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What if you could save 12+ hours per week in your business? Being a solopreneur sometimes focuses too much on the “solo” part: doing all the jobs, figuring things out yourself, and spending too much time in your business. But we didn’t start our own solo business to spend all of our time at our desk.
We did it because we want freedom: to travel; to spend time with our family; to watch a movie in the middle of a week day. That’s why Streamlined Solopreneur exists.
Each week, host Joe Casabona talks about how you can build a better business through smarter systems and automated processes. He does this by bringing on expert guests, and sharing his own experience from years as a busy solopreneur parent — so that being a solopreneur feels…less solo.
With every episode, you'll get insights, great stories, and 1-3 actions you can take today to improve your business processes and spend your time the way you want.
I want to get to know you better.
One of my big goals for 2024 is to slightly change the direction of this show to make it more relevant to you, the listener. And while the goal and topics have changed through this show many times over the 400 plus episodes, I wanna take a moment to learn a little bit more about you, so that I can better tailor the content to help you win and achieve your goals.
So, if you would be so kind as to head over to [howibuilt.it/survey], I have just a few short questions for you. And that will help me plan out the rest of 2024. Again, that's over at [howibuilt.it/survey]. Thanks so much.
2023 was a wild year for social media. Twitter turned into X. Meta launched Threads, and LinkedIn started off the year as a promising platform for engagement and growth before tweaking the algorithm and tanking all of that.
Matt Clark, founder of the Virtual Edge, host of the Rainmaker Show, and expert in sales argues that we shouldn't treat LinkedIn like a social media platform because it's not one. It's a professional networking platform. That means, we need to treat it more like a networking event If we want to make the most of it. And today, he's going to tell us how.
Look for these top takeaways. LinkedIn wants you to be intentional. That means you need to know who you're talking to and how you can help them. Make sure your profile is optimized towards your client. Do some research to figure out their biggest problem and how you can fix it for them. And if you don't know where to start, run a poll. This will reengage your connections. Ask 3-4 questions that are targeted to your ideal client. Then when people do engage, follow up and ask to get on a quick call.
This was a really great conversation, and in fact, there is a pre and post show for members where we talk about even more stuff like over simplification of things that you see on social media. I personally think that people like Justin Welsh and Alex Hormozi, oversimplify how to make a lot of money.
We also talk about guest posting and things like that, or podcast guesting. So it's a really good conversation. If you want to get ad free extended versions of this conversation, as well as additional newsletters and articles for members only, you can head over to [howibuilt.it/join]. I'm now on Substack, so you can join there. Or if you listen In Apple podcasts, you can subscribe to the show directly in Apple podcasts.
All in all, this is a great conversation. You can find all the show notes over at [howibuilt.it/401]. But for now, let's get into the intro and then the interview.
Hey, everybody. And welcome to How I Built It, the podcast that helps busy solopreneurs and creators grow their business without spending too much time on it.
I'm your host, Joe Casabona. And each week, I bring you interviews and case studies on how to build a better business through smarter processes, time management, and effective content creation. It's like getting free coaching calls from successful solopreneurs.
By the end of each episode, you'll have 1-3 takeaways you can implement today to stop spending time in your business and more time on your business, or with your friends, your family, reading, or however you choose to spend your free time.
Joe Casabona: All right. I'm here with Matt Clark, the founder of the Virtual Edge and a TV show host of the Rainmaker Show, which I didn't say this in the pre-show, but we're definitely gonna talk about that at some point. And I'm just gonna dive right into this. What are LinkedIn's Best Practices?
Matt Clark: Awesome. So, you know, LinkedIn's best practices, and this is the interesting thing is they give you such a vague set rules, right? Where they're like optimize your LinkedIn profile. And I wrote the list down here, so I'm gonna go through some of them like optimize your LinkedIn profile. They like pinpoint your target audience, create content that helps solve your audience problems. And you know, engage with your followers. I'm like, okay, great. You know, make use of analytics. You know, have a business page set up, experiment with photos and videos, use data to find your best time to post. Post consistently, right? Just blah. Help your colleagues help you, which was an interesting one that we saw.
Joe Casabona: Jerry McGuire, right? Help me, help you.
Matt Clark: Very Jerry McGuire. A hundred percent. Very, very much so. Let me Help you. Help me, help you. Right. And so, when you start peeling back the layers, then it goes deeper and deeper. So, you know, as we were talking about earlier, you know, they have this algorithm update and then you go from being able to message a hundred people in a day down to 20, right? So, they do like some really weird things that don't really make sense because their goal, and I kind of get it too, in the biggest scheme of things, but it doesn't make sense as a business growth tool in the parameters of best practices. And so their goal is that, you know, they are not a, and if we frame this right, it's like everyone bundles LinkedIn as a social media platform. It's not. It is a professional networking platform, right? And so, you know, if you are thinking about, I mean, we've, you've been to networking events, right? Business networking events.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Clark: Okay.
Joe Casabona: Just was that one last week actually.
Matt Clark: Yeah. Amazing. Right? I can't even remember the last time I went to one, because we travel so much. We just do everything online, you know? But you think about those bigger business networking events, you've got three kinds of people:
The first person is the one that goes out and hands a business card out to every single person in the room, right? And then you walk past the trash can on the way out and you see the trash can stacked with that person's. They've just wasted all this money on printing business cards.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: Okay. The second kind of person is the one that goes and you know, looks at, is very intentional or sits very quietly in the corner and doesn't talk to anyone. The introvert. Okay.
