TMTL: Leverage LinkedIn Company Pages for Building Thought Leadership

[00:00:00] Surbhi Dedhia: hi, Michelle. This is so exciting. I'm really thrilled to have you on the making of a Thought Leader podcast. And we have been talking about this for quite some time, doing your podcast and doing my podcast. And this is amazing to have you on board today.

[00:00:15] Surbhi Dedhia: So welcome. 

[00:00:16] Michelle Raymond: Oh, and I'm so excited that you made yours happen. You're an action taker. Like I love it. I I'm so far behind on my schedule. So thank you for having me as a guest. I'm super excited to be here with you today. 

[00:00:30] Surbhi Dedhia: Absolutely my pleasure. So Michelle, let's get started with your backstory, where are you from, what you do, what new you bringing to the world. So tell us all about it. 

[00:00:43] Michelle Raymond: Yeah, for sure. So I'm here based here in Sydney and I've been living here for around 15 years. And in that time I've worked in various sales. So I'm, you know, my background is sales for at least 20 years. Don't tell anyone, all right, that's our secret. And then, so what actually happens was I love selling.

[00:01:01] Michelle Raymond: So I am one of those people that loves to do it because of two reasons. I love to help people and I love to problem solve. And for me, that's what selling is. And so over the years, I've sold all kinds of different products. But around eight years ago, I moved into a completely different industry, which was chemical distribution, specifically ingredients that go into beauty products.

[00:01:23] Michelle Raymond: So skincare and shampoos and all kinds of things, which I had no idea about. I couldn't even pronounce the chemicals that I was selling, I had chemistry background and I turn up at this job and my boss says to me, Michelle, here's your customer list, here's your laptop, here's your phone, here's your card. Now go and sell.

[00:01:41] Michelle Raymond: And I said, that's great, but what do we sell? And he said, Michelle, this 10,000 ingredients, like, just go. And I was doing the math in my head going around 80 clients, 10,000 ingredients. How am I going to do this in Sydney traffic? No less. It's about an hours drive between everywhere, even if it's just down the road.

[00:02:00] Michelle Raymond: And so I started to think about, I said to them, is it on the website? And they said, no, Michelle, it's your job. Go and tell people. And I said, this just isn't adding up. I said, oh, maybe they've got an old school catalog, like a printed one . I said, you know, you know, I can, I can do old school. I can adapt.

[00:02:16] Michelle Raymond: Like, that's part of my job. And they said, Michelle, by the time we print that, we'd have to start again. So no, we don't have a catalog. And I said to them, how were people finding out what we do? And they're like, that's your job? And so I I'm like scratching my head thinking, what have I done? I've just moved into this, you know, it wasn't a small company, they were turning over around a billion dollars US, like we're not talking like a small company.

[00:02:41] Michelle Raymond: They had no marketing budget, it was done very old school. So back in the day pre-internet, if anyone can remember those. Pre internet, when you had your little black book, your little Rolodex and you had all your connections overseas and that's how it works. So keeping everything private was really important in that industry.

[00:02:58] Michelle Raymond: Obviously the world changed. Internet comes, places like Alibaba exists. You can jump onto Google and find anything you want in the world. In what? Under half a second. It's just incredible. So the world had changed, but their business hadn't. Now, like most people I'd just gotten a job using LinkedIn. So I'd uploaded my current resume onto there.

[00:03:18] Michelle Raymond: And that's how I actually got this job. And so I started to think. You know, I saw on LinkedIn that you could actually post content. And I thought about it for a moment. And I thought maybe what I could do is share about ingredients that I've got to sell. And that way I could reach one person to many, and I thought that's and it was free, you know, so it was even more attractive.

[00:03:39] Michelle Raymond: And so I started to do. That was the beginning of my LinkedIn. What would turn out to be like such a big part of my life eight years later, because I realized you could post all this content. That's great. But if no, one's there to listen, it's, there's no point, you know, and then if you share the same thing over and over, it's boring.

[00:03:59] Michelle Raymond: No one wants the same thing day after day, but the most amazing thing that I discovered. As a salesperson, I could connect with anyone. And as long as I was reasonably polite and followed a few etiquette rules about connecting with people, I could ask access, literally anyone in the world that I wanted to, and most people would accept my request to connect and as a salesperson, not having to get past gatekeepers and all of those other kinds of traditional things that I had to do, it became so easy.

[00:04:30] Michelle Raymond: And I built up a reputation in the industry. I started to go you know, as a thought leader in that particular space, I was able to share trends and what the future held and new products that were being launched all over the world. And so that became something I did on the side and it's how I got to stand out in my job. And so fast forward, I, you know, I worked for a couple of different companies. I, you know, keep improving on my skills. And then one day I'm managing a factory and I had to quit my job that day. And I said, that's it. I'm not working for anyone else ever again. And I was like, I'm going to set up my own business.

