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The Power of LinkedIn with Brenda Meller

• Laura Khalil • Episode 62

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“If you’re not looking for a job, stop making your LinkedIn profile look like a resume. Nobody cares that you generated $3 million of revenue for your last company if you’re a sales consultant. They only care about what you can do for them. What are you doing for your company right now, and what’s your company all about?’ - Brenda Meller 

Are you using LinkedIn but not seeing the results that you want to see from all your efforts? Maybe you’re not even sure where to begin, or how to properly use this powerful platform? Today I’m so excited to have my friend Brenda Meller as our expert guest on Brave By Design, because she helps people unlock the true power of LinkedIn, and has so much wisdom to share around this topic! 

Brenda Meller is a self-proclaimed “ambassador” of LinkedIn, national speaker, and the Chief Engagement Officer at Meller Marketing, which provides marketing and social media support for individuals and businesses, specializing in LinkedIn. She has been leveraging social media to propel her personal and professional efforts for over ten years, and now blends this experience with her marketing expertise to help clients achieve their goals.

You can find Brenda Meller and Meller Marketing online on all the major social media channels.

In January 2021, she published her first book, Social Media Pie: How to Enjoy a Bigger Slice of LinkedIn.

Other Important Facts: Brenda loves coffee, chocolate, and pie. In her downtime, she enjoys jigsaw puzzles, and it was such a joy to introduce her to you today. I hope you find this conversation with Brenda informative and helpful in getting you those results you are after using a social media platform that we are both huge fans of! 

Connect with Brenda: https://www.mellermarketing.com/

Remember to hit SUBSCRIBE wherever you listen to podcasts!

What You’ll Hear In This Episode: 

  • The amazing story of how Brenda went from anti-social on social media to being the “Queen of LinkedIn” [2:25]


  • What she says is really happening when people resist using LinkedIn [6:14]


  • Tips and tricks to get started engaging on the platform right now, including the very first step you should be taking [7:48]


  • Brenda’s thoughts on the use of bots, and the way that she prefers serving her prospects [9:43] 


  • How to begin walking through the fear of reaching for what you want - and a bigger slice of LinkedIn [18:05] 


  • A breakdown of her P.I.E framework, and practical ways to use it daily while on LinkedIn [28:26] 


Additional Links & Resources:

Brenda’s LinkedIn 

Her Instagram, Facebook & YouTube Channel 

Get Brenda’s Social Media Pie Book 



Resources:


Follow Laura on LinkedIn and Instagram


Solo service providers can be just as profitable as million dollar businesses. You don't need more staff, more products, or a bigger audience. Join 1000+ email subscribers who are learning how to sign bigger contracts every week --> https://laurakhalil.ck.page/



Brenda Meller:

If you're not looking for a job, stop making your LinkedIn profile look like a resume. Nobody cares that you generated $3 million of revenue for your last company. If you're not a sales consultant, you know, they only care what can you do for them? What are you doing for your company right now? What's your company all about?

Laura Khalil:

Welcome to brave by design. I'm your host, Laura Khalil. I'm an entrepreneur, coach and speaker. I love thinking big, exploring the power of personal development and sharing the best strategies from thought leaders and pioneers in business to empower ambitious women and allies to bravely rise and thrive. Let's get started. Everyone, welcome to this episode of brave by design you are in for a real treat today, because this is one of the few episodes where one of my actual real life friends is going to be joining us. And so she's kind of got Well, we'll see what Brenda does. Hopefully, she doesn't totally spill all the tea on me. But maybe she will. But let me introduce you to Brenda Miller. Okay, Brenda be good. Okay,

Unknown:

great.

Brenda Meller:

Well, I was just gonna say you forgot the part where you tell people I'm your fan club president. Did you not want to tell them that birth? Oh.

Laura Khalil:

Well, listen your words, not my flash stalker. No, I'm joking.

Brenda Meller:

No, it's fine. But the coffee mugs are arriving soon. For anyone who's wondering.

