How Executives Can Leverage LinkedIn for Business Growth with Melanie Borden

Episode Transcript
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Melanie Borden (00:00):
Why is LinkedIn such a big opportunity for
especially B2B business?

Stefanie Couch (00:04):
It is one of the most efficient strategies that
a CEO can use to bring in talentfor their team.
When multiple people from thesame company start posting, it
creates a wave of visibility,because your networks are
connected, your industries areconnected, your jobs are
connected, and so what it doesis, all of a sudden, everybody

(00:25):
on the platform is talking aboutyour company, saying wait, I'm
seeing you everywhere.
What are you doing?
People are seeing it andthey're noticing.
Everyone feels a little funnysometimes about promoting
themselves and sharing theiroffer, but if you don't share
your offer, no one is going toknow that you are available and
that you are of service to them.

What's the worst that could happen is you try it
and it doesn't work.
But what if it does?
Welcome to the Grit Blueprintpodcast, the show for bold
builders, brand leaders andlegacy makers in the
construction and buildingindustry.
I'm your host, Stefanie Couch,and I've been in this industry

(01:04):
my entire life.
Whether we're breaking downwhat's working in sales and
marketing, new advances in AIand automation, or interviewing
top industry leaders, you'regoing to get real-world
strategies to grow your business, build your brand and lead your
team.
Let's get to work.
Build your brand and lead yourteam.

(01:27):
Let's get to work.
I'm your host, Stefanie Couch,and today my guests and I are
diving into one of my favoritetopics and one of the most
misunderstood topics, in myopinion, and that is building
your personal brand as anexecutive on LinkedIn, and my
guest today is Melanie Borden.
She is the founder of theBorden Group, which is a
branding and marketing agencythat really specializes in

(01:47):
helping executives buildinfluence, establish thought
leadership and also drivebusiness success through
LinkedIn.
And we actually met on LinkedIn.
You have over 180,000 followers.
You are a LinkedIn celebrity inevery sense of the word, but
we've also met in person a fewyears ago in Dallas, and I'm
really excited to have you onthe podcast today.
Melanie, Thank you for joiningme.

Thank you so much for having me.
Stefanie and I wanted to say Iremember when we met a couple
years ago we were in Dallas whenwe met right At a breakfast, I
was living there at that time.

I was in Texas at that time and you were.
I think you were there for anautomotive, maybe industry
conference.

Yes, I was there for a conference and it was
just very early on when you hadjust kind of started on LinkedIn
and it's been so awesome to seeall of your growth and to see
how much you've grown and I loveyour newsletter and your
content is so good.

Thank you, I really appreciate it.
That means a lot coming fromyou and it's been fun.
And LinkedIn's a weird place.
You never know what's going tohappen.
What works today may be totallynot working tomorrow, which is
fun and exciting and annoying atthe same time, but I appreciate
that so much.
It's been a really fun journeyfrom corporate life as an

(03:04):
executive to entrepreneurshipand trying to figure out
LinkedIn in between.

Yeah, it's a journey to get there.
I think everyone has a similarpath when they're trying to
figure it out.
Yeah, for sure Seeing thebefore and after and all of the
growth that you have just as aperson, as a human, during the
process is also fun.

Maybe not so much fun when you're in it.
It has been interesting.
My husband and I joke a littlebit because he's in the business
with me full time, you know.
So we're both in it all daytogether, we work together,
we're married, all those things,and it's like winning and
losing all at the same time somedays, and like winning and

(03:47):
losing all at the same time somedays, and it's like, you know,
it's really interesting.
But it's been really fun andalso watching him grow through
it has been even more fun.
I'm trying to get him to go onLinkedIn We'll see if that ever
happens but he's trying to do amillion other things, so I'll
let him keep doing stuff.
That's his thing for now.

I love that you guys are partners in your
business together.
That's so nice.

Yeah, thankfully we'd been married 16 years
before we started in businesstogether, so we had a pretty
solid foundation because it hasbeen an interesting ride.
But I would never want to do itwithout him.
I can't imagine that, and wehave very different strengths,
so his strengths are myweaknesses and vice versa, so
it's been really awesome to havethat.

(04:27):
It's been a blessing so most ofthe time, and I'm pretty sure
he would say that, given thequestion.
But yeah.

And does he post a lot on LinkedIn also.
He doesn't at all right now.

He likes to post these long like verbose.
He's a three hour podcast guy,so but he has recorded some
podcasts with me that we'regoing to be releasing soon.
So I'm really I'll send you thefirst one.
I think you'll like it.
So he's better in that format.
But we could always take thatand make it into a LinkedIn post
.
You know crawl.

Yeah, absolutely , and then you can repurpose it
and repurpose it, and repurposeit.

Yes, for sure, which is something I want to
talk about today because I thinkit's a really good opportunity.
Well, we're going to kick thisconversation off with why is
LinkedIn such a big opportunityfor, especially B2B business,
which is what I really focus on?
I've spent my career in B2Bwith the building industry and I
would love to hear your take onexactly how executives can

(05:24):
really overcome that fear ofwhat do people think if I post
and try to look like aninfluencer.
I hear that a lot in my day today when talking to people about
LinkedIn.
And then why does building abrand actually really help with
business growth and not justvisibility for you as a person
or maybe as a company?
So my first question for you,melanie, is why LinkedIn?

(05:46):
Why did you choose LinkedIn?
What do you love about theplatform?
What drew you in to that askind of your primary platform
when you started building yourbrand?