[00:05:04] Michelle Raymond: And I couldn't think of what it was. And it was March last year when COVID hit. Right. So it was crazy time to come up with it just crazy, but that's me. And then, so what happened was I was going through trying to think of everything myself. I couldn't come up with an idea. And then I went back to, what do I always do?

[00:05:22] Michelle Raymond: Help people and problem solve. And I realized some of my former competitors had jumped onto LinkedIn, like everybody did last year and they were struggling and I could see they were making the mistakes. I'd made eight years earlier. So I reached out to one and I said, You know, if you tried this and this and this it'll really help you get your message out.

[00:05:40] Michelle Raymond: And she said, thank God. She said to me, Michelle, where did you learn that? I wish I could learn from you. And that's how my business was born because I got the idea. I could do LinkedIn training. But then fast forward, I go to my old clients, my contacts, and I say, I could teach you everything I've done in two hours instead of eight years, it will be amazing for your business.

[00:06:02] Michelle Raymond: And they looked at me with this like exhausted look and just said, can't you just do it for us because you're awesome at it. You'd pay me to do that. Like, I didn't even think, no, you can laugh at me. I felt so old when you know, that whole thing happened, but I couldn't understand that someone would pay me to do something, which I just loved and I was passionate about.

[00:06:23] Michelle Raymond: So that's how my company came into creation. So good training co exists to help other companies get the most out of LinkedIn. And so it's just been an incredible 18 months. And so, yeah, that's how, how I ended up here today. So that's a bit of a back story. 

[00:06:40] Surbhi Dedhia: Such a brilliant backstory and full of twists and turns. I should say at that. You said good trading company came into being in you. The company helps other companies optimize or do the most on LinkedIn. So let's get into that space because, some of our listeners are those companies who are in the growth phase. And when I say growth phase, they have set up their business.

[00:07:04] Surbhi Dedhia: They have done what most of the businesses do today, which means they have a social media page. They have a website, they have. Probably invested in some automation too, but all, all the same, they are not able to leverage. And at the end of the day are thinking that, Hey, marketing doesn't work. So how do they leverage?

[00:07:24] Surbhi Dedhia: And from what I have seen in terms of only say if, we have to like really take only a smaller segment of this, which means just the social media and off the social media, just LinkedIn. I have seen some phenomenal work that good trading company has done. And the clients that have leveraged from it. So let's, let's spend some time talking about why LinkedIn pages and why it is just not something that, companies should just put it up there and just leave it for it to grow on itself.

[00:07:55] Michelle Raymond: And you're right. And that's what happens. You know, people spend a lot of money when they set up their business and they get a website and the website sits there for the next, probably three to five years until someone realizes that it's out of date and looks a bit old school, and then someone will go and spend some more money and get it updated.

[00:08:12] Michelle Raymond: So it's quite static. Whereas the LinkedIn company page, which is where I specialize in is actually something that's really dynamic and changes with you as your business evolves. Now, where my started out 18 months ago to where it is now. It has changed so much. And I know that there's a lot of businesses out there in the same position we've had to change sometimes because of the pandemic, sometimes because we had a better idea and refine that some things weren't working in our business or making us as much money and what you and I have in common.

[00:08:41] Michelle Raymond: You create thought leadership for CEOs and executives and that kind of space. I create almost a similar for companies, you know, cause it's really important that the company supports the thought leaders in the business and vice versa, you know, and this is the real bonus for a company page. Is that when done properly, it should be helping support the employees and the employees help support the company. And when you have those synergies, that's when things really take off. And you know, this is where I help small businesses or medium businesses or large businesses. The really amazing part about LinkedIn is you don't have to pay to play.

[00:09:19] Michelle Raymond: And what I mean by that is it doesn't matter if your budget zero or your budget is a million dollars. We all get the same banner size. We get the same number of characters. We can do the same number of posts. There isn't any limitation besides the effort that you put into it. And I can't find anywhere else in a business sense that actually that's possible, you know, SEO costs money, the more money you pay, the more you get.

[00:09:44] Michelle Raymond: And not everyone has that kind of money to go up against some of the biggest companies in the world. 

[00:09:50] Surbhi Dedhia: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Such a leveler of sorts, right?

[00:09:53] Michelle Raymond: Absolutely. And not only that, we know that that's where your audience is. So if your audience is other professionals or other businesses, they're on LinkedIn. Yeah, 774 million people. The most number of people that have ever been on the platform, I think around 60 million companies are on there. So if you're trying to sell to other professionals or other or driving opportunities or other companies, that's the place to be.

[00:10:19] Surbhi Dedhia: Absolutely. Earlier, you were mentioning Linkedin pages are dynamic. Can we just go in that a little bit and understand what you mean by that?