And the third one is the one who's very intentional about who they talk to. Okay. And that's actually who we wanna be is. And this is what LinkedIn is trying to get you to do.
And yes, it works, but they also are not big fans of automation. They're not big fans of having somebody else run your profile. So these are some of their best practices. You need to do everything. You need to dedicate an hour to two hours a day doing this post, consistently read the analytics. I'm like, you know, my business got so many moving parts. And I'm sure your business has got so many moving parts, like as small business owners, we've got a lot of moving parts. And generally as the business owner, we're responsible for a lot of those moving parts. So how on earth am I gonna dedicate all my time in one place ticking off all of these little boxes hoping that it's gonna generate something, right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. This, what you're saying is great. It really drives home something similarly that a guest from last year said, Kathleen Celmins about LinkedIn's not a social network. So I love that you're reinforcing that because you know, you see people posting the same things that they would post on X or whatever they're posting on now. And it's like, you know, last year I made $500,000. Here's my Top 5 Tips To Make 500. And I'm like, what? Who is this? Like, who's gonna make you reach out? Imagine going to a networking event and just walking up to somebody and saying that, right? Like, they'd walk away from you.
Matt Clark: It's insane.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: Like, you might as well give them your business card and hope for the best.
Joe Casabona: Right..
Matt Clark: Just print it on a business card and give it to them.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Matt Clark: You probably get better success.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So I love that you're saying that something else I thought that was funny that you said, like, in the list of best practices was like, experiment with photo and video, and I'm like, how can you experiment also be like a best practice? Like, shouldn't you know what the best practice is at like through experimentation? So, I just keyed in on that. I thought that was really funny.
Matt Clark: And they'll give you, so they'll give you, and they'll say, all right, so you've gotta test out between, you know, text and video and images, little images. And then also test out combining those. And I'm like, well, okay. That's cool. It's very general. So all their best practices come through is like very general.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: And you know, the question that I always ask and because we deal with like, our clients are B2B focused and their clients are generally other businesses or they're trying to talk to CEOs or upper level management or, you know, decision makers or other small business owners. So I'm like, if I've got limited amount of time in a day, where am I gonna experiment? You know?
Joe Casabona: Right. Yeah.
Matt Clark: Otherwise…
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right. You're like, you're not the scientist, right? And like, don't get me wrong.
Matt Clark: Exactly.
Joe Casabona: I want my…we talked about like stacking boxes and what do you want from your business and things like that.
Matt Clark: Yes.
Joe Casabona: I would love nothing more to just like create content and experiment like that. I love that, right? I'm like very like academically focused and I love trying things. But the truth of the matter is that I'm experimenting kind like on low stakes things at first, right?
Matt Clark: Exactly.
Joe Casabona: Like I'm not gonna experiment on my funnel because if an experiment fails, then I'm not making money in six months or, or three months or whatever.
Matt Clark: A hundred percent.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: And let's be honest. Anything that is not proven or anything new is an experiment.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Matt Clark: Yes. And I think this is actually a really good thing to talk about is that most people are going out there and they're trying new stuff in the hope that it'll work. And changing their business model or their message or their offer and not actually treating it as an experiment, right? And I see this happens so many times where it's like, you know, people come in and they sign up for a coaching course or mentoring course or whatever it is. And then the person is like, okay, you should do this. And then they say, okay, cool. They go and do this and it doesn't work. And then you wonder why it doesn't work.
And we've been guilty of that too, like I'll say one thing for us, right? We are really good at implementing stuff. And we've signed up for course before and they're like, oh yeah, you should do this. And we're like, okay, let's dive into this a little bit. Dive into this. Okay, cool. It kind of makes sense. Go in that direction. And then you look back a year later and you're like, why aren't things working the way or as smoothly as we want? Why have we not grown? And then we look back and we're like, oh, it's because we stopped doing the things that we're working and we focused on this new shiny object.
Joe Casabona: Yes.
Matt Clark: Right. We literally did this with. So one of the things that we love doing on LinkedIn is running events, right? So set up an event, invite people to an event 'cause there's such cool strategies around that.
So last year, I mean we added over a million dollars to our business running two webinars a month, right?
Joe Casabona: Wow.
Matt Clark: Driving all the traffic from LinkedIn, we did a combination of direct outreach. There's a strategy around how you get people to the events and how you get them to in. There's 4 phases: Sign up, Show up, Pay up, and Follow up. And then also running ads, right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: And you know, we saw 7.2 times return on ad spend and it's just amazing.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, that's great. Now, I wanna touch on something here too 'cause like the, anything not proven is an experiment. Yes, you have a lot of coaches who just like do things once and then they're like, this is, this must be how it works for everybody, right? Like that drives me. There are, especially in the podcasting space now, 'cause it's so new, there's like lots of charlatans, who are like, yeah, oh, you need to release five episodes on day one. Why are you saying that? Like, like what's the, well, 'cause you get five downloads instead of one download. Okay. Is downloads the metric? Yes. No. No, it's not 'cause that changes. That just changed. It doesn't matter.
Anyway, the thing that you need to also remember with experiments is that they're usually based on some axioms, right? Some immutable truths. And if you run an experiment, even if it's a good experiment that worked for the coach or the creator, whoever, or the course creator, if you don't have your audience down, if you don't have the right channel down, you can run that experiment and it can still fail.