Laura Khalil:

Get in touch with Brenda, hook you up. I guess she's running my patreon now. So let me tell you about Brenda Miller. She is a marketer with a knack for social media. She is a self proclaimed ambassador of LinkedIn. I call her the queen of LinkedIn. She is a national speaker and the chief engagement officer at Mellor marketing, she is also the author of a new book that has just come out called social media pie, how to enjoy a bigger slice of LinkedIn. Brenda, I am so excited to have you on the show. Thank you for likewise,

Brenda Meller:

I am so been looking forward to this and I get you get the little meeting notifications, like your interviews coming soon. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, this is like gonna be so much fun talking to Laura. And we interact so much with each other online. But it's rare that we actually get a chance to talk one on one. So I'm really sure.

Laura Khalil:

Well, fabulous. So Brenda, you and I met a few years ago through just various networking communities here in the Metro Detroit area. But can you explain how you got so into LinkedIn? Where did this come from?

Brenda Meller:

Yeah, you know, it's, it's kind of funny, I don't, it wasn't like one day, I was like, Oh, I'm here. It was like, kind of a more of a gradual, like, it just kind of ramped up slowly. But for me, I was, you know, back in the day, if we think back to like, pre social media, like I was an anti Facebook person, you know, back in the day, and I No kidding. No, I was like, all my friends were on Facebook. And I remember was like, 2003 2004 2005, and they're all like, Oh, you got to be on Facebook. And they're all sharing the pictures. I'm like, I don't want to be on this Facebook thing. And, and I remember thinking that I'm a married woman, why do I want to be like, connecting with old boyfriends from high school just seemed really weird. And then I, you know, LinkedIn started arriving on the scene. And you remember back in the day, Laura, you would get the so and so wants to add you to their professional network on LinkedIn, you'd get those messages, emails. And it was like, you kind of ignore them for three or four or five. And then they started really ramping up. And then I remembered it was one of my co workers at work. Her name's Erica blanking on her last name right now. But she is a marketer. And she said, Hey, you know, we were talking at work one day, and she's like, you should check out this professional site, LinkedIn. And I'm like, what's LinkedIn? And she told me a little bit about it. And it was because of her, I signed up for the account. And you know, it's just from there. I just kind of started getting I'm like, Oh, this is cool, too professional networking site do I don't need to worry about the creepy guys and stuff on there. And it's just like, I found my place, you know, and I started really exploring it. One day, it was like 2008, I decided I had hit the proverbial glass ceiling, Laura, you'll appreciate that. Oh, and I happened. It was, you know, it was like, it was just a male dominated organization, I was moving up. And I was kind of told this is basically literally as far as you're going to go in the company. And it was 2008, which was like the worst time to think about changing job, right? If you were working, and I decided I wanted to do things differently, I didn't want to do the monster hotjobs route. So I decided, I'm like, I'm going to try this LinkedIn thing. I'm going to try to really lean into it and see what happens. And I found a job one day on LinkedIn. And I guess that's probably where it started. For me, I found a job on LinkedIn. And I applied through the HR box that they tell you. And then I also figured out at the time, you could see the person who posted the position. So I upgraded I think it was like 1999 at the time to upgrade to get premium. And I upgraded and it was the best investment ever made. because it allowed me to message the hiring manager directly. And he said mine was the first resume out of like, 200 to 300 on LinkedIn alone, it wasn't even including the monster and the HR and wow. But he said it was the first message he got from somebody about the position. And we emailed back and forth. We had an interview set up like almost right away and the rest is history. And I'm like wow, this is going to change the job. Search more Yeah, like if you can do this with hiring managers if you can connect them directly. So from there, you know, when I got into that position, it was a Business College in Metro Detroit. And when I got into the position, they really didn't have a social media presence. And guess what, that was my job responsibility. So people started saying, hey, you found the job at LinkedIn. That's so cool. How did you do that? And I had to get on Facebook, I had to get over myself and get on Facebook, figure out how to use that. And then I leaned into LinkedIn even more. And we started doing workshops for people that were out of work at the time. And they asked me to leave one on LinkedIn for job seekers. And I guess I, you know, I've always been a marketer, and I just developed a knack for social media. And yeah, I guess the rest is history. You know,

Laura Khalil:

I think a lot just as you were resistant to Facebook, I think a lot of people are resistant to LinkedIn, or they don't know what to do with LinkedIn. And I think it is one of the most valuable places that we can be networked. And that we can get word out about ourselves, but also meet people. And so this is really why I wanted to do this episode, because people are resistant. I mean, a lot of people who are resistant to LinkedIn, and who are entrepreneurs and who are not on there. And I'm like, how are you? How are you doing this? Brenda? Do you encounter a lot of resistance? Or is that kind of going away?