[00:10:29] Michelle Raymond: Yeah, I kind of look at them as they almost become your own company news channel, you know, and that can be very much what's happening today. This very moment.

[00:10:38] Michelle Raymond: It can be what's going on in the world this moment and you don't really have to rely on third parties. You can outsource it. But for the most part, you can manage it internally. And so what I love is that you can start to create content that's current right here right now. And you know, that could be news-related that could be people related.

[00:10:57] Michelle Raymond: You know, we see all the time, if you create content that shows the people in your business, that way performs better than any other kind of content that you could get. So grabbing your smartphone and taking photos of somebody in your office warehouse you know, whatever type of situation, right.

[00:11:13] Michelle Raymond: Promoting the people is something that people want to know what's going on behind the scenes that I can't find out from the website or the catalogs. And, you know, the other thing is it's how you attract good employees is, you know, by presenting what kind of accompany are that, you know, they can come and work for.

[00:11:32] Michelle Raymond: So there's so many exciting bits to do in it. But think of it as, yeah, you're in companies news channel.

[00:11:37] Surbhi Dedhia: 10 years ago there was just so much excitement about company newsletter and that was just a beginning where companies would have a community of people, vendors, partners, customers. It was the last month's news that will come out of the newsletter and in the current fast paced world that we are in, this is just so amazing because it's your news channel. You own it. You are the content creator and it's up to you. How much you want to share over the audience. Yeah. 

[00:12:07] Michelle Raymond: Yeah. And everybody is so used to being on social media. It's just something we do naturally. Whether it's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, we tend to check all 3, 4, 5. You know, there's so many different platforms these days, it's hard to keep up.

[00:12:22] Michelle Raymond: And you know, that's often why things fall over is when you know, trying to be everything to everyone on these social media platforms is way people throw their hands in the air and say, I can't keep up with this. So it's really important to narrow down and go, well, where's your target audience and speak to those, but you're right.

[00:12:38] Michelle Raymond: It's current it's then and now. And yeah, it's just something that you don't need to spend a lot of time creating polished content. And what I mean by that is you don't have to pay a third party to create a beautiful, spectacular masterpiece for a content or for an image because it will be gone in 24, 48 hours.

[00:12:59] Michelle Raymond: And so what I say, it's better to get something out there that's not perfect then rather than spend all this money for something that will disappear, you know, it's being top of mind and, you know, that's what it's all about basically. 

[00:13:13] Surbhi Dedhia: That's very interesting point as well, because a lot of us, we look at perfection over progress.

[00:13:19] Surbhi Dedhia: When you're investing in marketing, I think this is one of the things that companies should really look at is getting smarter, not going after perfection. And while there are people out there, like third party sources who do beautiful content pieces, that can go and attract the audience. That's a different strategy people can use, or companies can use to attract that different audience. When it comes to dynamic content places like social media companies need to really think about how they can achieve progress, meaning everyday keeping it consistent over.

[00:13:56] Michelle Raymond: Yeah. And what happens is I find that people sit there trying to analyze things and it's that paralysis analysis is that the, you know, the saying that's been around forever and, you know, perfectionism can sometimes cover up people's anxieties about posting content on social media. It's not as simple as just go and do it.

[00:14:15] Michelle Raymond: You know, there are all kinds of reasons, you know, I see everything from people have had experience on other social media platforms before and maybe trolls. I can, you know, if English as a second language and the platform is in English, then you know, that can come up. We've got people that are introverted, that they don't want to, or don't feel comfortable putting themselves out there.

[00:14:35] Michelle Raymond: So there's a whole bunch of reasons why people aren't necessarily always going to be comfortable putting content out there. But yeah, if with a bit of support and training, you can actually, help them achieve their goals. Which has, I know it's something that you do an amazing job of. And so from that side of things, it's, you know, helping to support those people, share their voice.

[00:14:53] Michelle Raymond: Cause there's a lot of subject matter experts that are amazing and you and I do the same thing in a different way. I do what I do because I kept talking to so many amazing business owners that have amazing companies that nobody knew about. They're invisible on the internet. And that's what I'm out to change.

[00:15:11] Michelle Raymond: I'm literally out to share their stories and. The tool that I use happens to be LinkedIn company pages. 

[00:15:17] Surbhi Dedhia: Yes. Let's move this conversation towards organizations are building company pages and some, some of the powerful thought leadership pieces are out there. So how can organizations who have are starting out or organizations who are looking at LinkedIn should look at company pages as a powerful, to not personal profile of employees or their growth team, or, the CXOs but look at company pages as, as a powerful tool to build their thought leadership..