Matt Clark: Yeah, a hundred percent. And you know, to add onto that, one of the biggest realizations that we had, and you know, I mean we've spent up $200,000 in our own education, you know, over the years, and one thing that we realized that like kind of slapped us in the face was that how we get client is also different to how our clients get clients. So it's the same thing. It's like if you're looking for a coach or someone to guide you, or you know, a mentor or whatever, or a system or a methodology, you've gotta look at, they're selling to you. But who are they selling? You know, who is their audience versus who is your audience? And if your goal is to help your clients get results, then will that strategy work for them as well?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: So you've gotta look at the whole ecosystem and not just, oh yeah, I made $500,000 in 30 seconds by, you know, with an ebook. You've gotta look at, does this make sense? Is this how my audience will react? Will they read it? Will they care about it, right? You know, there's all of those things and then you still even look at them and then you go into the metrics as well. So it's like, before you can even go into metrics, like, does this even make sense?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yes. That's, I love to put this really concretely, right? I market to podcasters. But if the people I am coaching, like the people who have a podcast, or let's say I market to solopreneurs, right? Through my podcast, I know they listen to podcasts. If their audience is on TikTok exclusively, I'm not gonna tell them to start a podcast, right? Like this is the classic, like it works for me, so it'll work for you. And I think this is the differentiator for like a good business person or a good coach versus a bad one.
My friend, Chris Lema is an amazing coach. And he is an amazing coach because he has been involved in multiple different businesses over 20, 30 years, right? And a few months ago, I was interacting with somebody who's like, oh, how long have you been pod like, I'm a podcast coach too. How long have you been podcasting? I'm like, I've been podcasting for 12 years. What about you? Oh, I've been podcasting since April. And I'm like, so less than a year? Like you can't really be a coach.
Matt Clark: I know you're a coach, right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right. That would be like my son who's playing t-ball saying, oh, I'm a big, I'm a hitting coach now. Like…
Matt Clark: Yeah. So a hundred percent. You know, and it's so interesting 'cause we also see this all the time and especially in this space too. .And I'm sure you see it in the podcast space 'cause I get a lot of stuff about podcasting. And such a podcast and all the rest Is in the the B2B lead generations space, right?
My Facebook feed is, every single ad that pops up on there is, Hey, are you a coach, consultant, or agency owner? You know, and whatever the rest of the message is, I don't really care. I just scroll straight past it. But if we've gotta look at, like, our clients are marketing to CEOs of large organizations a lot of the time, right? They're trying to reach the leadership team. Okay. Marketing to small business owners. That's easy. We've got tons of stuff, you know, that's easy plug and play. And you can do that in more bulk if you're going after a CEO of a large organization. I mean, some of my, some of our clients, you know, the clients thatthey're working with, the companies they're trying to reach out are doing hundreds of millions of dollars, if not in billions.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
Matt Clark: It's not the same strategy. It's a very different strategy, very different approach. Like we had this one client where, you know, they didn't need a lot of business, but their target audience that the one company that we're trying to get into was Saudi Aramco, right? Big oil company in the Middle East. Now, if we have to say, okay, cool. Build a lead magnet and get lead magnet in front of them, then, no one's gonna care.
Joe Casabona: Right, right. Yeah.
Matt Clark: Right. Put a funnel together, you know, market it on Facebook. They're not gonna care. So you need a different approach. And when we look at this, it's like, alright, it's not just that there's a one size fits all approach. It's like, okay, if we are going out after B2B leads, who are we looking at? What level are we playing at? And then you've gotta have the right strategy that aligns to that kind of client that you're looking for.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is so crucial because again, last year there was a turning point in my business, right? in 2022, my marketing was make your first $10,000 with your podcast. I thought that was great. Lots of people I talked to wanted to make money.
And then I had a conversation with my friend, Justin Moore. And he said the businesses who have like the money who can pay you the real dollars, do not care. He's like, they're spending $10,000 on their podcast, or they're spending $10,000 a month on their podcast. He's like, so what's a better value proposition? And I'm like, oh, right. And that was like a huge turning point for me 'cause like at the end of 2023, I started getting more clients and more people saying like, Hey, yeah, I need your help to improve my processes so my employees aren't wasting their time on our podcast.
Matt Clark: And better quality people that spend more money with you.
Joe Casabona: Right. Yeah. Right.
Matt Clark: And get bigger results.
Joe Casabona: Yes, exactly. So….
Matt Clark: and easier to work with.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, that too. Right. Just go do your thing versus like, Hey, I'm paying you a whole, a hundred dollars like what are you doing for me? Can I call you at four in the morning?
Matt Clark: Exactly.
Joe Casabona: No, you can't.
Matt Clark: Exactly.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So, I love that.
Matt Clark: Hundred percent.
Joe Casabona: So, okay. So, we covered, I mean, we covered a lot of things here in Act 1. All the druthers, right of LinkedIn best practices. So, we're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors. And then in Act 2, we're gonna look at the, maybe the immediate and long-term ramifications of just blindly following those best practices. So I think we got a little taste awesome here in Act 1. Aafter the break, will come back with Act 2.
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Hey, there. One of my goals in life is to help busy solopreneurs and creators like yourself win back your time and spend less time in your business. It took three kids and a global pandemic for me to understand the power of using my time wisely. And I wanna make sure that you don't need to go through the same thing I went through. That's why I want to tell you about my membership. If you want more insights into how creators build their businesses, more automation tutorials and templates, and even more great content, you should become a member. You'll get ad free extended versions of this podcast, access to My Automations Library, my Friday members-only newsletter called the Automated Solopreneur, Livestream Archives, and more. All of that for less than two cups of coffee from Starbucks.
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All right. And we're back. So, before the break we were talking about LinkedIn's best practices, how to optimize your LinkedIn profile. I meant to clarify, we kept saying they, who is they? Is it LinkedIn or is it like LinkedIn, like “influencers” who are telling you these best practices?