Brenda Meller:

I think the word I use to describe it is apprehension, or reluctancy. You know, it's it's intimidating. If they feel like LinkedIn has been around for 10 or 15 years, whatever it is now, and they haven't figured out how to use it. They don't have a presence on there. And every now and again, I'll bump into someone like, you know, I went in for a haircut a couple weeks back, and I was telling my hairdresser about it. And she kind of was like we were describing, and I was describing to her the difference between LinkedIn and Facebook, and she's a hairdresser. So Instagram and Facebook are her networks. That's where she's going to find people. Yeah. But I said LinkedIn is more like b2b, you know, it's for business professionals. But she's like, Well, do you think I should have an account? I said, Well, sure. Because if people look you up, it helps to provide validation. And if nothing else, it's creating the story that you want people to find about you, as opposed to finding a blank profile with no picture, and you're a hairdresser. So I would expect that you have a nice picture of yourself on there. And then she kind of made some comment, you know, she's like, Yeah, I'd be really great if LinkedIn took off someday. And I'm thinking, lady, you

Unknown:

have no idea,

Brenda Meller:

you know, but this is not her world. This is me the world I live in, and you live in, as well, as you know, working with corporate clients, and people who are very active in professional networking online. So but again, going back to ideas of the reluctancy is driven by sometimes fear or feeling overwhelmed or not understanding the network. But you know, they know there's a buzz out there about LinkedIn. And it's like, why can't I figure it out for myself?

Laura Khalil:

Right? And that's where someone like Brenda comes in to help show you the ropes. So Brenda, what do you think for someone who is maybe they're using it, maybe they've got a profile, they're not very active, they could be a job seeker, or just or a full time professional, they might be an entrepreneur? where is the best place for people to get started to like, Okay, how do I take this seriously? What do they need to do first? Yeah,

Brenda Meller:

I would say the first thing is, if you're not active at all, I'm just going to assume you have a LinkedIn account. So you can get onto LinkedIn. First thing is spend 15 minutes a day, every single day, every business day, Monday through Friday, on LinkedIn on the homepage, and scroll through, you know, treat it almost like the same way you do your email inbox, scan through, you know, when you scan through your email box, you pull up this subject lines that look interesting, and you read them and maybe respond to them. Ignore that things that aren't relevant. But on LinkedIn, you know, you can interact with those posts, just like you do on Facebook or the other networks, you can give them a like, or a reaction, or you can add comments. So try to focus on 15 minutes a day, seeing what other people are looking at seeing what other people are posting, give it a reaction to the ones that resonate with you skip the ones that don't, and then add comments, maybe two to three times a day, add a comment and make sure that it's five or more words. And the five or more words is key to the algorithm. If I see your poster, and I just reply and say, cool, congrats, nice job, it doesn't really impact the algorithm. And that determines which posts are going to sit in the homepage feed how long they're going to say there. And then how many people view the post, when you do five or more words, that helps the algorithm so it's actually helping the other person. But also the flip side of this is when you use five or more words, often you might be the only person who's putting a sentence or two in there. So you have a longer comment, the original person is going to reply back to you, people are going to look at your comment and a portion of those people are going to click to go to your profile. So by doing so you're actually building up visibility for yourself while also building social media karma for that other person.

Laura Khalil:

I want to point out selling with that because people get very scared when we talk about prospecting on LinkedIn and stuff like that. And what I hear you saying is just provide value. Yeah, yeah. Let us talk a little bit about the prospecting channel. on LinkedIn that people face, I may be like you can feel inundated by LinkedIn messages from people who I know, either really want to sell something to me or are moving me into a bot. Right? That is going to start like sending me these weird overly personal messages that like I've never responded to. So they send me another one. And I'm like,

Unknown:

Oh, stop, what

Laura Khalil:

are you doing? What do you first of all, what do you think about bots?