[00:15:50] Michelle Raymond: Yeah, building up your company's brand can, as I said, only support the members of your team, whether, and it doesn't matter what level. It can be the guys in sales, it can be people at the top and everywhere in between, because what happens is people are always researching. You know, when was the last time you went to a restaurant or on a holiday without jumping online and looking at all the reviews of the restaurant, or, you know, even the hotels that you may want to stay at.

[00:16:14] Michelle Raymond: We go on to TripAdvisor and all the other variations of that. And so the same thing happens when people want to purchase from your company, they're doing their research. Now, one of the benefits of using a LinkedIn company pages, you don't have to pay to show on Google search results on the page one. And that's because LinkedIn ranks really well.

[00:16:34] Michelle Raymond: So if you have a company page, if someone Googles your company name, Bang straight on page one, right up in the top of the results. So there's so many added benefits that you can build a brand and that, you know, really create the awareness of not just what your company does, but what it stands for is equally as important.

[00:16:52] Michelle Raymond: You know, who are you in the business world? And, you know, are you the fastest? Are you the most knowledgeable? Are you a futurist? Are you the most reliable? Like, there's so many different things that your company stands for and sharing that is so valuable. And it's what creates opportunities and draws the right kind of clients to you, because there's nothing worse than creating something.

[00:17:16] Michelle Raymond: And the two of you don't align, you know, you get a customer that is just the wrong person. They may not care about details. And you're the person that wants to cross all the T's and dot all the I's and there's a mismatch and that's when things fall over. So, you know, having the right kind of clients attracted to your business, is just another benefit.

[00:17:34] Surbhi Dedhia: So yeah, that, that was amazing. What you said about Google rank, because it's a different way of thinking about company. You know, lot of companies think about putting up the website and eventually would want to rank for their niche or for their service that they are providing. This is a very different way of thinking that puts your pay as much as you do the website.

[00:17:56] Surbhi Dedhia: You're not saying here don't do the website, do it because it's a big marketing asset do the website, but because LinkedIn pages is more dynamic, as we said earlier, And LinkedIn also ranks. So on the first page on Google, by default for a company name or even an individual leave, this is another way of getting seen in the maze. , 

[00:18:17] Michelle Raymond: Part of the reason that you can have excellent content on a social media platform. In this case, we're talking about LinkedIn company pages, but the whole point of it is to use that content, to drive people back to your website and other places. To really generate opportunities for your business because there's no point just doing it for the sake of doing it.

[00:18:36] Michelle Raymond: We want an outcome. We want to generate whether it's opportunities or revenue. We want to make sure that there's an outcome. And so what you can do with your company page, you're staying top of mind with the right audience. If they want to find out more in depth information, then that's really the role of the website.

[00:18:53] Michelle Raymond: And you're right. You know, we're really trying to use both to go backwards and forwards and 

[00:18:57] Surbhi Dedhia: absolutely closing the loop. If you will, you know, it's like one thing leads to the next and the next thing links to the first one, because then that also helps bringing the consistency and what you stand for is what you do in the website that's in-depth. But who, who you are as a company, as a culture, as the value system that you are bringing forward as business owner or a large business. All the employees have a place to go comment on. They have a role to play and also the customers can come view the personality of a organization through LinkedIn pages.

[00:19:31] Michelle Raymond: Cause that's what makes your business unique. Because at the end of the day, there's not very many really unique businesses. As far as products and services goes, we all are trying to do something, just stand out against our competitors and your personality. And what you stand for is a big part of that.

[00:19:47] Michelle Raymond: So you have an opportunity. If your competitors, aren't using LinkedIn company pages, you have an opportunity to really dominate in that space with your thought leadership on your particular subject matter. And the thing is that we're actually just really starting out because the history of company pages aligns with the history of LinkedIn, which was, it was a HR and recruitment tool for around twenty years.

[00:20:08] Michelle Raymond: Yes, you know, we all uploaded our resumes and got jobs on LinkedIn. And so the company pages were quite often managed by HR teams. And we've seen an evolution over time when now the marketing slash sales team own them and we're really just seeing them do things differently. Now, the trick is. To not make it all about you, you, you, you, and make it like a free advertising space.

[00:20:33] Michelle Raymond: The trick is to add value to the people that you want to connect with. And that's where the thought leadership comes in. The more that you share your original opinions and share where you think maybe the industry is leading to or news events that you've got an opinion on. That's what makes it unique and stand out.

[00:20:50] Surbhi Dedhia: Yes. I think that is something very powerful that you just shared. How can people not fall into the trap because moment you have any new place to put content on. It's a trap. By trap, I mean, people say, what do I put there? And quite often than not, especially a place like a company page would be owned by marketing or sales team.

