1681 – The Most Effective Strategies for LinkedIn Success with Fluex Media Joel Freund

Josh (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant, coach or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than $10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence and click on podcast. We'd love to have you. With us right now, Joel Freund. Joel, you are the founder and CEO of Fluex Media. You're found on the Web at Flux Media. That's Fluex Media. Joel, thank you so much for being here.

Joel (00:01:12) - Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Josh (00:01:14) - Absolutely. Well, give us an overview of your work.

Josh (00:01:18) - I'm really excited to have this conversation.

Joel (00:01:21) - So Flux Media is a company that is helping people. Building their presence on LinkedIn. Many of the very popular accounts that you see on LinkedIn Flex is behind them.

Josh (00:01:37) - In which ways.

Joel (00:01:39) - So most of our clients are people who are either executives and bigger companies or CEOs or founders themselves, and they want to have a LinkedIn presence, a good LinkedIn presence, for whatever the reason is. But it takes a fair amount of time to do the right and. And we are the company that a lot a lot of them are delegating this kind of work to.

Josh (00:02:08) - Yeah. So. Well, then we're going to be talking about LinkedIn for the rest of this conversation. All right. So for those who may be maybe skeptical or those who maybe have kind of given up on LinkedIn, what is the opportunity that they may be missing out on?

Joel (00:02:29) - The lengthen is a massive networking event. You have people from across all the industries, the almost the entire world is there. The business community.

Joel (00:02:44) - It's the biggest networking networking event. It runs 24 over seven, 365. And. And it's just there, so. You can do it at whatever you want. You can go to a networking event and waste your time. And you can go to a networking networking event and pitch everyone and make everyone upset, make everyone and run away. Or you can go to a networking networking event and build relationships. You can look for people that are. That you want to engage with. That you want to build a relationship with, whether they are potential clients or they're going to lose you to other potential clients, or they can introduce you to whatever just like you would do in normal life. The reason why most people are not successful on LinkedIn or the same thing is on any social platform is that there's a plastic screen standing between you and the people, and that fools people into thinking that this is this is somehow different. People are going to be people and human beings are going to be human beings. And the rules don't change just because you're sitting behind a plastic screen.

Joel (00:04:00) - So whatever. You wouldn't do it at a live not networking event. Don't do it on LinkedIn.

Josh (00:04:07) - That's interesting. You know, thinking about the content that we share and also how people misbehave on LinkedIn, I think we've all experienced it where, you know, let's say it's someone that I don't know and they're using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and the very first thing they do is come at me and say, Hey, how would you like to have a discovery call to talk about how we can decrease your IT savings? And I'm like, What? So why are you so irrelevant? And also, like, could you imagine going up to a party and just bum rushing somebody and immediately that's kind of your opening salvo there. I mean, that's what those folks are doing. So that's what not to do. And any other thoughts on what not to do on LinkedIn?

Joel (00:04:53) - Yeah, I was in the telecom space before I started this company and I can't tell you how many times I got messages from. Telephone companies pitching me phone service for the exact same thing that I'm selling.

Joel (00:05:07) - So, you know, there's nothing more offputting than messaging someone, and it's pretty obvious that it's just spam. It's just you just mass messaging. Everyone don't do that. This is not a this is not an email marketing. This is actually. People are using LinkedIn to network and to create relationships. They're looking for opportunities and they're open to engage in business. That's why they're here. That's why they're coming on the platform. And you're just. You're just killing an opportunity. You're just breaking relationships. You're destroying every opportunity, every potential for relationship there is you just destroying it. Don't do that.

Josh (00:05:48) - Yeah. All right. So let's talk about what we. Let's talk about maybe specifically about how we should be showing up on LinkedIn. And you kind of kind of tip this off just a little bit earlier. But what is a, you know, someone that's really getting a lot of value and sharing a lot of value on LinkedIn? How might their presence look like? What sort of activity are they doing? And again, just for context, again, this is what Fluid does.