Brenda Meller:

It's funny, because I adopted a new technique about a month or so back. And I've noticed there's been an increase, especially because of the pandemic, a lot more people are using LinkedIn nowadays. But there's a lot more opportunity and people out there that are creating these automated services and subscriptions where you can like sign up, and it'll send out so many invitations on your behalf. And they're using bots and automated services. So it was getting frustrating. And it's like, this is what I do for a living. I want to train people to do better. Well, you're not going to train a bot. Right, right. But what I started doing is when I get these obvious salesy looking messages, I just reply back with test the word test, he St. That's it. And for me, I found more like, usually, if it is a real person, you're going to get a response there right away, they're gonna say, within a day or so they're gonna say, what did you mean by test? Or sometimes people are kind of clever saying, did I pass the test, you know, they get what I'm doing. And it doesn't matter what they say, I'm just trying to get a real person

Laura Khalil:

with the vibe and respond to that.

Brenda Meller:

Well, the bot replies back with thanks for connecting, we'd love to send you our white paper, blah, blah, blah, and book our scheduling link here. And then I reply with tests 123. And usually the bots, they stop at about three messages back and forth. And then you get a real human being that comes in and says, What did you mean by test?

Laura Khalil:

What?

Unknown:

Yeah,

Laura Khalil:

oh, my gosh, yeah, I am anti bot. I don't like these services, who I think, you know, the purpose of any of this stuff is to actually connect with a human being on the other end. So for people who do want to connect, they're there in part to do business. How do we do that in a non sleazy way? How do we connect with people without sounding like, Oh, god, what does Laura want? Now? What's she coming at me for? Like, what's your approach? First, I

Brenda Meller:

want to go back to the bad thing just for a second, if you're thinking about using automation services to grow your network, it's actually a violation of LinkedIn in terms of service. And you could get your account frozen or shut down. So I want to really knew yet, if you're using these services, I had one person reach out to me recently, and it was an automated thing. And I did the screening thing. And I got him talking. And I explained him, I said, Are you using automation? He's like, Yeah, I am. Because it's helping to grow my network. And I said, I'm curious what services and he told me and I looked at the the website, and I looked in the footer of the website, and it has to be there, right. And it says something like use of this website may be a violation of LinkedIn Terms of Service and may result in your account being shut down. If that happens, sorry, Charlie, you're out of luck. And by the way, we don't give a money back guarantee in so many words, you know, we write this claiming that, and I pointed it out, like I said, look at the footer. Here's what it says. And he was shocked. And he didn't even realize that. But yeah, it's a violation of their terms of service, because they're using automation to grow your network, but the non sleazy way. Yes. So your network is to make the invitation all about them. And they give you like, 300 characters in your invitation to connect on LinkedIn. And I very rarely use more than 150 of them. And here's what I do. If I've met you, I say, Hi, Laura. And I remind you where we met, you may recall, we met last year at Detroit together digital, when you were the speaker, you had an amazing presentation. Let's connect on LinkedIn, Brenda Miller, and maybe even shorter than that. Hi, Laura, you may recall that we met at the Troy chamber event pre COVID. Let's connect on LinkedIn, Brenda Miller. So I'm giving you a point of reference if I have met you, because we're in a day and age of AI, we're in a little bit of a COVID fog. These days, sometimes people forget the older we get our memories kind of not so good. So I'm going to remind you where we met, even if I know you're going to remember, I'm still going to do that. If we haven't met, then I'm going to say I'm going to look at your profile. And I'm going to find like maybe one or two things that we have in common, or something interesting that I can comment on. So it might be Hi, Laura, we haven't met but I saw your latest post about the hashtags that were offered out. And I saw hashtag show come up and it made me laugh. Let's connect on LinkedIn, Brenda Miller. So I'm demonstrating to you that I'm a human being trying to connect with you as another human being and the really the goal is to get the invitation accepted. And I have a higher likelihood of doing that. If the invitation is all about you. It's not about me,

Laura Khalil:

right? I love that piece of advice. It's actually very similar to a piece of advice that I give for people who want to be on pod. I say stop making It all about you talk about what is going to benefit them. Like that's you've got to think in terms of other people and what they value. Now we got to take a step back, because you just mentioned my latest LinkedIn conundrum, which the audience does not know about. But I feel personally attacked by LinkedIn, because they have if anyone uses it regularly, like I do, and like Brenda, does, they give you recommended hashtags. And the hashtag that they gave me is show. Excuse me, what are you trying to tell me LinkedIn? wtf? Like, what? And so I immediately contacted Brenda, and I was like, What do I do? How do I? Why does LinkedIn think I'm a show I feel both seen and attacked? And like, how do we And anyway, they still don't have an answer, Brenda? But