[00:21:14] Surbhi Dedhia: Who's managing it. It's not the CEO or the. HR person who's managing it. And quite often than not, it is, it is very humane too, to just keep posting what you have seen in your newsletter, what you've co-produced as a white paper or case study. So it's all you, you, you, you, 

[00:21:32] Michelle Raymond: yeah, I've got something that I can add in here, which makes it really easy to get the ratio. Right. And LinkedIn actually put it out there. So it's going to make it really simple. And honestly, this will change the way people do company pages and it actually works on your personal profile as well, if you're creating content.

[00:21:49] Michelle Raymond: So the easy way to make sure that you don't have too much of any one thing is to use the 3, 2, 1. And that's easy to remember. So if we're looking over the space of two weeks, we're going to do six posts in total. So that's where the 3, 2, 1 comes in into play. Now, three times, you're going to talk about the big picture.

[00:22:09] Michelle Raymond: So the macro trends, things that you've noticed in the news, like high level, where you say, you know, things happening in the industry. So that's three times in the fortnight, then the second one down. So the two is you're going to. I feel good things about your business. So that could be about your diversity, equity and inclusion.

[00:22:28] Michelle Raymond: It's your corporate social responsibility. It's your happy birthdays. It's your annual, you know, your employees anniversaries. Those kinds of things is twice a fortnight. And then once a fortnight, you get to talk about your products and services and how they help other people. So if you keep it in that ratio and mix them up over two weeks, so six posts in two weeks, 3, 2, 1 big picture.

[00:22:52] Michelle Raymond: Products and services that will keep you on track. 

[00:22:55] Surbhi Dedhia: Wow. This simplifies a lot of things. And really thank you for giving that. Also, I want to ask you on, like, as you were saying 3, 2, 1, I was thinking about. is there any formula, is there any perfect ratio to achieve in terms of participating in the community?

[00:23:11] Surbhi Dedhia: Because what I've seen from an individual standpoint is when an individual is building a thought leadership, they would want to bring an opinion out. They would want to participate in the conversation and create a two-way dialogue. What happens in the organization? Because what we spoke about in 3, 2, 1 is in to, out, outbound, really?

[00:23:32] Surbhi Dedhia: Like you're pushing it out. What about conversations? 

[00:23:36] Michelle Raymond: So when you create a post, whether it's on your personal or on your company page, one of the things that I always recommend to people, so once you capture them with your hook line is, you know, you've got the body of your context. And then after that, what you're actually going to do is ask a question.

[00:23:52] Michelle Raymond: So the easiest way to start a conversation in any social media is to actually ask a question at the end of your post that invites other people into the conversation. It's a really easy way for company pages to ask for people in the community. Add their opinions. Now we don't always see it as much as what we do on personal profiles and pages.

[00:24:12] Michelle Raymond: And that's where people say I don't get as much likes and comments on my company, page pages. What I do on my personal the fact is you will never get as many as there's probably a few company pages out there that the exception to the rule, but for the most part, it's not how they work. But what happens is a lot of people are watching what you're putting out there.

[00:24:28] Michelle Raymond: They're storing it. They're thinking about it. And what happens is when they have the need for your services, they reach out and you don't know whether that's going to be today. Six months. I've just literally had somebody that I worked with around. I'm thinking 1996. I don't know how many years. Right. So I worked with a person, did like what lots of people do collected him along the way, just have never done anything.

[00:24:54] Michelle Raymond: And he reaches out today and says, ah, sure. I saw this. Like you do, you know, XYZ with LinkedIn. And I was like, I didn't even know we were still connected, but that's the kind of thing you just don't know. That's like a record for how long I've known someone before they become a client. , create opportunities for me, it was sales for other people. It might be speaking opportunities. It might be appearing on podcasts. They may all kinds of different reasons that people want to generate opportunities that will help them progress.

[00:25:21] Michelle Raymond: Whatever their goals are. It could be career goals, it could be business goals. It can be all kinds of things, but yeah, it's pretty exciting how it all works.. 

[00:25:29] Surbhi Dedhia: Yeah, it is. It is as well as it's just so interconnected that your impact of doing something today can give you results in the future, but only it will give you results in the future if you're consistent with it. Yeah. That is another point of you know, growing a thought leadership consistency. 

[00:25:47] Michelle Raymond: Yeah. And for thought leaders, you know, joining in conversations for other people that are creating content, that's a, an important strategy equally, if not more important than what it is of posting your own original thoughts, joining conversations and leading conversations and being a part of conversations is how you.

[00:26:05] Michelle Raymond: Generate one attention to influence and three, you're going to be able to drive them back. So I say like your comments, almost like the signpost, Hey, here I am. You know, if you want to come and find me I'm back over this way. And so, you know, joining in those conversations is really important, just as much as creating your own original content.

[00:26:24] Michelle Raymond: It may take a little while. Sometimes people are nervous about putting their original thoughts out there because they're, you know, like we said, afraid of being judged, all kinds of things. And especially if it's original thought, it's not just something that's same, same as everybody else. And so a commenting strategy can be a powerful way to get started.