Matt Clark: So LinkedIn and the influencers, and it's pretty much, it's a blanket thing.
Joe Casabona: LinkedIn and the people who read what LinkedIn says and tells you what they say.
Matt Clark: And make their own stuff. Yeah. And LinkedIn kind of goes, they go very broad and they go very generic. So they'll say, optimize your profile, and then they'll say, put up recommendations, put up this and you're like, well, obviously those are the fields you need to fill out on when you're setting up your profile anyway, right?
Joe Casabona: This was the onboarding process.
Matt Clark: So, what?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: This is like the obvious stuff, you know? And like, do, you know, test with text or video or, or, or, you know, an image and you're like. Like, what else am I gonna do?
Joe Casabona: Right? Yeah. And to drive this point home, again, not, you know, I don't wanna pick on Grifters, but I want to pick on Grifters, right?
There was, I saw a post that was like, here's your social media strategy for 2024: 3 posts on threads, 4 posts on Twitter, 3 posts on LinkedIn with one carousel. And I'm like, one carousel with a link. And I'm like, isn't LinkedIn getting rid of some of these things that you mentioned? Like in December, they got rid of, I think like images with a link or carousels with a link, or the ability to upload carousels explicitly or something like that. And I'm just like, why? Right? Like what? Why is this your strategy? What are you posting? Like, should I put just post pictures of my kids on LinkedIn? Like, are people gonna care about that?
Matt Clark: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Right. Or like the…
Matt Clark: I think… and I think it also depends on, you know, who you are and what your brand is, right? Because if you're starting out, if you're a bit more in the beginning stages, you wanna be focusing on quality over quantit, right? So you wanna be making, you wanna be really intentional.
You know, as I was, actually, I was on a podcast yesterday talking about, you know, being intentional about how do you grow it? 'cause it's an interesting thing, you know, when I ask people and you know, I was presenting to one of my buddies' audiences the other day. They had like 1500 people on. So I love asking these questions here specifically.
Joe Casabona: Wow. Yeah.
Matt Clark: First question is, how many people do you have on your LinkedIn profile, right? And range of answers from whatever.
The second question is, what percentage of those people are ideal clients or have those ideal clients as part of their network?
Now, for most of the people that respond, it's somewhere between one and 10%.
Joe Casabona: Hmm,
Matt Clark: Okay.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: Which means that, and we think about this right? Now, LinkedIn is saying, okay, grow your connections, get to 5,000 connections, post lots of content, but if only 10% of the people actually care about what you have to say, your content's not gonna get shared.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Matt Clark: It's not gonna go anywhere, right? So, you know, we look at it and it's like, if we wanna be intentional, right? And some people are very intentional where they're like, yeah, 70%, 50% and above is intentional. But if it's less than that, then you've gotta actually go in and start deleting people. Delete anyone that is not an ideal client or that is not, that doesn't have your ideal client as part of their network, right?
And it could be the same for employees, or it could be the same for, you know, finding suppliers or finding services, whatever. It's anything that is not relevant to your business, get rid of it. Then you'll see your content start going, you know, start re-reaching more people. And even then, it's quality over quantity. You don't have to post 3-5 times a day.
So just to circle back to that, if you're starting out, post content, be intentional, connect intentionally with people. But we've got some clients that have got a massive brand, you know, they've got tens of thousands of people that are following them in which case then it's about your brand. Then you can post more often because you've got people that are already interested in what you have to say and they want more from you.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I think this is a really important distinction to make here, right?
Matt Clark: Exactly.
Joe Casabona: This is probably like not making that distinction as part of why just a blind strategy can be harmful, right? Because Joe, the solopreneur podcast coach, right? Who, by the way, he does post pictures of his kids sometimes because my target audience is busy solopreneur parents, right?
And like I can help those people the best. I'm not just like posting updates, right? Like hit, hit 500,000 downloads today on Transistor, right? Like that doesn't help people. Like I might think it helps me establish my authority, but people aren't thinking good for you. They're thinking like, well, help me do that. Tell me how you can help me do that. But a brand, right? It's like, oh, we just released this new thing or like our Holiday Coke cans are out, like check them out, right? I guess this is Coca-Cola specifically.
Matt Clark: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent
Joe Casabona: Not a sponsor.
Matt Clark: Yeah. We're gonna make that distinction there, you know. And then there's even, you know, there's even somewhere in between as well 'cause we also deal with organizations that have got salespeople, right? So there's the solopreneurs who are the ones who are responsible for everything. We've got organizations who've got salespeople. So, I mean, the one company that we worked with sent us 15 of their salespeople, okay. Both setters and closers. And what we did was, you know, you've gotta be leveraging the company brand as well, but as a salesperson inside an organization, it's all about how do you help? It's not about trying to sell the company. It's not about trying to sell your services. It's about helping people achieve a very specific outcome. And like, I'll give you an example of this, right? Is one of the clients that we worked with is an immigration consulting company, based in South Africa. And they have, they sent me 10 of their salespeople and I went and sat down with them and we came up with their personal profiles and their brand. We made it uniform to the company, but each person had their own unique and the like. And the overall message that we came up with was helping ideal client, and I'll come back to that in a moment. To immigrate to a first world country within 12 months. Really specific.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, I love that.