Brenda Meller:

now you contacted LinkedIn, right? Yep. And what did they say? Did they give you anything? Was it a non response, basically? Or

Laura Khalil:

they were like, oh, does this only happen on mobile? I'm like, no, it's happening everywhere I go

Brenda Meller:

to read your question. This is only happen on mobile, like, what does that have to do with the hashtag?

Laura Khalil:

No, they didn't. They were just and then I said, No, it happens everywhere. I do not believe I've used this hashtag before.

Unknown:

At least on LinkedIn.

Laura Khalil:

Not on LinkedIn. Come on. That's the after our show people not on LinkedIn, reach out to Twitter and tweet to at LinkedIn help by any Yes. And they said it was totally unacceptable.

Brenda Meller:

But then hey, so but you see what happened there? Like my, my philosophy on this is LinkedIn, on LinkedIn, their customer service is kind of like their lower level, like their entry level people. Yes, they give you non responses, they basically pull a bunch of answers out of a hat. And they're like, Yeah, that one looks good, or whatever.

Laura Khalil:

Whereas if you

Brenda Meller:

go on Twitter, it's kind of like they've graduated up there, like level two, customer service tech support people and they give you at least you get a human being responding to you with it with a genuine answer may not always answer your question, but it's like, at least they read it. Which is kind of interesting, right?

Laura Khalil:

Don't know totally. I mean, there's very clearly like, absolutely that delineation. Anyway, that is my personal LinkedIn conundrum right now. It has been for like the last month of I keep getting the hashtag

Unknown:

childhood only come

Laura Khalil:

up once or is it coming up? No, it comes up all the time.

Brenda Meller:

I just don't even understand. And you didn't comment on it. In the post at all? Did you? What poke when it came up? I know, you posted and talked about it? Did you use the hashtag? Or was it just oh,

Laura Khalil:

no, no, no, I did not use the hashtag. Absolutely not. I don't need more of that. In my LinkedIn, who is actually searching LinkedIn for that hashtag. I'm seriously

Brenda Meller:

inclined to like, pull up my phone and like, do it right now. Because I'm like, who is using? it? Is somebody like saying, check out at Laura, you know, are they tagging? Yes. using the hashtag?

Laura Khalil:

She's a real show. What? Yeah, no, I have to block that person. If that has happened throughout who done Yeah, get out of my life. But no, I mean, but those are kind of some like the weird, quirky things that of course, happen on these social networks. Well, actually, let's talk about social media Pite the book, which is how to get a bigger slice of LinkedIn. What inspired you to write the book because technology is moving so quickly, and I think some people are scared, if I buy the book will outdated next week. So tell us a little bit more about your thought and methodology and process behind the book?

Brenda Meller:

Yeah. And actually, what that hesitation held me back from probably writing the book sooner than I did, because I was always worried about what if I publish it and then to do an overhaul? Right, even then, you know, the changes LinkedIn makes, they're slow, and they're incremental. And if you read the book, you'll notice there's no pictures anywhere in the book. There's no screen captures or anything like that. And I intentionally didn't put anything in. Because I knew that even if they changed, where privacy and settings was, and what the navigation looked like, I knew there was going to be a box called email addresses, right. And by not putting pictures, I was allowing myself the flexibility to keep up with the technology. Yeah, and if you do buy a copy of the printed book, you do get a digital version of it. There's really only been one small change that it's starting to happen right now, that would impact something in the book. And it's the who viewed your profile trend line. They're starting to phase it out for free basic members, but premium members still get access to it. So for me, I mean, what inspired me to write the book, I've always wanted to write a book. I mean, back in the day, I was like, I wanted to write like a fiction book, like Danielle steel was one of my favorite romance, you know, growing up, yes.

Laura Khalil:

Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.