[00:26:42] Surbhi Dedhia: That's, that's interesting. Tell me something about your company page. Good trading company page on LinkedIn. As a company you are helping other businesses grow with their company pages. How much time do you spend on building your company page your own company page? 

[00:27:01] Michelle Raymond: Yeah. And so my strategy for that is to balance my time between my personal profile and my company page, just like everybody else's limited hours, I'm doing multiple tasks every day and trying to keep that balance.

[00:27:13] Michelle Raymond: So what I would say to people is if you can do three times per week on your company page, that's ideal. I don't, it doesn't need to be an everyday occurrence or multiple times per day. If you can get to that consistency, like you said is more important. So if that's. That's once a month, if it's twice a week, you can do, that's more important than doing five times this week, three times next week, 0, 0, 0 back around to five.

[00:27:37] Michelle Raymond: It would be far better off to do a couple here every week from what it would be up and down, up and down. And so from that side of things, the type of content that I put out and I encourage everybody else. Is the most helpful that you can do. So it's almost, you give away all of your knowledge for free people will see you as a thought leader or subject matter expert in your field and want to pay because they think if you're giving away all of that, you must know even more.

[00:28:01] Michelle Raymond: And I want you to know what that even more is. And, you know, the fact is there are a lot of people that will only ever consume my free content, you know, that that's just part of life. And I wish them every success with it because. It will actually also, they're the kinds of people that may always like, or comment on my content.

[00:28:19] Michelle Raymond: And I need those people just as much as the people that will hand over money. So it's about building a community or, you know, there's lots of different words, your tribe, your followers, all of those cool words that we're here, but having that community. And I generate that in my business by helping as many people as I can, as I said earlier.

[00:28:37] Surbhi Dedhia: Yeah. That's just phenomenal. I think that is also very true to your purpose, what you mentioned earlier, that's reflecting through your business as well, which is brilliant. 

[00:28:47] Michelle Raymond: And it's even my business name is called good trading Co because I wanted, and I was adamant, I would only be doing good business with good people and that's what I wanted to set up.

[00:28:58] Michelle Raymond: And so it's my guiding light for my brand to remind me that I don't need to put up with people that aren't sharing my similar values and to just keep being me and attract the right kind of people. Work with and yeah, and it's working for me and it always works if I just stick to what my goal was and stick to my strategy for myself now that may not work for other people.

[00:29:20] Michelle Raymond: Everyone has unique goals and everyone has unique sets of employees and businesses and experience and resources. Like there's so many different things that make us all unique. But the thing is just come up with your goal and then work backwards from that. 

[00:29:34] Surbhi Dedhia: Sure. This is brilliant. You know, one of the areas that I talk about in the eight P model of thought leadership is purpose, and that's where we start.

[00:29:45] Surbhi Dedhia: Be it individuals or organizations who are launching themselves into thought leadership, or are considering picking up on thought leadership. Purpose is just such a foundational starting point, your why. A lot of, lot of talk is around knowing your why and all of that.

[00:30:02] Surbhi Dedhia: But it's so heartwarming to see how your purpose flows through all the perception, points that you mentioned your brand name. The color the the vision that you're having and the way you building your community is purpose is driving all of that. 

[00:30:19] Michelle Raymond: Look, and I, you know, I've learned so much from you around that kind of side of things as well, and you're right. Like, and the more authentic that you are, then it makes it easier to create content. So I'm not trying to be offline Michelle and online Michelle, and there's no difference if you met me on the street.

[00:30:36] Michelle Raymond: So you're right. Like the purpose is equally important for companies because quite often when I find is people create company pages and it's odd, you know, it's missing what you call purpose. I just call, like, who are you really? Like? This is like the cardboard cut-out version.

[00:30:53] Michelle Raymond: I want the one that says actually I'm dealing with someone that stayed back till midnight to make sure my order got out. Or they came in on the weekend to meet with and fix, you know, an issue. That's what I want to see in the content. It doesn't matter you know what field that you're in. I want to know why you do it. Cause you know, everybody chose their career for a reason. And so getting to the bottom of that, and the more you share about that authentically is when you see company pages take off. 

[00:31:22] Surbhi Dedhia: Michelle, a question comes to my mind. There are organizations who are probably not having marketing teams, probably are outsourcing marketing as a department. And there's no wrong in that. But for company page, what would you suggest to them? How can they manage it? 

[00:31:41] Michelle Raymond: Yeah, and it's really tricky.

[00:31:43] Michelle Raymond: So one upside of company pages is that it's actually within LinkedIn's guidelines that you can outsource your company page managements with third-party. So they have all the tools set up within LinkedIn so that you can do that and you can do it at different levels. They can be just people that create content, or they can do the whole package and really manage your online community and different steps.