Matt Clark: Then what we did was we took each one of their salespeople and we targeted a different industry. So one would be focusing on doctors. One would be focusing on teachers. One would be focusing on Business owners. One would be focusing, you know, going through all those professions that they were looking for. You know, what happened? They tripled their sales in the first month of working together. Tripled like there's a video on my website that where the guy's like, okay, I went and worked with them over a weekend to do it. They're like, okay, this was the week before Matt came and then Matt came on this weekend. Here's the numbers afterwards, and they triple.
Joe Casabona: Wow. That's amazing.
Matt Clark: It's insane.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And, and it's so funny because I, again, I tell the same thing to my clients about their pod. Like, your podcast needs a mission statement, right? Like, who do you help and how do you help them, right? What problem are you solving and how do you help them solve that problem? Like, that's such a crucial question to answer.
Matt Clark: Agreed.
Joe Casabona: Because I think, you know, I made this mistake. I've been freelancing or in business since 14, right? And like I made websites for my parents’ friends. I was just like, “Yeah, anybody who needs a website” I'll just help those people, right. And so like…
Matt Clark: And then you, who do you get, do you get anybody?
Joe Casabona: Right. Yeah, exactly, right? Like I met like this woman in the waiting room by my hospital and my friend had Pneumonia. And so like, I was just, and she's like “Oh, you make websites? I need a website for my new business”: And I'm like, cool. And we like exchange. And she's like, “So how much would it cost?” like via email after. And I said, oh, it'll probably cost, like, you know, whatever, like $3,000, $5,000 or whatever. She's like, “I thought you said you charged $75?” And I said, I charge $75 an hour. I was like 20 at the time. So like, that was like pretty good.
Matt Clark: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: And she's like, oh, well my nephew can do it for free. And I was like, well, first of all, everybody has a nephew who can do it for free. I said, okay. well, I'm never gonna be able to compete with free. So, if you ever change your mind, let me know. Lo and behold, like a year later, she's like, my nephew did my website and it's a disaster. And I'm like, now I charge $200 an hour. Like…
Matt Clark: Yeah, exactly. So, and you know, this is actually, this is a really good point because it kind of brings us into some of the best practices on setting up your profile, right? And specifically for LinkedIn. And, you know, I love getting this piece dialed in because how you position yourself on, you know, Facebook or Instagram or whatever it is, is very different to how you position yourself on LinkedIn, right? So because we're networking, what we want to do is we want to be calling out that ideal client. So, you know, choose one. We call this the Power of One. Okay? Even if you can help 10 different industries, or 10 different kinds of people, let's solve one ideal, one big problem for one ideal client. Okay. And we use that as your headline or we call it the pickup line, right? Because it's there to open up conversations. We're not trying to sell everything that we're doing all at the same time. It's like, here's one big problem that we solve for this ideal client, and then it leads into the next steps, right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: So I mean, we, you know, we had that, we had the conversation in the beginning. I'm like, people come to us for three reasons, to have massive impact in their marketplace. To have sustainable growth and build a business that gives them lifestyle. Right? But our initial message to people is get 5-10 high quality sales meetings every single week using LinkedIn automation and AI.
Joe Casabona: Interesting.
Matt Clark: That's why they come to us, right? That's the first message they see. They're like, oh yeah, this looks interesting. Let's open up a conversation. And then we start the journey of the next and figure out, okay, why aren't you getting this? What's going on? What are the pieces that are missing? Because you know, your LinkedIn profile, the headline or the pickup line needs to be, it's a conversation starter. It's an opener, right? That's all it is. We're not trying to tell everyone everything that we do, right? Then your about section needs to talk about the biggest pain points that they've got, and then show them how you get them from pain to where they want get to, and you've got a system with proven results to be able to do that, right?
Look at the Linkedin Profile page as it needs to be a landing page. It's not a CV. Most people position themselves as a CV. This is who I am, this is how great I am. Here's some accolades, blah, blah, blah. We wanna make it all about the client. Hey dude, if you're in this place, you're trying to get to here, these are the common pitfalls. This is how we solve it. Here's the system and here's the outcomes. And then we even put up case studies, we put up testimonials. You know, there's, we've got a 10 point checklist of things that you need to have for your profile. But that's structured in a certain way to focus everything on your client-centric sales page.
Joe Casabona: One of my not so secret superpowers is analogy. I'm told I'm very good at this and so I'm formulating a new one as you're talking, right? because I think a lot of people view the sales process, right? Or the getting new clients process as a boxing match, right? Where you can go for the knockout on the first punch, right? Like it doesn't, there's no set time, right? But it's really more like a baseball game. You're gonna play a minimum of nine innings. You need to start strong. You need to make it throughthis middle, where you are playing the, I'm not gonna say mind games, but you're strategically working against an opponent or you're strategically working with a potential client. And then you have the closer come in. And close out the game, right?
Matt Clark: Absolutely.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So I think a lot about baseball. My members are probably, or my listeners are probably really tired of hearing me talk about baseball, but that's….
Matt Clark: Yeah. Well, because you like the numbers and the stats and how the game is…
Joe Casabona: Exactly, right.
Matt Clark: Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. I mean that's baseball, it's a numbers and stats game. And you know, it's actually 'cause people don't respect the sales process, right? They're going in and exactly like you said, if we want to stick with the baseball analogies, they're going in and trying to hit a home run off every single ball that comes in, right? Where if, what if the strategy doesn't require a home run? The strategy requires to get to first base.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yes.
Matt Clark: Like that's it. And then get to the next base. Get to the next base, fill those bases, bring in the clothes that can hit the home run, and then boom, four runs. Yeah, done.
Joe Casabona. Yeah. That's exactly right.