So I first really started playing around
I'll call it on LinkedIn back in2019, where I wasn't really
sure what I was doing and ifanyone is bored and they feel
like going into a deep dive intomy posts, you will see the
progression from 2019 to 2025.
But I just started seeing, atthe end of 2019, different women

(06:20):
and men posting on LinkedIn,the same way that I would see
people posting on Instagram andmen posting on LinkedIn the same
way that I would see peopleposting on Instagram.
And I personally am not, andwhen I say this, everyone does a
big gasp and they can't believeit.
I'm not the biggest fan ofsocial media and I really never
have been.
I've always been the personbehind the scenes because I've
been working in sales andmarketing and so I've really

(06:42):
been in the work and I neverreally focused a lot.
I wanted to want to love it,but I never did.
But then I saw this opportunitybecause I've always been very
career minded and I've alwaysnetworked and I've always gone
to events and I have a lot ofcontacts in my area and in the
industries that I've worked in,and I just really started

(07:05):
looking at LinkedIn and sayingsomething is happening, and so I
pitched it when I was workingin an in-house agency that I
built for the company that I wasworking for.
I went to the CEO and said look, I have this idea.
I really think that we have away to leverage all the money
that we're spending in social,that we have a way to leverage

(07:27):
all the money that we'respending in social, but we can
shift it to LinkedIn and we cantrain all the salespeople how to
go to market, how to create apersonal brand online, because
it goes beyond just LinkedIn.
But I thought let's just trythis.
There were about 70 to 80forward-facing brands, if you
will, to be trained, and thatwas around early 2020.

(07:47):
And then I started posting alittle bit, but I wasn't really
comfortable because I thoughtwhat am I supposed to say?
What am I supposed to do?
I hate this.
I feel so awkward.
I don't know if I'm doing theright thing.
Who is seeing this, what arethey saying?
And I just would pose like oncea month.
And then the pandemic happenedand I said you know what?

(08:08):
I have no rainy day fund, rightIn terms of my career.
I don't know what's going tohappen to the industry.
I don't know what's going tohappen to the world.
I don't know what's going tohappen.
I have two small children atthe home At the time, they were
four and five single parent,thinking to myself how am I
going to figure this out?
And I said you know what?
I just trained all these peopleon how to use LinkedIn.

(08:30):
So I'm going to start doingexactly what I trained them on.
So in March of 2020 is when Ibecame active, where I just said
I'm just doing it, I'm goingall in.
And I did go all in and Istarted posting every single day
and I started documenting whatI was experiencing working in
automotive retail.
At the time, I was working as aVP of marketing for a Highline,
which is luxury auto group, andI was overseeing all the other

(08:55):
businesses marketing.
There was a real estatedevelopment company, there was a
coffee shop startup, the CEOhad a radio show, and there were
other events and things that wewere doing that I was also
involved with.
And I said you know what?
I'm going to start talkingabout, what I'm doing, and I'm
going to start sharing thingsthat make me happy and make me
inspired, because at the time, alot of people knew that and

(09:16):
what happened was.
There was a big shift wherepeople that were going into an
office started going on toLinkedIn, and so that's really
when things started changing andevolving.
And then, over time, I choseLinkedIn because I felt how do I
find everyone in my industry?

(09:38):
How does everyone find me?
How do I make contacts?
I'm based out of New Jersey andI was working in New York City
and New Jersey, so how do I gooutside of the tri-state area?
Where else can I go?
Because on Instagram, on X andon TikTok, on these other
platforms, you can't get accessto decision makers the same way
that you can on LinkedIn, and Iwant people to see me and I want

(10:00):
them to know my name.
And so I just was using anysingle growth strategy that I
could possibly think of and Ijust leaned in.
I leaned in very hard into it,and I joke around and say I was
like United Nations because Iwas accepting everyone, although
I don't necessarily want to beassociated with the UN.
However, I personally was justtrying to grow my influence as

(10:23):
much as I possibly could, and sowhat I wasn't prepared for was
the following All of a sudden,publications in my industry
started reaching out to me.
They wanted to feature me, theywanted me to write for them.
I started getting asked to go onpodcasts.
I started asked to speak atdigital conferences, which then
turned into in-personconferences.
I started getting job offers.

(10:45):
I started getting opportunitiesto consult, to do coaching, and
ultimately I ended up findinganother job opportunity, which
didn't last too long, because mynetwork kept growing and I
started seeing this massiveopportunity that I kept saying
no to, because in the tech spaceit's very restrictive to have a
side hustle and so most of thetime you can't necessarily do

(11:09):
that, and so I just said youknow what I quit my job and I
started the boarding group,which, at the time, has evolved
as well since.
But I look back and if I couldchange anything, I wouldn't,
because it was the best decisionI ever made, because now what

(11:30):
I've been able to do is reallycreate not only a business for
myself, but I've been able tocreate a life for myself in the
process that I'm not only superproud of, but now that I can
help others do the same exactthing.

Well, I would say mission accomplished on
people knowing your name, andyou're definitely just crushing
it far through other industriesnow that you weren't involved
with at the time.
I'm sure it's reallyinteresting and I had a very
similar experience.
I don't have 180,000 followersyet, but I have gotten speaking

(12:00):
engagements at big companies andindustry events of my own,
gotten speaking engagements atbig companies and industry
events of my own, and then alsojust a lot of people that I feel
like I've been able to make animpact with.
And those messages you get like, hey, I really needed that post
today.
I was ready to quit and give upand that just spurred me to
keep going another day towardsthis mission.
I'm on or in my business orwhatever they're doing.

(12:22):
Those just fuel you and Ididn't expect that at all.
From when I started building mybrand.
I mean, I knew why I was doingit, because I got fired from my
job and I needed to pay my bills.
I mean, similar to you, I gotto get out there and figure out,
like how do I make somethingtranslate from what I had in my
corporate life?
Like people in my company knewwho I was.

