's better to have a poor idea with great action than a great idea with poor action.?

Action is the name of the game and if you are not focused on one idea and taking the right action you will not launch your idea.?

I used to be afraid of telling people my ideas because I thought they would steal the idea.?

I'm not afraid of that anymore because Google was not the first search engine and Uber was not the first car-sharing app.?

You do not need great ideas, you need great execution of the idea and revenue generation for a business to have the potential to be successful.?

If you want to get funding for a business that has no proof of concept but is just an idea, good luck with that.?

Those types of investments are the riskiest because you do not have a business yet, just an idea.?

In those cases, you are getting people to invest in the person or the team launching the idea.?

If you are not taking action then getting a business coach will motivate you to take consistent action.?

If you do not have funds for a coach, get a mentor to give you advice.?

If you do not have access to mentors or coaches, networking will help you find them.

Key Message: Focus on one idea, take massive action, and you will get results. Having 10 ideas and trying to launch all of them at one time does not work. Where focus goes, energy flows.

There are three popular types of ways that you can get traffic to your website with digital marketing.

They both have paid and organic aspects to them.

Search, Social, and Email are the three ways to drive traffic to your websites and landing pages. I am going to cover the first one and give you one tip that you can use today.

Intent-based search is a powerful way to have potential clients find you because when someone is doing a search, they have a need.?

When you advertise on social media, people are not there to solve a problem but when you advertise on a search engine, you are getting in front of people that have a specific problem now.

Google is very successful at knowing more about me than I know about me.?

They know what questions I am about to ask, they understand what I am doing, how I am doing it and they can predict what my habits are online.?

If I want more clients from search, I have to understand how search engines like Google show my business both organically and via the advertising platform AdWords.??

Have you recently searched for your own brand or name? I would recommend you do that and see what comes up.?

Search for a keyword that you want to have your business come up for.?

Are you ranking for that keyword? If not, who is and what are they doing?

Are you advertising for that keyword? If not, who is and what are they doing?

We often miss opportunities because we do not even know that we have the option to get up there in the search engines.?

Bottom Line: Understand what words your clients use to search for your products and services and make sure you are ranking on search engines for those words both on the natural organic side of the search engine and on the paid side.?

If you need advice about SEO, pay-per-click advertising, or any other type of marketing, I am happy to have a conversation with you.

What do you call a fake noodle? An Impasta.

Why did the cookie cry? Because his father was a wafer so long!

Why did the octopus beat the shark in a fight? Because it was well-armed.

The shovel was a groundbreaking invention.

I did a theatrical performance on puns. It was a play on words.

Do you know sign language? You should learn it, it’s pretty handy.

Towels can’t tell jokes. They have a dry sense of humor.

Why do mobile marketers make good parents? They are responsive

Why did the SEO expert cross the road? He wanted to get hit with traffic

Remember this if you are looking for results: No matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationery.

?Did you know that you can add your pronunciation to your LinkedIn profile with a 10-second clip?

All you have to do is go to your mobile app and open LinkedIn.?

Then edit your name on your profile and near that section, you will see an option to record a 10-second pronunciation of your name.

In 10 seconds you can also show your personality, tell people what you do and give them a call to action.?

For example, if you listen to mine, I tell people that I am conducting a test to see how many people actually listen to the message. I encourage people to send me a DM telling me that they actually listened to the sound clip.?

Let me know once you take action and create your own 10-second clip. It will appear next to your name on your LinkedIn profile as a sound icon.?

I get dozens of people to reach out to me each month saying they heard the sound clip and that starts great conversations with potential clients and referral partners.

This is the 9th official edition of the LinkedIn newsletter and each time I post a newsletter on LinkedIn more subscribers join the newsletter.?

Over 6200 people are now subscribed and being that I can see who my subscribers are I have the opportunity to connect with them and have conversations to build real relationships with my newsletter subscribers.

If you need support creating your own LinkedIn newsletter, I am happy to chat with you about our Newsletter launch process inside our course and coaching program for LinkedIn training.

Let's review some of my LinkedIn posts from the past week:

Monday morning, I had a post scheduled about the self-limiting beliefs that people have for not having their most ideal life. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_showmethemojo-inspiration-activity-6906591789248000001-tHM7 check out these common beliefs and my thoughts are for each one.?

Here is a video of me and a few executives skiing and networking together. I talk about how networking and building trust is about the experiences you have with other people. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_eanyc-activity-6906304866151391232-gOfO Watch the video and feel the energy we are experiencing together. That energy creates a special bond.?

If you need better ideas for LinkedIn content creation, here I break down lots of ideas https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_creativity-showmethemojo-activity-6906229465874010112-Jzbo I invite people to share their ideas for content brainstorming in the comments.?