Matt Clark: But people don't respect the sales process. And it's like, okay, let's reach out. Let's just, you know, spam the hell out of people. Let's throw spaghetti against the wall. So, you know, I like to say this, it's like people aren't just throwing spaghetti against the wall, but they're also throwing the sauce and the meatballs at the same time. You know, so like the whole part of everything's just boom, hoping something sticks. And all you have, there's a mess.
Joe Casabona: And as an Italian, that upsets me deeply. Like that's a waste against spaghetti.
Matt Clark: Yeah. It's like, if I'm throwing a piece of spaghetti on the wall, it's sticking the first time.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, exactly.
Matt Clark: Exactly.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I gotta say for those members can see the video, but I got the, you know, I got the hands, I can't help it. I got the hands going. So, that's great. I love this. People don't respect the sales process, but also like the positioning, right? Again, you made this….
Matt Clark: This mm-Hmm. That's part of the process.
Joe Casabona: Yes. And you made this distinction again between other, so like social media and LinkedIn, which is not social media, right?
Matt Clark: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: I think that's really important. I think that's like the thread that's been throughout this entire episode.
Matt Clark: Absolutely. And it's like, you know, if you think about, if you go to a networking event and you make a great connection, and if we just use like a typical thing because every business owner has been to a networking event at some stage in their life, right? And if you make a good connection and you know, I heard this, you know, and you've probably heard this saying before, you know, it just takes one good connection, right?
But generally that one good connection that could come off in a year's time, right. What do you do in that year? Do you make that one good connection and try to hit them with everything that you've got? And they say no, and that's it, right? Would you build up the relationship, right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Matt Clark: Right. So that's what we gotta do. And it's like if we, what we wanna do with the LinkedIn profile is actually shorten the time between opening the relationship and becoming a client. Okay. So you have your sales process, you respect the sales process, but you can also shorten the timeframe that that sales process takes.
Joe Casabona: I like that. I like that because I think that there's wisdom in that because like you said, people don't respect the sales process. They go in, they DM, they're like, oh, I'm gonna get a client. If I send 20 DNM’s, I'm gonna get one client. Like, no, you're not. You're not. Everybody who says like, Hey, I can get you more listens on iTunes and like, first of all, let's not called iTunes anymore. Like you've already cut against your authority. Or, Hey, I can, I edit an episode for you for free? I'm like, I have, if you know anything about me, you'll know that, like my editor is a crucial part of my process that I help people with.
Matt Clark: Exactly.
Joe Casabona: And then there's the other side where, like to your point, I went to a conference in June, 2021. June 22 and like come May 23, somebody I met at that conference was ready to hire me, right?
Matt Clark: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: To help them. And that's a really long lead time. And so like shortening that lead time would be good especially for businesses who don't have, who are trying to build up more of a runway, right? Because there certainly are absolutely like Apple has like a 400 year runway, right? They could just like bleed money.
Matt Clark: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: But, you know, small businessowners, like…
Matt Clark: they're playing an infinite game.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That yeah. That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Matt Clark: I mean, if we even just look at the buying cycle, maybe not the buying cycle, but you know, where people are in the buying process, only 1-3% of people are gonna be ready to buy right now, right? Doesn't mean they're ready to buy from you. They're just at a stage where they're like, okay, their problem, their solution aware. They know there's a solution out there. They're looking for the right solution, right? Then you're gonna have 25% of people, 25 to 27% of people that are problem aware. So I know I've got a problem. I am stuck with this thing. I haven't maybe quite looked at solutions or whatever it is, but you know, I'm in a good place to be marketed to. And then you've got the rest of them which are 70% who are completely unaware, right?
And what I see a lot of people doing are they're going to take people from unaware to buying immediately, right? And if you can figure out, and this is the beauty about setting up your profile in the right way, is that if you can set that up in the right way, you're immediately gonna be targeting those first two tiers. Okay. But you're also gonna open the door for the people underneath. But they'd be like, wow, that's possible.
Joe Casabona: Right? Right.
Matt Clark: You know. And then you take them up the buying cycle.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. You make them problem aware and then you like plant, you know, it's almost like saying to like exactly a jewelry store saying to somebody like, Hey, do you wanna buy an engagement ring? Well, like, I'm not even dating.
Matt Clark: I'm 16.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, I'm about 16. I don't have the money or the, I'm not dating anybody like I'm super awkward. Oh, that maybe, that was just me at 16. But you know, so it's almost like the cold DM’s are like that versus someone who has been dating a person for a year and a half or two years and they know that they want to or however long, right? I'm just using my own…
Matt Clark: A hundred percent
Joe Casabona: personal experience.
Matt Clark: But it's true. I mean, like I still get DM’s, so check this out. I still get DM’s today where people are like, Hey Matt, do you wanna get more clients on LinkedIn? I'm like, what? You didn't even read my profile. All that they've done is they've taken an automation tool. They've kind of put in some broad targeting, put in a generic message, press play, and then forgot about it. And hopefully this is the throwing spaghetti, the meatballs, and the saucer on the wall at the same time.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yes.
Matt Clark: It doesn't work.
Joe Casabona: I got the same exact DM that was like, Hey Joe, do you want help growing and monetizing your podcast through processes? And I'm like, did you just copy my biography line and like paste it back to me? Like, what?
Matt Clark: Yep.
Joe Casabona: So they're like, we do a lot of research and I'm like, do you research the people you're reaching out to? Because like I do what you do and from what I can tell, probably better.