[00:32:03] Michelle Raymond: And so, you know, if I look at it from the flip side, so my business is one that's set up to help people manage their company. And I've learned what makes them successful and what doesn't. And so what that is is I know that if I start talking to a business, one of the first questions I ask is what's your CEO or the general manager. What's their views on LinkedIn. If that person doesn't believe in LinkedIn thinks it's rubbish, doesn't understand. It thinks it's about just getting a job. It will fall over. Okay. Now they don't have to get involved and do it. But if they don't believe in. It filters down. It leads by their actions and everybody copies them and goes, well, if they're not doing it, why should I do it?

[00:32:45] Michelle Raymond: And so it's really important now. They don't have to do the work. They can focus on other things, but they just have to be supportive because then resources come that way. And sometimes, you know, these thought leaders in businesses. Just a simple like or a comment from them generated out into their networks. It can work wonders for the business. And so finding the right person is something on the other side, I've worked out that it's so important because when I've worked with the wrong kind of clients, that is the wrong fit, I spend all my time. It takes about 10 times long ago. We don't get the results and I don't feel good about it.

[00:33:19] Michelle Raymond: And I'm sure they don't either, you know, because I want people to see results. And so do a bit of work upfront. There is two styles. There's often a cheap option where you get a nice picture and someone will create some text for you, but then there's the other option. If it may be worth a little bit extra to pay for someone that's a strategic business partner. They become an extension of your business where you don't have the full-time resources.

[00:33:44] Michelle Raymond: So again, back to what we said earlier, something is better than nothing. Done is better than perfect.

[00:33:51] Michelle Raymond: And the best way that you can do this. And this is something I learned from a guy called Joe Caruso. I was in a clubhouse chat room the other day, and he said something brilliant. He's got a company page for franchise businesses in the U S and there's about 15,000 followers. And he said something like Michelle, why not try all your content for free on the company page, work out what works.

[00:34:13] Michelle Raymond: If it doesn't work, you just change it. So that later on, when you understand your audience for free, just, you know, trial and error and learning, you can then invest further down the track in paid ads and other strategies, but if you don't learn what your audience likes, what kind of content resonates with them, it's going to be a really expensive mistake down the track.

[00:34:33] Michelle Raymond: If you ever go into paid advertising. Look at it that way. You know, it's always refining. I can't tell when I come into a business, what will work and what won't work, you know, it takes, you know, on average, I would say to people don't give up before six months at a minimum, you know, six to 12 months is just still the starting phase.

[00:34:52] Michelle Raymond: And what I find is people jump on. Create a company page takes about 15 minutes. It's free. Like off we go and they try things for about three weeks maximum and then go doesn't work. I'm like, yeah, no we're talking long-term for this. You know? And so to set those expectations really helps. Yes. 

[00:35:12] Surbhi Dedhia: On the topic of company page, is there. Unique tips it may be unique to a lot of audience here because you know, probably they don't even have a company page or have put it up and not used it. But from your experience, can you share some ideas that people can work on to enhance the company page? 

[00:35:33] Michelle Raymond: Yeah, no problem. So one of the first things that I would say is if you don't have one and you have a business go and spend 15 minutes or 30 minutes maximum to actually set one up.

[00:35:44] Michelle Raymond: And the reason that I say, even if you don't post content to it, it's another way that people can find you in the organic searches on LinkedIn. So organic, just meaning you don't have to pay for them. So if you're not doing it, you're missing out. And so that's at a very minimal strategy. The other thing that it does is you can go back into your work experience on your personal profile.

[00:36:03] Michelle Raymond: If that's where you're really building a lot of your thought leadership, and you can update your work experience and say that you're working at that company, and it gives you your logo instead of the little gray ghost buildings, which look incomplete. And when information is incomplete online, it creates a lack of trust.

[00:36:21] Michelle Raymond: When you have a lack of trust that gets in the way of opportunities, you know, and so at a very bare minimum, Set it up and update your profile to reflect that you work there. If you're doing a lot of video content, the company page is an amazing place to store all of it because there's a video tab, which isn't available on the personal profile.

[00:36:42] Michelle Raymond: So it's another way that if you're someone that's doing a lot of recordings, You almost get your own mini YouTube channels sitting over there. So there's other ways that you can use a company page a little bit more creatively and repurpose some of the content you've already got. So, you know, quite often the block is, how do we have time to do all of this stuff? If we've got to create it? My answer is it's okay to repurpose. Now that doesn't mean take a post. You did today on your personal profile and put it on your company page. That doesn't work. But it does mean if you've put a lot of blog content on your website and gone to all that effort.