This post is about FAILURE. I talk about the lessons I learned from failure and how to think about failure as a path to success https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_business-failure-networking-activity-6906045790632902656-663F If you are not willing to fail, you will not be able to scale.?

Here is a post about sleep that I posted last year and I thought it was very helpful to share again with the LinkedIn community https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_do-you-track-your-sleep-most-people-activity-6905623670111518721-TTzc Most people are just not getting enough sleep and this post breaks down the cycles and stages of sleep.

I scheduled a LinkedIn event for Wednesday at 5 pm with my friend Rick who will be discussing with me on LinkedIn Live how he benefits from LinkedIn https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_freestyle-networking-with-joe-apfelbaum-activity-6905577962918227968-LtgD super interesting conversation we will have on LinkedIn Live. I am calling the program Freestyle Networking!?

Here is a quick water reminder because a 5% drop in hydration is a 30% drop in energy.?

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_highenergysecrets-activity-6905504724229902337-I_ri we all need to drink more water to stay healthy and function in our business.?

Here I list out the top 65 questions that people ask about how to use LinkedIn! I highly recommend checking them out in the comments. We created a new LinkedIn 101 module in our course that walks people through the answers to those questions in one session.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_linkedin101-linkedintraining-linkedin-activity-6905493242129784834-wrJn?

Do you know your LinkedIn SSI Score? This post talks about how the SSI score works and how you can find your own score on LinkedIn https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_did-you-know-that-you-can-measure-your-ssi-activity-6905215982743142400-W_kS?

Have you ever heard of the Dunbar number? It's the limit of relationships that we can have as a human. We are actually limited by the number of people we can actually have a meaningful relationship with at any given moment in our lives. Read more about it here https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_networking-connectors-mojotomato-activity-6905176600749383680-y6Cy

I am part of a group called JVMM (Joint Venture Mastermind Group ) https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_jvmm-activity-6904938195096518657-mYrz I highly recommend you check out the comments that the members of the group are leaving about the results they get by being part of that premium group. If you want to learn more, I can introduce you to the leader of the group to see if it's right for your business to do JV for a course, coaching, or consulting business.

LinkedIn live is FUN and I have been testing out the best way to do it. Check out this video https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_mojolive-activity-6904785795765321729--enH it has the replay for LinkedIn Live. I tune into LinkedIn and network with the people that are tuning in with me.?

The president of Ukraine is pretty inspiring and he posted his family photo saying he doesn't think people should have president's photos in the office but instead family photos https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_during-his-2019-inaugural-address-president-activity-6904779980748705792-zKCP Look at your family when you are making important decisions in government is his message. Very inspiring.?

Here is my Poll of the week, https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_mojopolls-linkedinlive-mojoshow-activity-6904753453994692608-GeUZ I wanted to learn what I should call my LinkedIn Live show, I'm thinking of calling it “Freestyle Networking with Joe Apfelbaum” leave a comment with your ideas.?

I saw Gary V posted a poll on LinkedIn and I have never seen him do that before. His poll got thousands of votes in minutes and in a few hours, he got over 100k votes. Very interesting. Check out the post here https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_in-19-minutes-he-got-over-8000-votes-if-activity-6904522995717459968-1MME?

This was my first scheduled LinkedIn Live https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_linkedin-networking-activity-6904249312688058368-ENyD It was fun doing it. I called people, networked, and even rapped :) It was so much fun, I'm gonna be doing this weekly.?

This is my monthly post where I share my elevator pitch and ask people to promote themselves in the comments https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_networking-linkedin-advertise-activity-6904417470581399552-8Y5K Go ahead and promote your business in the comments of this post.?

Here I talked about the video we created with LinkedIn Live and gave some tips https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_would-you-like-to-create-your-own-linkedin-activity-6904378548044255232-jbl4 because I just learned how the feature on LinkedIn works and I'm hooked.

After my session with Travis, I did a test on LinkedIn Live and here it is https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_learn-how-to-optimize-your-profile-on-linkedin-activity-6904206927358697472-1_ax so funny me trying to figure it out and finally getting it.?

Here I did a test impromptu LinkedIn Live with Travis https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/joeapfelbaum_joe-apfelbaum-linkedin-profile-powered-by-activity-6904204519823982592-w4Ly very cool as it's my FIRST impromptu LinkedIn Live ever.?

About the Author:

Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO of Ajax Union a B2B Digital Marketing Agency in Brooklyn NY. Ajax Union develops marketing funnels for companies that want to be more strategic. Our strategies include lead generation, account-based marketing, awareness campaigns, and prospecting. We leverage search engines, social media, and email marketing to support your goals and get the right traffic into your marketing funnel so you can have a positive ROI. To learn more go to?www.ajaxunion.com?and watch the marketing funnel presentation!

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