(12:43):
They knew I did great work.
They knew I had a lot of hustleand I was like really good at
what I did.
But I realized when I left thatjob I left the first job on my
own volition and I went to thisnew place in Florida and I
realized very quickly that thatdidn't quite translate right
Because it was within the fourwalls and also companies
sometimes do a job of keepingthat.

(13:05):
And it's something I want to askyou about is like how do you
balance bragging and gettingpoached versus you know your
talent, your top talent,building a brand and making your
company look good?
I'm curious to see your opinionon that, because it is
something I hear a lot fromthese executives that are like
well, I don't want my greatsales members to build a brand
because they'll probably getpoached instead of they're

(13:27):
thinking about well, they couldmake you an extra $20 million a
year in sales because theyposted on LinkedIn.
What's your answer to that?

I mean?
The answer is this If you havea team of people who work for
you, and you all work for thesame company and you all work in
the same industry and you allare working together for the
same goal, which, ultimately,every single person in the
organization is doing, whathappens on LinkedIn is the
following, and you know this,Stefanie when multiple people

(13:55):
from the same company startposting, it creates a wave of
visibility because your networksare connected, your industries
are connected, your jobs areconnected, and so what it does
is, all of a sudden, everybodyon the platform is talking about
your company, saying wait, I'mseeing you everywhere, what are
you doing, what's going on andwhat's happening?

(14:17):
So and it's also listen.
There are ways that you can, asan employer, a have some
guidelines around what they'redoing, without making it totally
restrictive, where someonewould say forget it, I don't
want to do this and also doingit in a way that's completely
supportive, because if someonein your company does want to do

(14:37):
this, this is a positive thingand there is always a return,
always a return, and especiallyif you're setting smart goals
that are associated with thecampaigns that you're running,
ie, if you're putting effortinto LinkedIn as a company.
People follow people and thisgoes back to your earlier
question.
People don't follow companies.
People follow people.
They want to be inspired bypeople.
They want to learn from others.

(14:58):
They want to find out whatworks, what doesn't work.
They want to imagine themselvesin the shoes of someone else
what works, what doesn't work.
They want to imagine themselvesin the shoes of someone else
and you're not going to do thatfrom a company lens.
I mean, there are ways that youcan communicate your company
voice and there's ways that youcan tell your story, but at the
end of the day, people want toknow what's happening with the
people.
They want to follow people and Iagree.

I think it's hard for a company that is very
traditional to understand thatvalue that could be there.
But even from an employerbranding perspective, like in my
industry, I saw a statisticthis week in the construction
industry in 2025.
So this year we need almost500,000 more employees in our

(15:42):
industry to just be up to like,where we can complete the work
that needs to be done, which iscrazy because a lot of other
people are having layoffs andall these other things.
So if you need a job like maybeyou should check out the
construction industry.
But, that being said, is, howdo you attract the talent to
something that may seem boringfrom the outside in but is a

(16:04):
really great opportunity forpeople to grow a career, to have
your lifestyle that you want,to make amazing money, to have
the type of things that you wantin your life with your career
goals?
Well, if 50 people in thatcompany are saying this is an
awesome place to work every day,somebody's going to see that
and think, wow, if 50 people sayit and it's not the company

(16:24):
logo page, it probably is valid.
I'm going to check that out.
It matters.
It's a great, I mean, and it'sfree, Like yeah, you might pay
somebody like you or me to tellyou the strategy, and maybe you
pay someone for your CEO toactually post for them sometimes
, or whatever copyright it.
But most of the time youremployees can just go on there

(16:45):
and hit post and it's a donedeal.

Well, using LinkedIn as an executive for
employee acquisition andemployee retention is probably
one of the most savvy andsmartest ways that you can
attract talent, specifically inthe trades industry, and I think
that there's this very largemisconception that if you're
working in any sort ofconstruction industry, in any of

(17:10):
the labor trades, that they'renot there.
Oh, they're there.
They might not be posting, butthey're what we call lurkers.

So they are there.

They are there, they are seeing what you are
doing, they were following whatyou are doing and it is a way
and it's a super smart way foran executive team or a CEO who
wants to bring in talent tostart talking about his company,
to start talking about what itwas like starting the company,
what it's like in theirday-to-day, what it's like you

(17:42):
know what the people are like inthe company, and to really
promote the people, because alsowhat it does is it creates
camaraderie amongst the peoplewho are working for that
executive and it also shows thehuman side of them.
It makes them relatable.
It is one of the most efficientstrategies that a CEO can use
to bring in talent for theirteam, and that goes for an HR

(18:06):
executive, that goes for anysort of person who's working in
talent acquisition.
It would be a super smartstrategy to follow, to have a
campaign like that.

Absolutely.
And I'm working with somecompanies right now that are
starting to see that Some ofthese companies, they're huge
companies and they say well, wehave a LinkedIn strategy.
You know, we post our companypage two times a month.
And then I laugh out loud, I'mlike okay, because we both know
like company pages are, unlessyou're sponsoring posts and
you're paying, which is whatLinkedIn wants you to do,

(18:41):
understandably, so they're abusiness.
No one's ever going to see that.
And then you go look at whatthey posted and it's here's this
person's 30 year anniversary,it's a picture of them and it
tells like one line and you'relike what is this gonna do?
I mean, it makes that person, Iguess, feel good and it's fine,
but it's not gonna drive anyonetowards the company and these
CEOs, I think, are just afraidto lean into that.

(19:03):
But what would happen if youdid lean in and it did work?
And then this thing that you'vebeen really upset about not
being able to get great talent.
What if that one thing that'sbasically free was the thing
that changed everything?
And for my industry, I tellpeople that a lot Like well,
what's the worst that couldhappen is you try it and it
doesn't work.
But what if it does?
I mean, what if this is reallythe catalyst for you recruiting

(19:25):
the best talent you've ever hadand then, in five years, these
talent that you've got onLinkedIn are running your whole
company for you?