Brenda Meller:

So I always wanted to and I think I started a couple books over the years and I just never, I never really had a plan. It was more like I dabbled, I journaled and stuff like that. But then, when, you know when I started to really get heavier into marketing, social media, and I started blogging, and then from time to time, I would be asked to speak at a webinar or a conference or an event. And you know, you start to get a lot of knowledge and every time you present you get somebody asking new, sometimes different questions that make you think on your feet you have to go research come back and you're you're gaining new knowledge. And then occasionally people will be of my talk, they would come up to me, and you know, want to get a picture or a selfie, whatever. And they're like, do you have a book? And I buy your book? And I'm like, No, I don't have a book. And, and you get enough people saying, Where can I buy your book? Like, they're assuming you have one. And it's kind of like, you know, I don't know about you, Laura. But before leaving corporate, I had people saying, you know, you could be an independent consultant, and I'm like, oh, you're crazy. I could never leave corporate, you know, I couldn't do that. But it's the same thing. Like people saw something in me that I didn't see in myself yet. I could be a LinkedIn author. So no, the inspiration It started with, I've always wanted to be a writer. And then I felt like I had this body of knowledge about LinkedIn, blogs and videos, I'm like, I can probably piece it together. And then I was struggling with both the, the technology, what if I write it and then just outdated immediately, which is not gonna change that fast? And then the other part was, there's so many other books about LinkedIn out there, how am I going to make it any different? And are people gonna buy it? And you know, then I was like, Well, you know what, I've got my own perspective of LinkedIn. And I've got, you know, a nice following of people, and you know, people who were fans and ambassadors of me, so I'm just gonna push it out. And if I sell 100, copies, great, you know, done, check off the box, I have a book, when life opens up again, and I go to conferences, I'll be one of those people that have the table at the end of the, you know, I'm talking about the conference table with the books and I'll be hand autographing copies. And you know, we'll call it today. But you know, then I ended up figuring out my own special flair on it was my personality. And it was my approach to using LinkedIn. And then I incorporated that with my love of pi. Yeah, and the whole topic. It's called social media pie. Because I'm a big believer in the whole concept of social media karma, paying it forward, shining the spotlight on others, knowing that the universe will pay you back for that. And then there's also a focus on pie like the actual bakery item, a pie, which is something that I love and pre COVID. Laura, if we were at an event, I would introduce myself. And then I would say, in addition to my, my job, and family, I love coffee, chocolate, and pie and pie is like unique is that there's like the bacon lovers and the cupcake covers. But the pie is kind of like something that's kind of different. But everybody's got a story. So I would say, and I love pie. And I would say I want to ask a couple volunteers from the audience to stand up. Tell me your name and your business, and what's your favorite kind of pie. And you get a couple people raising their hand and they would say, you know, Hi, my name is Joe, I work at ABC company. And I love apple pie, because my grandma used to make it at Thanksgiving. And then you know, Sheila would stand up. Hi, my name Sheila. And I love key lime pie, because it reminds me of my honeymoon in Key West. And there's always a little story behind, like, why people love the pie that they do. And I'm like, it's it's just something that nobody really owns, like pie wasn't something that anybody owned out there.

Unknown:

So well, you know, I

Laura Khalil:

have to tell you, I think there's a couple things I want to pull out from what you've said that I think are really important. Getting over the fears of creating this book of saying, yes, these fears are real, and they exist. And I'm going to do it, anyhow, is really huge for the audience to hear. Because I want everyone to understand, yeah, we're talking about LinkedIn today. But we're also talking about going after your dreams going after things that you believe in. And that is always going to encounter a level of resistance that's really primarily from within us. Right? That we have to say, okay, yep, I'm scared and I'm moving forward. So I really want to honor you for that. Because I think it's a huge accomplishment. People ask me for my book all the time. I'm like, I'm hearing you're talking and I'm just like, oh, Lord,

Brenda Meller:

does it sound familiar? Like when I say it to you, you're like, yeah, that's that's happened at thing. Have you have you noodled at Laura on, this is now becoming a coaching session. The idea of like, what your book would be about, have you thought about, like, what the book will be about if you were to write

Laura Khalil:

Brenda, you know, that I have at least five books in me. So

Brenda Meller:

I mean, I'm surprised that you don't have five books published

Laura Khalil:

yet. Really? Well, first of all, you know, the whole sister story about my nine half siblings that I

Brenda Meller:

yeah, that's a book right.

