Save Me From “Linked In Consultants”

This is an exchange that occurred yesterday morning from some guy named Steve, whose LinkedIn invitation I was dumb enough to accept:

• I see you’re in the helping/consulting field, and I am too. I would love to connect, Steve (This seems innocent enough, right?)
• hey Julia, Pleasure to connect :) As you may or may not know, we help coaches, consultants and B2B entrepreneurs explode their client base using LinkedIn without deceit, convincing or lying. (author bolded) Had a look at your profile, and I have an idea to help you book $3,000 to $15,000 clients so you never have to worry about where to find your next paying client. Made a short FREE video for you that explains how it all works. Nothing for sale. Just looking to help. If that interests you… Click here to see how we do it: (xxxxxxxxx)Now I’m not saying you’ll make any money or even get any clients using our system… THE FACT is… This is very difficult to do, and these results are not typical. Most people who use LinkedIn don’t make any money at all. But if you stick with our process… You might have a really good shot at making it work. Here’s the link: (xxxxxxxx) Steve ps. If you’re looking to learn how to create & sell high-priced premium packages to your clients, we also have a LinkedIn tribe called: Sell High-Priced Premium Packages for Coaches & Consultants. If that interests you… You can join the group here: (xxxxxxxxx)
• Julia Hubbel sent the following message at 10:44 am:
• Steve, Several things here. I’m happy to connect. However you’ve made some interesting, and frankly rather inappropriate assumptions about my work and my business. I’ll just play back your sentence about not using “deceit, convincing or lying.” Whether you mean it or not, that implies that this is what I am having to do currently to get my clients. Had you truly read my profile, you’d see that I wrote a prize-winning book on how to sell to the Fortune 500. As a one-woman biz, I’ve never, ever had to lie, convince or use deceit to get my F100 clients (there are 21 of them) and many more at the F500 level. I’ve been teaching this for nearly twenty years so kindly, and with respect, Steve, had you genuinely read my profile, this would have been self-evident. Given that I teach this, and have been very successful at doing it, I hardly need help “finding my next paying client.” Perhaps others you have worked with have stooped to low levels to score clients. I’ve been doing this for 45 years plus. I work when I want and with whom I want. As a result I can spend hours a day training for epic adventure travel, which takes up a third of my year. To say I live the dream life would be an understatement. But I did it based on performance, value-add, and referrals from extremely pleased clients. At 65- and yes the photo is accurate- I don’t need to “explode my client base.” My single biggest problem with Linked In, and it is consistent, annoying and a bit insulting, is that many Linked In consultants pitch stuff to me while having claimed they had reviewed my profile. Actually, you didn’t. Not really. And therein lies the problem, Steve, there’s no trust established right up front. You use a template email, you don’t customize your presentation to the individual, and you use language that implies that the recipient is being dishonest in their practices. Doesn’t matter if you didn’t mean to. You have to put yourself in the potential clients’ shoes and understand how your choice of words might land. These are all things I teach my classes to never, ever do. For good reason. And truly, Steve, you’re not “just looking to help.” You’re looking for paid clients. That’s disingenuous and the very thing that you are telling me that your clients don’t have to do to get paid work. It is ever so much more honest to be right up front and state you are seeking to work with certain B2B folks who fit your profile. There’s nothing for free. I took myself off Facebook, and these days limit my time on Linked In for these very reasons. None of this is intended to insult. This is business feedback. That’s all. I wish you the best. J

This is an object lesson in someone who is doing what he says you and I don’t have to do to get paying clients. He says nothing is for sale. Bullshit. That he’s just looking to help. Bullshit. He reviewed my profile. Bullshit.

Lying, deceit, and convincing.

While I’m glad that there are folks out there doing their level best to help all of us poor inept incompetent entrepreneurs to be successful online, here’s my problem: After nearly forty years of sales training, my impression is that those who are pushing their wares online are no less competent than those who ever sold brushes door to door in the Fifties. In fact, in some ways I’d posit that they’ve lost a step or two because they spend so little time face to face with real people. They seem to genuinely assume we can’t read between the lines, assess what was sent with a clear, cold eye and smell the ripe shit wafting up from the computer screen.

It’s bad enough to be robo-called eight to ten times a day with ever more sophisticated scammers who are after my bank account information.

Overpriced Consulting

One LinkedIn maven puts out a 21-day program to learn how to rewrite your profile. I did it. It worked. It was free. However this, like all such endeavors, is a sales funnel. She dings you $500 AN HOUR for consulting. Holy Mother of God. An HOUR? Well, here’s the piece. If you’ve got that kind of dime to spend for her time, go for it. Or you can do the free piece, which I did. Once you’ve signed up, however, be prepared to be inundated with emails exhorting you get your personal consultation. She just now hit my inbox with an email bragging about her clients who were getting millions of eyeballs on their messages.

I just deleted all her emails as well as put her on my SPAM list. Part of it is that a good bit of her advice is both fluff as well as stuff I can find in a great many books (including a prize winning book I wrote myself in 2011). Part of it is that asking for $500 an hour for advice which is largely common sense, widely available and saying that it’s specifically for Linked In is also disingenuous.

Siobhan O’Conner, who is the VP of Editorial on Medium.com, wrote in June about the widespread lack of trust that we are experiencing in our society. she wrote that this is an important topic- and I agree- but I also feel strongly that it’s up to me to separate the wheat from the chaff. Linked In began as a good business forum. In the last few years it’s descended into including too much of the same hate speech as Facebook. Political and personal trolls abound. Besides that, with the exception of a few useful bits and pieces here and there from folks who post truly valuable content, it has become an embarrassing brag fest:

“I am SO HUMBLED to be named Small Business Leader of the Year by blah blah.”

Bullshit.

“I am SO HUMBLED to be the featured speaker for blah blah conference.”

Bullshit.

We are buried in bullshit humility. It’s as bad as flinging the words “fake news” at legitimate, real reporters out there doing the real work every single day. As a prize-winning journalist myself I can speak to how insulting that is.

I honestly despise this kind of fake humility. Its patently dishonest. It’s hubris. I’d be far more impressed with someone who said she was “proud, excited and tickled pink.” That’s HONEST. I would trust her. For that reason I am far less likely to read the feed on Linked In, and as soon as I see the words “social media consultant” on a potential invitation,

DISMISS.

There are some terrific business books out there. You can get most of the same sage advice from going to Amazon.com and investing a few bucks and reading. It’s good for ya. And it’s a lot cheaper than $500 an hour.