You know it's interesting In 2022,.
There was an executive teamthat we worked with.
One of the fortes that we do iswe go to market building
strategies and executing forteams, and there was this one
team that we were working with.
And there's a few things thathappen when you start posting on
LinkedIn, and this kind of goesback to some of the questions

(19:53):
that you had earlier, which iswhat's going to happen.
I don't want to be aninfluencer blah, blah, blah.
So there's a few things thathappen along the way.
That happens every time, and Iusually talk to my clients about
this and I talk to friends whoare interested in it.
So, number one, people in yourindustry who haven't connected
with, or people who you've knownfor 20 years or 15 years or

(20:14):
however length of time, willreach out to you and say I love
what you're doing.
Tell me more about it.
How can I support you?
Then you have the people whowill support you and might not
necessarily say anything.
Then you have the people whowill comment and say anything
that's positive.
So you have the real positivepeople.

(20:35):
Then you have the people thatwill message you and say how
could you do this?
It's not going to turn intoanything.
It's a waste of your time, kindof like what I call the trolls
of LinkedIn and, just in general, the trolls in your career or
if it's in the office orwherever else they're coming to
you from.
But at the end of the day, outof those different sets of

(20:56):
people who are on the platform,it will create so much
visibility for whateverinitiative you're working
towards and it also creates whateveryone likes to say thought
leadership.
But it makes you visible whenpeople are trying to figure out
and they're paying agencies andthey're spending money on
advertising dollars and Ibelieve in spending money on

(21:19):
advertising.
However, organic and paid workvery well together.

So if someone is doing a paid advertising
campaign on LinkedIn, theyshould also have their CEO be
actively posting, or theirexecutive team or their head of
sales or their VP of sales orwhomever is involved in the
organization, because the truthis, you will get the visibility
and money follows attention andpeople don't understand how much

(21:45):
attention it has they have outthere in LinkedIn to push One of
the first things that I, when Ikind of and I know you've been
doing this, I'm sure thishappens to you all the time but
when people start to recognizeyou, so you know, at industry
events, it's kind of like look,I'm a keynote speaker, I wear a
pink hat, like they're probablygoing to maybe know who I am
because they've seen me on theemails and stuff.

(22:07):
But the first time that ithappened, my husband and I were
flying somewhere from Atlanta,where we live, to like Vegas or
something for a conference and Igot on the plane and I was had
my hat because I, you know, takeit off and usually put it in
the storage above and someonemessaged me on LinkedIn while we
were in flight and said oh myGod, I think you're on my plane.

(22:28):
Well, it would have been weirdenough if, like for me, like
holy cow, this is kind of weird.
But they knew who I was, but Ididn't know who this person was
and I'd never seen them commentand I'd never seen the message
and I'd never seen a post oftheirs.
I had no idea who this personwas.
He was in a different industrythan me too, it was not in the

(22:50):
lumber building industry and Ithought, holy crap, like this is
working.
And it didn't cost me.
It cost me time, which isvaluable, but it didn't cost me
a dollar.
I've never spent one, paiddollar to get my business going.
I've still never run an adwhich is funny because I sell
ads to businesses but I justhaven't had to do it yet.

(23:10):
I will, but I haven't yet.
And I thought, holy smokes,this is working.
And then, you know, I went toanother conference not long
after that and people werestopping me same thing and I did
not know who they were becauseI'd never.
You know, if Melanie posts on mycomments and I see you every
day I'm going to at leastrecognize your name, that kind
of thing, when you comment.
But I did not recognize thesepeople because they've never

(23:33):
commented.
They're lurkers, like you said.
So that's one thing I tellpeople is, just because you
don't get like a thousand likesand 700 comments within 10
minutes of posting, don't thinkpeople aren't seeing it, because
people are seeing it andthey're noticing and it's
probably working.
And especially if you post aboutsomething that maybe is a

(23:53):
little more controversial orsomething you know in your
industry that maybe everyonewouldn't want to post their
comments on.
They're still thinking about itand they're ruminating on it
and it's working.
So that's something I like totell people, because I have, for
a long time, was like I'mshouting into the dark abyss and
no one hears me.
I'm a tree falling in theforest, but it is not true.

(24:14):
You are getting, even if youonly get two likes, it's still
two people that are seeing youevery single day that hopefully
are in your target audience.
Maybe not, but you can do workto get that to happen.

So you know, I think that having a lot of
followers is completelyoverrated no-transcript.

(25:00):
And so what I've learned alongthe way is that when you're
speaking directly to that oneperson and you know what their
challenges are, how you can helpserve them and what keeps them
up at night, if you will, it'sgoing to resonate with them and
it's better to speak to that oneperson than to have a megaphone

(25:24):
speaking to a hundred thousandpeople.
I mean, that's my philosophyabout it.

I agree totally.
I think I heard someone itmight've been Alex Ramosi say
that I would rather have like ahundred raving fans than 10,000
people who know my name butdon't really care and don't pay
attention.
Because if you're selling,especially like for me, I'm
selling a very high ticket.
You know very niche thing thatI work with people in the

(25:50):
building materials and buildingindustry pretty much
predominantly.
I have no other clients.
I don't want, you know, to getout of that industry right now.
And I mean, if you don't sellbuilding materials, what does it
matter?
If I can tell you how to scaleyour business selling doors from
10 million to 30 million?
You don't sell doors, so itdoesn't really matter, you know.
But if you sell doors andyou've been stuck at 10 million

(26:13):
for five years and you're like,oh my gosh, she is literally
talking to me, it that resonates.
So, like you said, I meanniches, riches, the whole, all
the the phrases that we like tosay it works.
And I know it's hard not tochase those vanity metrics, it
is hard to post into the abyssand think no one's seeing it.