[00:37:15] Michelle Raymond: It's okay to re-share bits and pieces from that, and maybe in different ways, but reuse what you've already got on hand. And quite often I find that, especially in the days where we have online storage, it's unlimited how much we can keep. And we seem to just have so much. 

[00:37:32] Surbhi Dedhia: Yes. the other syndrome I feel, especially from creators is, is the thing of information hoarding. So you collect a lot of pieces, but to not channelize them or do not share because you think that will be a perfect time to do so. 

[00:37:47] Michelle Raymond: Yeah, and this is what happens and everybody's waiting for that perfect opportunity that perfect day. And it's not coming. The perfect is every day just being top of mind, like that's where opportunities come from.

[00:37:59] Michelle Raymond: It doesn't matter if it's company page, it doesn't matter if it's this platform or another one being top of mind is where your opportunities are gonna come from. So yeah, get it out there. Don't, don't be tight with it. Share generously, be generous with your. Comments be generous with your connections, be generous with who you're trying to help.

[00:38:17] Michelle Raymond: And you know, that gets paid back. Absolutely. 

[00:38:20] Surbhi Dedhia: I love this sentence that you said perfect is being top ofmind. Brilliant. It is so powerful. .

[00:38:28] Surbhi Dedhia: Do not let your vision of perfect is supposed to be on top of mind. That's it of every community, every person that you want to touch in the community. 

[00:38:38] Michelle Raymond: Absolutely. You can trademark that one and it'll be our reminder forever because it gets in the way of so many people, you know, they miss out on so much and the fact is no one expects you to be perfect.

[00:38:50] Michelle Raymond: It's something that a lot of people just, , put on themselves and the, you don't get the opportunity to learn. So the more you put out, the more you go that worked, that didn't work. And you get better time after time. If you want to get better at creating content, then put it out there andlearn. 

[00:39:06] Surbhi Dedhia: Brilliant. This conversation has been so organic, so, I'm going to pick on this part who are the top influences for you because you do so many things.

[00:39:14] Surbhi Dedhia: What keeps you going? 

[00:39:18] Michelle Raymond: What keeps me going. I'm just passionate about sharing the stories of small business owners. Like I am just being one myself and trying to manage that and set it up from scratch. I think I have even more appreciation for it now. And you know what I keep finding, I probably ends up more inspired by people that have 50 plus that have had their careers you know, extremely well-known in their fields.

[00:39:41] Michelle Raymond: But have a, an aversion to social media because they didn't grow up with it. And I love listening to them and working with them and sharing stuff. And I just find, you know, I'm going to be genuine here. I find the LinkedIn community, the people that are top of mind that you work with. The ones that you would attract share common values.

[00:40:00] Michelle Raymond: So, you know, some of the trainers around the world, some of the most generous people that I've ever come across that I learned from that I'm inspired from, they cheer me on you know, and it's just so many great people out. So for me it's about giving back because there's people that helped me my career all the way along. You know, I, I caught up with my first boss, not that long ago. And I just said to her, I wouldn't be who I am because on a card when I left, she said, Michelle, you're always going to push those barriers.

[00:40:29] Michelle Raymond: Don't forget sometimes to push through them. And I have, it stayed with me. I was like 20, I'm like 45 or something soon. And so, you know, they influence you and inspire you and I want to be that person for other people. So 

[00:40:41] Surbhi Dedhia: Thank you Michelle for saying that. Thank you. You inspire a lot of us around here before I let you go, let's tell people where they can find you, because I know a lot of audiences are going to need, your support and help to grow their businesses on LinkedIn. So tell me where they can find. 

[00:40:58] Michelle Raymond: Well, you have two places. Of course, you're going to find me on LinkedIn and no-brainer, I bet you didn't expect me to say that, but I'm going to say, come and find Michelle J. Raymond. And the reason that I have the J in there is because. So many amazing Michelle Raymonds. I have a very common name but if you look up Michelle J Raymond's you'll find me and my company, as I said, is called Good Trading co. And if you want lots of free tips on how to get the most out of LinkedIn, please come and follow both of those places.

[00:41:27] Michelle Raymond: And if I can help you with like audits and strategy or company, page management, then reach out. We can have those conversations, but I just love connections with people. And I, you know, The perfect example of, you know, this opportunity to be on this podcast today is from being connected. And the more, I just never expected this in a, you know, when we first met, you know, months ago, I would never have expected this.

[00:41:51] Michelle Raymond: So you just never know. Right? 

[00:41:54] Michelle Raymond: Absolutely fantastic. This has been a phenomenal chat. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing all that you know about LinkedIn pages to do on the show. 

[00:42:03] Michelle Raymond: You a very welcomed.

Connect with Michelle on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-raymond-goodtradingco/

Good Trading Co LinkedIn Company page - https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-trading-co-linkedin4business/