Josh (00:06:15) - And we'll talk specifically about how fluid helps in just a moment. But I'd love to maybe just kind of maybe put a pin on some best practices for LinkedIn today.

Joel (00:06:24) - So everything flow is doing. Everyone else could do themselves. You don't you don't really need flux for anything. Flux is really just just doing it for people who really exhausted their time and they really don't have time for it. And there's a very small niche. The niche of people that need our services are fairly small. So most people for most people, you can do it all yourself. I'm going to tell you the basics, but it's not rocket science. It's very, very simple. You going on to the platform. You are a human being trying to engage with other human beings. So. That comes across and not only in the private messages, but in the content. If you want to if you want to talk, if you want to put out content, you are going to talk about things that are actually helping other people.

Joel (00:07:18) - Other people are going to either find value in it. They're going to be helped by the content that you're putting out. So you're sharing information that is relevant to your audience that is actually helping them. There is value in it or you're establishing. And when you share value, you're establishing your credibility. Because if you know, if you are, if you know what you're talking about, then, okay, this guy knows what he's doing. And you're actually help someone and you establish your credibility at the same time. Also, you can share things that you would share at a networking event or when you meet someone, just just when you meet someone that you want to create a relationship with. Imagine you work in the street. Imagine you're in a you're walking the street and you see a person that you are after. This is a person that you're trying to get. For a long time. You couldn't get an appointment with him. Whatever. Okay. And you just bumped into him on the street, and the person has nothing to do.

Joel (00:08:22) - He has time now. He's waiting for someone, and he actually has time to talk to you. What do you want to tell them? What are you telling them? What do you want them to know about yourself that you think that's going to increase the. Chances of you doing business with that person? What is it? Are you going to walk up to him and tell him how great your company is or why they should buy from you? No, you would start you would try to find common ground. You would try to find something that you can actually have a conversation with them. Anything about business, you would try to open yourself up. So if the person is into. Maybe the person is into sports baseball. You have a conversation about baseball, normal.

Josh (00:09:04) - People, normal things that normal people. Exactly. Like at a networking event. Right.

Joel (00:09:10) - Just have a normal conversation. So yeah, that needs to come across in the content, that needs to come across in the private messaging. And I actually we actually have a I created a little video where I show people how actually to go from engaging in content, engaging in comments, going to private messaging and how to start a conversation in a way that is just creating a relationship rather than just.

Joel (00:09:36) - Just cold pitching and spammy kind of message that we all that we're all used to getting. And if maybe I can we can find a way how I can get it to your audience. Maybe I'll put out an email. If someone wants to get this piece, I can send it out. But we walk. We walk them through the exact steps on how to do it, to do it the right way. People ask me, Do you use sales Navigator? No, I don't because I don't want to. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to do a single activity on LinkedIn. That is a mass activity. I don't want to do a single activity that is just spamming people. Everything I do is thought out. I spend time on each lead a couple of minutes. Researching them, looking up everything I can. It could take. It takes you three minutes to. To research a person. Today's day and age. You look them up on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

Joel (00:10:31) - If they have a website, you can find it in a second. Anything that's available. You should look at before you send a personal message. And then when you message them, it's specific. You know what? You know what the person likes. You know what he's into. You know how to start a conversation with him. It's not it's not that difficult. It just needs a little bit of brain space.

Josh (00:10:53) - Yeah, well, this is really interesting because I think I've heard before, right, where people are like, No, no, you can only talk business on LinkedIn, right? This personality stuff is not the place for not not the domain of LinkedIn. It sounds like you're I agree with you. I mean, it's just it's weird and boring. You know, if it's devoid of personality and humanness.

Joel (00:11:18) - 90% of content and LinkedIn is business only. It's true. But it's also true that 90% of content on LinkedIn are getting 1 or 2 likes. With almost zero attraction. And tell me exactly for what purpose you're doing it.

Joel (00:11:35) - What does it do for you if no one sees it? There's no point. I know. I know. It's uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable. And people in business, especially professionals, especially seasoned professionals and the way you you call them, I like that term. The adults. The. What was that?