Laura Khalil:

That's a book right. Okay. So, book, right. There are people who follow me on Instagram, as you know, I'm talking endlessly about relationships, dating and clear communication. That could be a couple of books. I mean, that'd be one but it could be a couple shows show could be another book. That's my third book. Hashtag show that interesting. Laura, when

Brenda Meller:

I when I think about when I was going through this process, and I started really noticing, like, it's kind of like when you want to buy a used car, you start noticing used cars everywhere in every corner, right? And when you start thinking about writing a book, you start to change the way you look at books and books of people that you know, I would start you know, purchasing books from from friends from connections and things like that. And I remember like this one, and it was it was a fellow LinkedIn coach, and she was talking about this book forever. And she finally published it and it was like $5 for the book, and I'm like, Alright, I'll pay five or maybe was $12 was cheap. And I bought it off of Amazon and I did like the pre order thing, and then it was sent out, and it was this small little

Unknown:

booklet.

Brenda Meller:

It was like, I'm gonna say You're gonna post it Notepad, but it was, it wasn't like a one piece novel, right? That's a book. And I'm like, Yeah, it's a book, she made a book. It was like 50 tips on LinkedIn. And I was flipping through and I'm like, Oh my gosh, she can write a book, I can write a book, you know, you started to look through everybody, you know, calls a book, something different. But you know, book can be 300 pages, or a book can be 50 pages. And a book can be quick tips, or it can be a novel, you know. So when you think about getting out of the the mindset of this is what a book should be, and make the book what you want it to be. It's

Laura Khalil:

kind of freeing. I love that. And I think that's a really good point. All right, so find Brenda, there'll be a book coming, you've convinced me? Well, there's at least one coming, you know, will you write the foreword for my business book,

Unknown:

I would love to write the foreword for your business book.

Laura Khalil:

Hey, there we go. Okay, wait a minute. The second thing you mentioned, that I think is critically important is this issue of pie. Because to your point, and by the way, guys, for those listening to this episode, we have talked about how to differentiate yourselves, when there's a lot of people doing what you do. We've talked about that a few episodes ago. So check that out. But this is it. It's not that Brenda has rediscovered us. I mean, maybe you have Brenda, but I don't think you've discovered like some magical secret about LinkedIn that nobody ever knew. And like, you know, you're going to be sharing these secrets that are previously undiscovered, it's that you have a unique personality that certain people are really attracted to. And for you, that is really the court what I see is a cornerstone of that is your connection to pi, it is part of your brand. It's what makes you stand out. It's how it's even in your name on LinkedIn, if I remember correctly, you have like a pie emoji is still

Brenda Meller:

but I am going to probably be taking it out because I've noticed over time, the algorithm is not giving me as many profile views as I used to generate. And I have heard from a few people that having an emoji in your name field could be hindering you from search results. So I wanted to actually had a coffee cup emoji for the longest time in My Name field. Because every time someone would tag me on LinkedIn, Laura was like my name would have I was like, oh, they're giving me a cup of coffee. It was kind of neat. And it's a bunch of people will be tagged in a post mine would stick out because it had a coffee cup next to it. And it was a nice marketer's perspective. It's a nice visual element, you know, named a name, obviously, a coffee cup, you're like, Oh, what's that? So I'm, I'm torn. But I think I'm going to test taking it out for a month just to see if it does impact my search results. But yeah, pi has become that personal branding item. For me it

Laura Khalil:

is, and it's so critical. And it's just, it's like, if you resonate with that, you're gonna love Brenda, because it's so much. First, you're so much fun.

Brenda Meller:

I try. But 10 people do connect with me. And they and I even have like in my about statement on LinkedIn, if you read it all the way through at the bottom, I say, here's a tip on how to connect with me visit the More button. And then in your invitation, tell me your favorite kind of pie. And if you read my book, you'll see at the end of every chapter of my book, I give a shout out to one of those people and I put their LinkedIn URL and I tell you their favorite pie what they told me in their invitation, but I have some people that say, I actually don't like pie at all. I don't like desserts. Would pizza count. And I'm like, sure pizza

Unknown:

pie. And

Brenda Meller:

I'm like, I'm not going to not accept your invitation because you don't like pie. I

Unknown:

personally, Laura,

Brenda Meller:

I don't really like cake. You know, and sorry to offend all of your listeners to my cake lovers, but I just feel like it's too sweet. And there's too much icing and it's okay. I'm just not a super sugary, sugary person, like pie. I feel like there's some, there's a cross and there's some more substance to it. There's some fruit in there. So you feel like there's nutrition? I don't know, maybe

Laura Khalil:

we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. It's okay.