(26:34):
But what if one client sees youand comes and gives you a
$100,000 contract that youwouldn't have gotten because you
posted and that happens everysingle day to people all the
time A hundred percent.

It absolutely does.
It is totally worth it, and youjust never know.
I will tell you that in theclients that we've worked with
over the years, most of themhave never engaged with any of
my content.
You were talking about someonewho saw you on a flight.
It's the same kind of situation.
They don't necessarily engage,they see the post, so obviously

(27:07):
the algorithm is continuing toserve your content to them
because they're reading it, anda lot of times for me anyways,
they're not coming to me throughLinkedIn, they're leaving the
platform and they're coming tome through my website.

Yeah, it's great .
It's great to have that kind ofoption, though, to take them
off platform.
Then you sort of own theaudience, hopefully, or maybe
they sign up for your newsletteror whatever.
I think people alsounderestimate the amount of
times that people need to seethings and get comfortable with
you or an offer or you know whatit's.
If you think you're going topost on LinkedIn once and
someone's going to buy, theremight be 1% of people that are

(27:42):
those people or like their painis just so serious that they're
like that's your solution, butit's.
It's not always going to bethat way.
So you know hitting thatmultiple times.
Well, with that being said, I dohave a question about tactical
LinkedIn.
So the platform, the algorithm,is a mistress that I don't
understand many days.
I think all of us are alwaystrying to figure out what's

(28:04):
going to work best and we evolveand, hopefully, figure it out,
but what types of content do youtell your executive clients to
really think about?
Posting, like you know, every,and is it every week a few times
?
What do you tell peoplestarting out?
So, for someone that you knowjust wants to play around and
see how this works, what wouldyou tell them to do?

(28:24):
So?

what I'm going to tell you is something that
most people don't like to hear.
When I tell them because I tryto not focus on the algorithm
it's usually the last thing thatI think about, because it's
constantly changing.
There's multiple of them.
No one knows for sure, exceptfor the people who are at
LinkedIn actually behind thescenes engineering.

(28:45):
It know exactly what it's doing.
So what I tell people is if youare just starting out and you
feel comfortable and I work as acoach and I also work as an
agency, so I see things throughdifferent lenses based on who
I'm talking to but for most ofthe time, if someone doesn't

(29:06):
have, let's say, for example, anaudience on Instagram because a
lot of people from Instagramare trying to come onto LinkedIn
, or people from TikTok arecoming to LinkedIn so if they're
not used to being in thismindset of posting content and
creating content, what I tellthem is what can you sustain for
six months?
How many times per week can youpost?

(29:28):
How much time during the daycan you commit to?
And then you have to write itdown, because if you don't write
it down or if you don't blockit in your calendar, it's not
going to happen 100%.
You have to follow it up withaction.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's the first thing that Itell them.
The second thing is there'sessentially a few types of

(29:48):
content that I've seen performwell over the years.
That doesn't really change,regardless of what the current
trends are.
Everyone feels a little funnysometimes about promoting
themselves and sharing theiroffer.
But if you don't share youroffer, no one is going to know
that you are available and thatyou are of service to them.

(30:09):
That doesn't mean in everysingle post you need a call to
action saying sign up for my X,y and Z or do this or do that.
But what it does mean is thatyou can explain what you do, who
you do it for and the resultsthat you get.
So that might be you postingsome client testimonials and

(30:30):
letting people know about thosetestimonials, because who trusts
you and who works with you isshowing other people just that,
so they'll trust you and they'llwant to work with you too.
Or talking about the servicesthat you provide.
So that's one type of contentthat I always tell people and I
always held back from doing itbecause I felt so awkward and

(30:54):
cringe or whatever posting abouthire me.
Yes, I want you to hire me.
I'm going to post that becausethat's how I feed my family, so
I want to tell you about theservices that I provide.
The second type of content thatI strongly recommend talking
about is educational content,and that's really when you're
leaning in to your network, intospeaking to that one person who

(31:18):
you know you can help, andtelling a story and sharing
something that will help them.
The biggest mistake that I madeearly on with not getting what I
wanted when I started mybusiness in terms of conversion
into revenue was sharing.
That first piece that Imentioned was the promotional
piece, but all I did was shareeducational content, and I also

(31:42):
shared personal content, and sothose are really pillars to me,
and when I say personal, itcould be your personal take on
something that's happening incurrent events, it could be
something that's happening inyour industry, or it could be
you going out with your dog Imean, I know it sounds
ridiculous.

Every time you put your dog on the top, I post.
We both have cute dogs.
Why not use it?
Marketing?

Yes, exactly, it's a part of our life and it's
something that you share.
And when you share a little bitabout yourself, all of a sudden
, people that you don't know,you can develop relationships
with, you have common interestswith, then you become
interesting and not only are yousharing content that's helpful
to them, but you're alsorelatable.
Now, is sharing pictures ofyour dog going to help people

(32:30):
hire you?
No, probably not, but it's justshowing, I mean, part of social
.
When it was originally, you know, came out, it wasn't to share
our offers.
It wasn't necessarily to share,you know, and to have a call to
action at the end of everysingle post.
It was really to share a storyfrom that person who has a
unique lens and a perspective onsomething in particular, and so

(32:54):
sharing the journey andbuilding in public, if you will,
is something that is verypowerful and it's very impactful
.
And for the people who do itlike yourself, Stefanie, and who
stick with it, it's notnecessarily that you have to be
a marketer, because you don't.
You don't have to be a brandstrategist to do it.

(33:15):
You just have to have the willto do it and the endurance to
work through it.
And like anything, there's upsand downs and that's why, when
people talk about things like,oh, impressions are down or you
know, video views are down andthe life is terrible, it's just

(33:35):
keep posting.
Just keep posting through it,it'll come back on top.

