By Mike Gruley
I sat down with my friend and colleague, Heather Doering, to get the inside scoop on how businesses can use LinkedIn to thrive in 2020. Heather is the founder of Ace Strategies, a world-class marketing firm specializing in LinkedIn, franchise lead generation, and digital services. I’m proud to list Ace Strategies as a business that EOS® (The Entrepreneurial Operating System™) has helped to achieve greatness. However, I am even more proud to list Heather as a friend.
On the most common misconception about social media…
Heather: “There’s a misunderstanding out there that every business needs to be on every social platform ever created. Nobody has the time to deal with that! The most important place to start is by determining where to spend your time, your resources, and money. You need to find out which platforms your audience is using, and begin there. It doesn’t matter if you write the best Twitter post of all time if your audience is not on Twitter!
For our clients in the B2B space, LinkedIn is the most important platform to use. But I have a few clients for whom we manage Facebook accounts, because that’s what their customers use. Choosing a platform is less about sharing what you want to share, and more about understanding your audience and creating messaging that engages them directly.”
On how Ace Strategies helps clients master LinkedIn…
“Our focus is helping business-to-business professional service providers navigate the murky waters of LinkedIn. We do lead generation and relationship building on behalf of our clients. We help build their brand and credibility through posting and engagement. We like to think that we can really be our clients on LinkedIn even better than they could be themselves.”
On the one simple way to shift your mindset about marketing…
“Many businesses think that everybody wants to know every thing that they’re doing. So, they post on social media: We have these products; we have these services; this is how smart we are; we can solve every problem. What people really want to know and understand is specifically: ‘How can you help me with my problem and my challenge?’
There’s nuance in negotiating the messages that your business wants to send with the messages that people want to receive. This is a fine line that most people are not cognizant of. When you’re thinking about drafting a post and making messaging, avoid making the post all about you. Instead, think about asking your customer, ‘How can I help with what you’re struggling with?’”
On entrepreneurs making the leap from the corporate world…
“When I think about the client base that we serve, I see that many of them have come from corporate backgrounds. They’ve never had to build a personal brand on LinkedIn, so they don’t know what to do or where to start. Maybe they’ve built connections over the years, but those business connections are not the ones they need to start their own company. Often, they’ve had a marketing team to support them and to perform day-to-day tasks. We help them transition from seeing LinkedIn as just a job-search website to a place for building relationships. LinkedIn is also a great learning platform. Part of our service is not only helping clients understand the fullness of the platform, but also how to use it in order to accomplish their goals.”
On the definition of success…
“For me, success is less about individual clients. It is more about people and the relationships that I have built with them over the years. I look at the sequence of events that introduced me to you, [Mike], for example. I met you through Tim, who I met working with a client, who before he became a client, was a friend. I know in my heart of hearts that I was put on this earth to connect people in business and in every part of my life. That is what makes my job so exciting.”
Heather, thanks for your time, expertise, and honesty! If you want to connect with Heather and learn more about how LinkedIn could serve your business, you can find her here (or feel free to reach out to me anytime: I’m happy to connect you!)