Brenda Meller:

Right? This is what makes the world go round. This is why there are bakeries and cheese, cake shops and bacon, you know, casseras? I mean, there's all kinds of things out there, right? Absolutely.

Laura Khalil:

I think it's fabulous. So Brenda, wrapping up this incredibly fun half hour with you. I want to ask you, if you could give a couple pieces of advice to the audience when they're thinking about how to optimize LinkedIn.

Brenda Meller:

So let me give you my pie acronym. This will help you to remember it he ie the P stands for profile, so optimize your profile for your ideal target audience. So think right now, who is your ideal target audience? that's who you're writing your profile for. So if you're not looking for a job, stop making your LinkedIn profile look like a resume. Nobody cares that you generated$3 million of revenue for your last company. If you're not a sales consultant, you know, they only care what can you do for them? What can What are you doing for your company right now? What's your company all about? So look at your profile from top to bottom and think about every element, your header image, your headline, your about say Then your skills? How are those tailored to your ideal target audience?

Laura Khalil:

So that's the pen who you are today. Because today I've gone through a career transition. Absolutely.

Brenda Meller:

Okay. Love it. The AI stands for invitation strategy. So I already gave you this tip earlier. But when you send out an invitation, always, always, always include a personal note and make it all about them. The goal of that invitation is to get it accepted, because then you have an approval to message that person back and forth. And once we gain trust, and we develop a relationship, it's easier to do business with people. So go slowly through that process, don't immediately after the except push them a big sales pitch, because you're going to scare people away, but go slower and use a personalized approach in that invitation. So that's the I love it. And the third, he already talked about it in the show to engagement. So think about focusing some time every single business day in the homepage feed, interacting with people's posts, commenting on it, and then post yourself. And in fact, I love it if anybody who's listening to the show right now go on to LinkedIn today and say something like this just listened to an amazing podcast by at Laura Khalil, you know, tag Laura in there, called brave by design featuring at Brenda Miller tag me, both Laura and I will get a notification By the way, both Laura and I will reply back and thank you and you know, share some love your way. And then tell people something that you learn by watching the podcast by listening to the podcast, tell some people something that you learn by being active, that's helping to keep you visible within your network. And I like learning about you. But I like talking more about other people than I do talk about myself. And I found this is really going to help to build up this social media karma. Who will bring opportunities back to you? It might seem a little counterintuitive, but give it a try. And what I find is that when I talk more about other people, some of those people are going to click on my profile, or the people viewing that poster and click on my profile where then they're going to read about me and guess what now they're receptive, because they took that action to click to go to my profile. I didn't push it on them. I love that. I

Laura Khalil:

think that's actually a brilliant, brilliant strategy. Brenda, for people who are chomping at the fork right now, to get a piece of social media pie. Yeah, where can they learn more?

Brenda Meller:

So go to Mellor marketing.com that's m e. ll er marketing calm it's like Keller but with an M. And if you go in that top of my webpage, there's a link that says book. I'm gonna make it super, super easy. I'm not going to give you a fancy long address. Just go to Mellor marketing calm in the top of the webpage, click on book. If you order the book from my website, you'll get an autographed copy and I ship it out in my signature pink envelope. If you prefer, you can order from Amazon as well that's not autographed. But you can have that shipped to anywhere in the world if

Laura Khalil:

you go through that link. I love that. Brenda, thank you so much for joining us on brave by design.

Brenda Meller:

This was such a fun time, Laura, thank you so much.

Laura Khalil:

I want to thank you for joining me and remember to subscribe through your favorite app so you can stay up to date. And I would love your review. If you've enjoyed this episode. Please leave a review and comment on Apple podcasts. You can also keep in touch with me online. You can find me on LinkedIn and I'm also on Instagram at force of badassery. All that information will be available in the show notes. Until next time, stay brave