Josh (00:11:51) - Adult adulting business. Adulting.

Joel (00:11:55) - Yeah. So those people specifically, they don't like and it's very uncomfortable and it's hard. To to to have to not be completely buttoned up. When you're in business, it's hard. I know. It's very it's hard for me. I'm the same personality. It was torture for me at first. Every single post was like. It's very hard. But you can do marketing one of two ways. You can spend a lot of money, ton of money. Or you can give up a little bit of the comfortability. And it's just it just works a lot better than money.

Josh (00:12:33) - Yeah. Okay. So how does Flex work with your clients? What are you doing exactly? Or what is your company do?

Joel (00:12:41) - So our clients are people who are who want to be on LinkedIn.

Joel (00:12:46) - They they want to do it and they just don't have the time for it. So we would do it A to Z for them. So the process is very simple. It's a unique process where we start with a discovery where we're building out a foundation of voice, the voice of the customer. We're getting to learn everything there is about the person, about the business. We're building out the foundational tools so we understand them, and not only from a business perspective and a business branding, but on a personal branding. We need to understand every nuance of how they speak, how they express themselves, words that they use, words that they never use. So because it needs to be their content. And then we're having weekly calls about 30 minutes every single week where we're having a conversation. And it's specifically targeted towards extracting content. The person doesn't realise what content and what what is not content. We're just having a regular conversation and we're taking those recordings. We turn that into content and of course everything goes through an approval process.

Joel (00:13:51) - The client approves the content before it goes live. But, but, but most people, when they start LinkedIn, they don't know what what is content, what is post worthy, what should I share, what should it talk about? So we kind of take the whole stress away. We're just having a conversation, get the information out, we write it up and and then with the client's approval, we start posting those stuff. The posts are exactly the client's words. We're actually using their words and their expressions. So it's exactly their content. But without the pressure of creating content, without the without any pressure, you don't need to be thinking about content. Everything is being done on the back end and it's still your own content That's not it's not ghostwriting and making stuff up from the Internet. It's real. It's real. They're real insights. The real the real content.

Josh (00:14:46) - Yeah. And then so obviously, I think a lot of folks that are listening, they're like, well, this all sounds good, but what I need at the end of the day is new conversations, new connections.

Josh (00:14:59) - I need to business development or sales. How do you then kind of make that final connection so that to say that they can have an offline conversation or a conversation outside of just, you know, commenting on posts, that sort of thing.

Joel (00:15:16) - So the way we do it is we built based on what the client's based on the client's goals. We figure out what the goals are on LinkedIn. Where do you want to go? What, who was the ideal client? We work on all those foundational stuff in the beginning, and then we design a strategy on how the content is specifically targeted to talk to those audiences, get them in, and then when they engage with your content, the about page, we want to get them to check out your about page. That's the primary goal. We want to get the the, the profile page.

Josh (00:15:55) - Do you mean LinkedIn profile? The LinkedIn.

Joel (00:15:57) - Profile?

Josh (00:15:58) - Yeah, yeah. Yes, I agree.

Joel (00:15:59) - We want to get people to look at the profile.

Josh (00:16:02) - Yeah, just profiles alone.

Josh (00:16:03) - I'll just. Sorry to interrupt, Joel, but there is I mean, there's so much opportunity, I dare say 95 to 98% of people listening here. You have so much more potential on your LinkedIn profile to spend a little bit more time and, you know, make it easier for people to get to know you.

Joel (00:16:23) - I can't. For the life of me. I don't get it. How people still you look at 99% I would say it's 99% of profiles are not properly written up. And it's just it's just it just I just don't. I spend on my website. $20,000. Okay. The best copy in the world. We really nailed it. I have hundreds of people looking at my bio page every single day. I hardly have. Maybe. With SEO, with everything. I have. 100. 200. That's a good a good week. On the website. The about page is the first place people go. This is where people look you up. It doesn't matter if you're looking for a job or you're the CEO of I don't know which company, if they don't know you, they put your name into Google.