It will, it always does.
My dad always used to say inthe lumber business you know,
commodities in lumber are veryvolatile Some days.
You know it's riding high andyou might ride high for a season
and then just wait because thebottom's coming and like that's
just how lumber the lumbermarket is, and I think I think
anything in life is like that.
And so if we expect that youcan post on LinkedIn and get you

(34:03):
know the exact same resultsover a long horizon of time and
never see variances, like that'scrazy to think about with
anything in your life.
And I think for me it's beenfiguring out.
How, like you said, do youbalance that If you posted 18
times a week for one week versus18 times over three months?

(34:23):
I'll take the three monthsbecause if they don't see you
that first week and then youflake out, then who cares?
It doesn't matter over a timehorizon.
And so that six months, I think, is a good timeframe.
I like that number.
I use that a lot with myclients because it really needs
to be at least that long to evensee anybody care about it.

(34:43):
You know, and I think if you'renot willing to give at least six
months to something that's nota very long.
I mean January is already overthis month, like it's already
February 1st tomorrow.
So six months goes by prettyquickly in the span of time.
So you've got to be able tocommit to yourself, but maybe
that's two posts a week or evenone post a week just to get
started.
And another thing I see peopledo is, unfortunately, wait until

(35:06):
they need the brand, like, forinstance, people that need to
change jobs or need to go andrecruit talent or need to grow
their business, like really it'sgoing to close if you don't
have something coming in.
They wait too late.
So I would say you know, if youhave time right now, six months
, 12 months, that you know maybenext year you might want to get

(35:27):
a promotion, even in the samejob that you're in in the same
company, don't stop, don't wait,because you don't need to wait
until one minute before you wantthat promotion to say go look
at my LinkedIn.

Yeah, the best time to start working on your
LinkedIn is when you have a job.
Yeah, exactly, you never know.
And that was a big lesson thatI learned was I don't want to
wait until something happensthat forces me to do something,
where a lot of people, when theylose their jobs, they're like,
oh crap, I really should have.
I listened to that webinar andI never did anything.

(36:02):
I really should have donesomething at the time.
And there are things that youcan do that are tactical.
If you're nervous about losingyour job from updating your
profile, a lot of companiesoffer marketing support for
their employees where they havebanners, they have featured
items, they have other thingsthat can help you really support

(36:26):
the company brand as well.

I think that's a great idea for companies that
are listening to this.
You know, if you're not surehow to even get started with
having your employees have apresence, with using that kind
of employer branding, wherepersonal brands are helping you
and your company brand grow,that's a really good place to
start is having assets for themin a shared drive somewhere like
here's three or four bannersyou can use.

(36:50):
That way, you don't have to usethe one that LinkedIn provides
or either leave it blank.
You know, here's let's takeheadshots, like we'll do a
headshot day where our corporatephotographer comes in and does
everyone's headshot so you don'tlook like you're from 1992.
You know, I think that'simportant, especially if you're
networking, like especially in asales position where you're

(37:11):
outward facing.
You know, I see people at theseconferences I'm sure you do too
and you meet them and, likeyou've seen them on LinkedIn and
sometimes they'll message andsay like hey, let's connect at
IBS, I want to see you know,whatever.
And then you meet the personyou're like looking at their
LinkedIn and looking at this andthey're like this is not this
person's 62.
And this person on LinkedIn is42.

(37:32):
What is going on?
I don't even know who they areand it's because their profile's
not updated.
So like be the person you aretoday, not the person that you
wish you still were from 1992.
And and that can be helped bycompanies helping update you
know their employees and, Ithink, from a sales perspective,
if you have a salesperson thatposts about their products and

(37:53):
shows you know in our industrywe're furnishing beautiful homes
, all these amazing productsthat we have, and I love seeing
those finished.
You know projects like hey,look at this job of windows we
just furnished on this home.
Look at this amazing lake viewfrom, you know, from the back
deck of this house that wefurnished.
Love that, like you don'talways have to post thought

(38:16):
leadership content.
It can be something that's verytactical for your business.
If you don't want to be thenext Tony Robbins like that's
cool, you don't have to be that.

Yeah, absolutely .
And what you said also beforeabout not matching.
You know, the worst thing thatI run into is I meet people all
the time and I've met some verysophisticated, very successful
individuals happens all the timebecause they were creating

(38:53):
success without social, theywere creating success without
online and they still have thesuccess.
But then when I go to theirLinkedIn, it's so disappointing
because it doesn't reflect thesuccess that they've had and it
should, and that doesn't meanand this is another hard truth
you don't have to post.
There are other ways and othertactics that you can lean into,

(39:21):
and one of those is just havingyour profile up to date and just
reflecting your company.
I mean, especially if there's acompany in your industry that's
positioning themselves to besold or they're looking to
acquire another company, tocreate attention, yeah, and to
have it buttoned up.

That's a great point and in my industry right
now we have so muchconsolidation, there's a lot of
private equity coming in and Iactually have a client that's a
CEO and they believe they'll youknow, they'll be selling to
another private equity firm.
That's just kind of the natureof those beasts and I mentioned.
I'm like, hey, you should startposting on LinkedIn because if

(39:55):
this happens then you'll havemore of a presence and you'll be
associated with this company ina good way and hopefully it
helps you in the future with thenext move.
Whatever ends up happening andI think that it's again most
people don't think about thatuntil a month before the sale
happens and it's too late atthat point for most people.
They want to do it beforehand.