Matt Clark: Yeah. And if you know, and if you're starting out, then you're the one that's gonna be doing the research, right? If you're the one that's responsible for it, you do the research. As you start growing and bringing in more money, then you can buy back your time by hiring somebody to do that process for you, right? As long as you build a process out of it that they can take over this.
Joe Casabona: This is, I wanna really drive this point home, right? Because I've made this mistake like multiple times where I would hire somebody and be like, just go do your thing, right? And I am setting that up, them up for failure because I don't know what I'm looking for.
Matt Clark: Absolutely. A hundred percent.
Joe Casabona: And it's 'cause I didn't do it or try it first. So, and this is, you know, this is what, this is really whatannoys me with, you know, in the LinkedIn space at the moment, is that there's so many people out there that they'll say, cool, here's a process. Here's a strategy. All you need to do is hire a VA and let them run it. Right?
Matt Clark: Or they just go and hire a VA and they say, go get me leads on LinkedIn. Or these VAs are out there and they're just saying, Hey, I can get you leads on LinkedIn. And I'm like, okay, that doesn't quite work like that. Right? How are they gonna understand your message, your positioning, your tone of voice? What do they say when people start responding? Like you've gotta build those processes out first, and then once you know that it's working and it's repeatable, then you can hand it over to somebody and say, run this. Right?
Now, the cool thing is with today's day and age is that we've got a lot of tools available that, that make this part really easy, right? So we use a combination of automation and AI. So the AI captures the voice, sounds like you responds like you, and the automation gets the bulk of the work out there so that you can spend your time, you know, with people who are actually interested in, and they can drive things forward. People don't do that initial hard work. They don't do the market research, right? So we take people through a process called the ASK interview where they've gotta go out is if they don't have the stuff dialed in.
So, there's different levels of of clients that we work with. So if they don't have the stuff dialed in, or they're at a place where I've got too many things and I dunno how to position myself, I've got a couple of different businesses. We'll say, then cool, you're gonna go out and interview a bunch of potential clients. Right. And even people who are on your leads list that maybe they've ghosted you right, or haven't bought from you, you're gonna go back and interview them and you're gonna dive into their pains, their fears, their goals, desires. This is gonna help us come up with a couple of things: Your message, your positioning, what to offer them, what to sell them, right? Because we either going to say, you know, here's an offer, please buy it. Or we can find out what they want and what their pain points are, and just give them that. They're willing to pay for. But then also every person that you do this with, right? A lot of them are gonna be great potential clients, in which case they're gonna turn around and ask, well, can you help me solve this problem? So now you've got leads coming in at the same time. But that's the work most people don't wanna do.
Joe Casabona: Right. 'cause like, research is hard, or talking to people is hard. And I have an idea. It's, and since I thought of it, it's good. Right? I wanna reference an episode I did with my friend, Becky Pierson Davidson called, We Did It on Scrappy Research. So, you can, that episode will be in the show notes along with everything we talked about here. I don't think I've mentioned the show notes or the pro show at all. So, but I want to keep the momentum going. So now, you'll have to wait for that promo. But I do wanna reference Becky's episode here as well as the last business book I read before, I declared like a moratorium on business books, I was just like, they all say the same thing.
Matt Clark: What was it?
Joe Casabona: So, the last good one, I should say, the last good one I read right was Forget the Funnel.
Matt Clark: Okay.
Joe Casabona: It's really good, right? Because it talks about a lot of the things that you talked about. Claire and Gia are the authors and they basically go through like the importance of research and how it doesn't really take that many conversations to learn the language of your potential customer. And so I think that was the book that made me stop reading business books was, not to call out anybody here, but, like build a…building a small business, I think it was called Something like that. It's by Don Miller. Right. And like StoryBrand was a great book. I loved it, but…
Matt Clark: Uhhuh. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: You know, that book was just very like Generic, I feel. So I was like, all right, thank for his, you know,
Matt Clark: Things he's trying to reach, you know?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That, like, I think it was, I've read like all of the books I've read has given me everything I can, you know, I want, I should expand out beyond business books and maybe implement some of the things instead of reading more about it. So…
Matt Clark: Yeah. I feel honestly the same way. I got to a stage and everyone's like, oh, this book was the greatest. And even like, you know, a hundred million dollar leads and, you know, the, yeah, The Alex Hormozi’s book and all of these things. And I downloaded and I start reading it and I'm like, eh. It's like I know all this stuff already. And yet, you know, people will tell you, you gotta look for that one little nugget that can change the whole thing. I'm like, all right, that's cool. But I just struggle to get through them unless it's a really good story.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right, Yes.
Matt Clark: You know, like the, I dunno if you've read like, you know, pitch anything and flip the script, like, OCL 47.16 is a really good storyteller.
Joe Casabona: Okay. I'm gonna check those out.
Matt Clark: And those are fun. But I'm doing a lot more like mindset and energy stuff, because that's stuff that you can bring into your content.That's stuff you can bring into your sales process because you get to a stage where there's only so many processes and systems you can put in place, now you've gotta level yourself up.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, I agree with that. And so, I've been reading more like fiction and biographies. Like, I'm like working, it's like a slog 'cause it's like 600 pages.
Matt Clark: Love it.
Joe Casabona: But I'm reading Walter Isaacson's biography on Leonardo da Vinci.
Matt Clark: Amazing.
Joe Casabona: And like he was da Vinci. Everything he did 500 years ago is still like, really relevant today because he was like a quintessential interdisciplinarian, right? Like he was like an artist, but he also was really into Science. And the way he combined those two things made his work exceptional. And I think if you get into a habit of just reading the same books over and over again, or consuming the same content over and over again, you're gonna start to sound like everybody else and you're not gonna be exceptional 'cause you're not gonna have a new perspective.