Joel (00:17:13) - The first thing that will pop up will be your LinkedIn profile. Try it. Putting your name on Google. Look. Look what happens. And. Not to utilize the LinkedIn profile properly. Just what a waste of an opportunity. This is the first place people will go to look to look you up. It doesn't matter what you do in sales. Whatever you do, this is the place. So if you're not having a LinkedIn profile, it's almost like it's almost like you don't exist. It's almost like you're having a retail store, but you don't have a storefront. It's almost like you're having an ecommerce store, but you don't have you don't have a website. Like, how do you exist in business?

Josh (00:17:55) - Yeah. If, for example, Joel, I just Googled you Googled your name because I want to. Let's say I'm. I've heard about you. Someone was talking about you. I heard you on your podcast, and then I Google you. And by the way, everyone who's listening to this, you can play along.

Josh (00:18:11) - Go ahead and Google yourself again. People's Google results are going to be a little different, you know, depending on who you are. But I Googled you, Joel. You're number one. Your number one Google response or Google search result is your LinkedIn profile. And Joel, how how much control does someone have over their LinkedIn profile like to to communicate about anything you want there? You've got yeah LinkedIn gives you near limitless control.

Joel (00:18:41) - You can do whatever you want. Exactly. Literally whatever you want.

Josh (00:18:48) - What is the process look like for engagement? Like, who are you? Well, let me ask you this. Who are you typically working? Like, who would make a really, really great introduction? Like maybe based on kind of the work that they're doing, size of company budget, that sort of thing. Like who should be working with fluids?

Joel (00:19:05) - Companies. The best companies to work with are companies. They have an established sales team there already. They have figured out already their sales process and they are looking to incorporate LinkedIn into their overall marketing strategy.

Joel (00:19:22) - This is where usually where a flow comes in. We take over the account from the face of the company and we establish that we're putting a human touch to the brand. In other words, if you think about the difference between what's the difference between GM and Tesla? It's sort of you understand that when there's a connection, when there's a human connection to a brand, it changes the dynamics completely. It's a different world. It opens up limitless opportunities. It just creates a whole new life. So that's what this is where we come in and we will develop the, the the human element of the marketing piece. But but really, this is something that every single person could do. You don't need the fancy company to do it for you. All you need to do is spend a little bit of time every day consistently and just just work on it. Set up your about page, set up your headline, Don't write your title. No one is interested in your title. This is the most, most expensive piece of real estate that you'll ever have in this world.

Joel (00:20:37) - It's the first three lines of the of the headline. And you're right, you put in your name on LinkedIn. The first result is going to be the LinkedIn profile. The first thing that people are going to see is going to be the headline. Why would you pool you? Would you waste that for CEO? CTO? CMO means nothing. No one knows what what you are. No one knows what you stand for. No one. You want to put in something that is going to give people something to know about you or pique the curiosity. So they open up your profile and they read the rest of it something. The title is just. Just. You just wasted the most expensive piece of real estate you have.

Josh (00:21:18) - Brilliant. Very, very cool. Joel, your website, medium.com. Someone's been listening to our conversation. What's their next step?

Joel (00:21:28) - They can go on fluex media.com. You can schedule a call and will will tell you all you need to know about making making the decision. But but but I'm going to I'm going to say that again.

Joel (00:21:42) - If you if you have a little bit of time, people are getting intimidated by all those LinkedIn gurus and professionals and coaches, and they think that it's really so complicated that they they want to hire a professional because they don't know how to do it. It's not LinkedIn is not designed for professional. It's not designed for. You don't need to be a coder to do LinkedIn. It's designed for regular people, just like everyone, just like you and me, just like everyone else. And if you know how to use Gmail, you'll know how to use LinkedIn.

Joel (00:22:17) - Yeah.

Josh (00:22:18) - Agreed. Agreed. Joel Freund. This has been a great conversation again. Your website, medium.com. Thank you so much for joining us.

Joel (00:22:27) - Thank you so much.

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