(40:16):
So if you're a leader andexecutive that thinks, well,
maybe I don't have time to dothis, what would you say to
people who they are busy I mean,everyone is usually very much
running at full speed how wouldyou tell people that maybe don't
have the bandwidth or thinkthey don't have the bandwidth to
go about building a brand onLinkedIn?
I?

think one of the first things that you really
need to understand is having agoal or a purpose and really
attaching it to that, because ifyou don't have a purpose or a
reason for being, then itdoesn't really make sense to put
in all the effort, becausethere's no way that you can
quantify your efforts and whatyou're doing.

(40:57):
So my first piece of advicewould be have a goal and a
reason, because then it's goingto force you to show up and to
be present and to take the nextstep of allocating that time.
And it could be, you know, inthe morning, while you're having
coffee, sitting at your desk,ready to start your day, taking

(41:19):
15 minutes and reaching out to10 different people in your
network who are all going to begoing to an event that's going
to be in six months and juststarting the conversation.

Yeah, absolutely that's a great tip, I think,
the DMs and the connections.
Like you said, if there aresome people that are just never
going to post content onLinkedIn and we both know that
and that's fine and some of themjust don't have time.
But, like you said, if youupdate your profile and you kind
of have where, when you send amessage to someone, what they
come back to and look at looksreally buttoned up and

(41:50):
professional and shows kind ofthe caliber of caliber of where
you are and all those things,that is a big step.
And then you can just domessaging, like, like you
mentioned, reaching out topeople that maybe you haven't
seen in a while or you aren'tnetworking with every day, but
you want to remind them thatyou're there and that you're an

(42:10):
option.
And I think most people spendmore time on LinkedIn than
probably they would like toadmit.
If they're in the businessworld, I know a lot of
executives that spend a lot oftime.
When they're, like you know,they have some downtime on a
plane or, you know, in aconference, when it's a break
they're on LinkedIn scrolling.
They're never posting, they'renever commenting, they're never

(42:30):
liking things, but they're on it.
So just remember that, like youcan message people and have
that platform where they get 700emails.
They would ignore yours butthey might message you on your
DMs.
So I think that's a goodplatform to use.

People are so focused on posting content on
LinkedIn and they're not reallyfocused as much on their profile
and the outreach, and those arereally the two accelerators for
someone who's really looking tomonetize and take advantage of
having a presence on theplatform.

Yeah, that's a really good point Can you give
me some top tips for someonethat is trying to monetize?
Let's just take the posting offthe table.
What would your tips be?
Are you using Sales Navigator?
Are you just DMing?
How do you tell people to goabout that?

So I don't currently use Sales Navigator.
I have used it in the past.
I've been very fortunate,Stefanie, that a very
significant percentage of mybusiness comes from inbound, so
I've been very lucky that Ihaven't had to focus only on
that outreach portion.
But I have used Sales Navigator.

(43:42):
I think it is definitely aworthwhile tool, especially for
sales teams.

I think it is excellent because it gives you
deeper insights than just beinga member on the platform will
give you, yeah, and easy tosegment things like really great
targeting for differentindustries and different levels
of people and, yeah, it'sawesome, absolutely.

And then the one thing that I think that it's
talked about but it's not astalked about is really looking
at your profile as a marketingfunnel and understanding that
you have all these micro momentsof opportunity for conversion,
from the time someone sees yourphoto in a comment on a post to

(44:25):
the time they click on you inyour banner, to your headline,
your featured section, yourabout section, your work history
.
They're all moments ofconversion.
It just really depends on whatphase the person is within that
funnel, because when you're outthere, it's everybody who is
able to see you regardless,because you don't necessarily

(44:47):
know, because it's notnecessarily a campaign where
you're focusing on one portionof where they are within the
funnel.
But, thinking that way, therewas a study that Microsoft did
last year, in 2024, that saidthe average American has an
attention span of eight secondsand the average goldfish has an
attention span of eight secondsand the average goldfish has an

(45:09):
attention span of nine seconds.
So that means that you and Ihave a shorter attention span,
Stefanie, than a goldfish.

I believe it.
I mean, I think it's definitelyhard to grab and keep attention
for sure.

So if you have eight seconds, what kind of
impression are you going to makein eight seconds?
What does your profile say?
What story does it tell?
And that's the other thing itshould tell a story about who
you are, who you work with, theresults you get, where you've
been, where you are, whereyou're going.
Instead of talking at people inthird person, which I

(45:47):
personally do not like.
I like it when someone istalking in first person because
I feel like they're talking tome, I feel like they're sharing
a part of themselves with me andagain Just a conversation
between two people, right?
Yeah, right, exactly, and that'swhat makes it so unique also,
this LinkedIn platform, andthat's why it's so much more

(46:09):
than just a resume, it's so muchmore than just a job searching
platform.
It's really an opportunity toshowcase yourself.
And, by the way, google indexesLinkedIn profiles and LinkedIn
posts.

Yeah, if you Google most people in the world
that are uber successful I meanespecially like in my industry
or something that's a littlemore considered boring industry,
where you're not getting allthis press and you're, there's
not 700, you know John Does withyour name.
But if you Google StefanieCouch and you spell it the right

(46:56):
way, you see my LinkedIn veryhigh.
I mean it's very high, even ifI'm paying to do searches and
everything else.
And so when you think aboutthat and then you think that if
that's the only thing you'redoing on the internet, so maybe
you don't have a personalwebsite, you don't have a.
You know all these other PRcampaigns going on out there

(47:16):
that's your one shot to be seenas the way you want to be
branded and seen.
And if your LinkedIn sucks likethat's what people get from you
and they might not give youanother shot Like if they think
that you don't have it buttonedup, then they may not go to your
website, your company website,they may not go to the next step

(47:37):
book a call.
They may never give you achance because they think, oh
well, they, I thought they werepretty good, but guess not, and
so it's.
It's a one shot a lot of timesand I think that's important to
the Google search is somethingpeople don't know.
And then the other thing is whenyou actually search in the top
of the LinkedIn I think that'sanother thing that people don't

(48:02):
talk about a lot is if you go inand type in the word doors, you
know, without sales navigator,without paying all the extra,
like 3 million people come upthat have doors somewhere in
their headline or in their jobtitle.
So if I want to find people inthat industry, I have a literal
goldmine right there for noextra fee.
I don't have to pay extra to doall that.
With Sales Navigator it's justsearching, so it's figuring out

(48:22):
what are people going to findyou under, and your profile
should have those things thatyou want to be known for in your
profile, so in a very findableplace in the headline or
something like that.
So I love that.
That's a great tip.
Well, last question for youwhat is on the horizon for you
in the next year, half a year,because I know you have a lot of
exciting projects going on, andwhat are you most excited about

(48:45):
that you're working on?

Oh my gosh, so much, I'm so excited.
So I wrote a book last year, sothat is coming out this fall
end of summer, early fall.

Thank you, is it available?

for pre-order yet?
Not yet.
The pre-order is coming soon,in Q2, it'll be for pre-order.
I can't wait.
It's called Theater of the Mindand it is all about what you
experience when you go to marketand the mindset shifts that you
can really train yourself on,and it has been a wild ride for

(49:23):
me the last five years and itreally is a living and breathing
documentation of that.
I love it I can't wait to readit.
Thank you, yes, I'm superexcited about that.
We also are most likelyrelaunching a podcast.
I had a podcast in 2022.
So that is something that hasbeen on the horizon as well.

(49:46):
There are a lot of work.
Yes, we just launched what I'mcalling the creator store.
We have a new website comingout next week, so by the time
you air this, it'll be available.
But the biggest thing that hascome up for me whenever I get
any sort of inbound leads is thecost of working with me and the

(50:07):
agency, and not everybody canwork with us, but they want to.
So the concept that I had washow do I make myself available
to everybody, regardless oftheir budget?
So we did a soft launch of whatwe call a creator store two
weeks ago, where we havetemplates, systems and processes

(50:30):
, both free and paid, includingeBooks, that are available on
our website.
That's so awesome.
Yes, and I started a publishingcompany in December.
I haven't made the formalannouncement yet, but I'm
assuming by the time this comesout it will be announced.

Yeah, that's so incredible you are doing so much
.
It's amazing, I mean, when yousit back.
I think as entrepreneurs weoften are worried more about
what's ahead.
I know that's just how I'mgeared in it.
You're obviously geared thatway, since you just named 26
projects that are coming out.
But you know how cool to sitback and just give yourself a

(51:09):
moment to amazingly think aboutwhat you've accomplished in five
years.
I mean it's incredible, likecongratulations.
You're an incredibleentrepreneur and what you're
doing is also impacting andhelping a lot of other people do
what they want to do with theirlives.
So I think that's the best typeof impact that any of us.
You feed your family and thenyou hopefully help a lot of
other families get fed andprosper too.

(51:31):
So great job.
I mean you're amazing.
I'm proud to know you and to beable to just talk to you about
it.
I can't wait to see how allthis stuff the book and the
store and all the things I meanit's going to.
I'm sure it's going to do likeeverything else and just
flourish.

Yeah, we also have a um a weekly bootcamp for
executives.
I partnered with anotherindustry leader, heather Monahan
, and we actually lead abootcamp together once a week
and it's been a lot of fun.

Is that just on LinkedIn, or is it just on
building your brand?
No, it's on building your brand.

Actually, linkedin is probably the
smallest part of it, but it'show to elevate your brand.
It's called.
It's called elevate yourinfluence, and we've been doing
it for about two years and ithas been a ton of fun and it's
been great to network with alldifferent types of executives
all over the world, which hasalso been very exciting too.

(52:24):
But, yeah, it's, I mean, listen, it's limitless.
Whatever you want to create foryourself, you can.
If you believe that you can andyou put in the work that you
can to get there and have faithand just believe in the process,
it will happen.

Yeah, and you got to keep going when cause
it's gonna you're going to hitthose roadblocks Like you can't.
Every day is a challenge insome way, but if it was easy, it
would already be done a milliontimes.
You know, I think that's thebiggest thing is it's not going
to be easy.
And I asked myself that a lotlike well, did you think this
was going to be easy to buildthis business empire and do this

(53:00):
thing that you really set outto do with this very large
number that you want to hit in10 years?
And the answer is heck, no, Ididn't think it would be easy.
I hoped it would, but I knew itwouldn't be.
And so when it's like reallyhard and me and my husband look
at each other like oh my gosh,how did this happen?
Again, you know, or why didthis happen?
You're like well, we knew itwas going to be really hard,
like climbing Mount Everest.

(53:21):
Better have your climbing gearon if you're ready to climb the
mountain, right?

Yeah, absolutely , and, yeah, absolutely, and it
all is shaping for what's next.

Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, and the thing that youlearn from today's challenges
will help you understand thenext step for sure.
Well, congratulations on allyour success.
I am so glad to know you and Iwould love to do something
together in the future some kindof collaboration.
I think it would be really funand I really appreciate you
coming on the Grit Blueprint andgiving us all this amazing

(53:49):
information.
You coming on the GritBlueprint and giving us all this
amazing information, and ifsomeone wants to connect with
you, we're going to put all yourlinks in the information and
we'll put all your new amazingstuff that's coming out in there
.
So I'm really excited.
I can't wait to go check outthe new website to see all the
amazing assets you have on there.
So, thank you.
Thank you so much, Melanie.
That's it for this episode ofthe Grit Blueprint podcast.

(54:10):
For more tools, training andindustry content, make sure to
subscribe here and follow me onLinkedIn and other social media
platforms To find out more abouthow Grit Blueprint can help you
grow your business.
Check us out at our website,gritblueprintcom.

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