Matt Clark: There's a really good book that I think that you'd enjoy. I was just looking up the author now. It's called Power Versus Force by David R. Hawkins.
Joe Casabona: Nice. All right. I'm gonna check that out.
Matt Clark: And he's got a whole series, right? But what it talks about is the different levels of consciousness In the world and what level of consciousness people are, or the world is actually at. And he actually defines it by numbers. And he is like, if you want to be able to move people through the different levels of consciousness, you've gotta have different levels of communication with them and different words that you use. And you can actually then start bringing that into your marketing like we even started testing this out with, you know, ChatGPT where, you know, we've built our persona and then we're like, all right, write an email with a consciousness score of 900 and it changes. It changes the entire communication.
Joe Casabona: Wow. That's wild. We could have a whole other discussion on AI.
Matt Clark: Totally.
Joe Casabona: Because I'm like, AI suspicious, but I'm like, you know, I use it, but I don't think I leverage it the right way. And I've had a few conversations at the end of last year. So…
I know we're coming up on time. There will be a pro show. First of all, there was a great pre-show, where I smack talk big creators. So if you ever want to hear me do that. But we also talk about like the importance of and problem with oversimplification. So, if you wanna hear the pre-show, great. If you wanna hear the pro show, where we're gonna talk about how Matt has been like traveling while running a business and how he's helped his business partner with three small kids. Also travel while running a business and a family. You can hear that in the Pro Show.
You can become a member over at [howibuilt.it/join]. You'll be able to join via Apple Podcast, Substack YouTube, or directly through my membership. So like whatever you are most…whoever you're most comfortable giving money to, you can find all those links over at [howibuilt.it/join].
Joe Casabona: Alright. So Matt, to close out here, let's give the listeners some actionable advice. If they want to actually do LinkedIn the right way, if they don't want it to be their downfall, what are the first one to three things that they should do?
Matt Clark: Okay, perfect. And I love this question. So the first thing is make sure that your profile is targeted specifically to your ideal clients, and that you're showing them how you can solve their unique problem in a unique way.
Joe Casabona: Awesome.
Matt Clark: Okay. The second thing is you need to have a different approach. So you wanna respect the sales process. We're about building connections and building the relationships.
Now, how we do that is we use a combination of automation combined with AI. So the automation does the legwork, so you're not having to spend 2-3 hours a day on LinkedIn. And the AI captures your voice, which means that you can be running your marketing processes on LinkedIn in 20-30 minutes a day, and actually generate 5-10 high quality sales opportunities every single week.
The third thing is if we are going and creating content, right? Do the market research, understand your clients on a deep level, figure out what is hurting them the most. So the content that you create and we love creating, what we call it, all kind of falls under what we call a LinkedIn micro funnel. Right? So, no fancy landing pages or anything. It can all be hosted on LinkedIn is create a lead magnet that shows them how they can solve this problem, right? A simple one pager or two pager, but make it quality.
And then the people that you're sending it out to. Then you create a training that goes along with that. A short 5-10 minute video doesn't need to be super complicated or professional or, you know, you don't have to overdo it on the editing and the production, but then walk them down a journey of figuring out, Hey, is this something amazing for you? And then the second thing is, here's a training. And then the third thing is, let's actually dive deeper into your business and have a conversation around that.
Now, there's one more thing that I'll share, and if you don't know what your ideal clients want or if you've got a couple of different things that you do and you're trying to figure out, well, what is the thing that I should represent myself as on LinkedIn. One of the simplest, fastest, and easiest ways to do that is by running a poll, right? We love running poll. So to reengage your database 'cause a lot of people have got connections from, you know, long ago and they don't know who's in there or how engaged they are. Run a poll. Ask three or four questions that are really targeted to your ideal clients. And then anyone that likes comments, engages or votes you then open up a conversation with them. Get them on a call and figure out what are they actually dealing with. You know, every time we've done this, every time we want to launch a new offer into the marketplace, we're testing out new messages. We run polls, we get people on quick calls, and inevitably we pick up clients at the same time. So that's just like a really simple, straightforward way. This is what I need to focus on here and this is how I can build this thing out. And it creates engagement that people are actually, it's a low barrier to engage, right? It makes it really simple to click and vote.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And so two things to drive this point home is that something that Kathleen Celmin’s also said we should do is have polls on LinkedIn, but also in, you know, I like to research my guests a little bit before inviting them on.
Matt, when I was doing a research for him, had a poll on the 60…60 leads in 60 days guide. So, practicing what he preaches here. Right? So, I think that it's funny that you mentioned polls. 'cause I was literally right before we got on this call, like just reviewing that stuff. So, I love it. I love it.
Matt Clark: Yeah. You know, we practice what we preach. And we gotta make sure that these things are actually working and that our clients can use them. So that's, you know, we do it, we do it first. We get the bloody knuckles, broken bones, and decide what we can actually take to the marketplace. Yes, that's gonna be relevant.
Joe Casabona: You do the experiments and then you see what works.
Matt Clark: We experiment on ourselves.
Joe Casabona: Yes, Yes.
Matt Clark: Exactly. We experiment on ourselves. ‘
Joe Casabona: Love it. Bring it back full circle, I have one follow up before you tell people how we can find you.
Matt Clark: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, that was right. That was all right. I said you a lot there. With the lead magnet, the LinkedIn micro funnel, are you asking people to join your list to get this or is like following them on your mailing list, I should say? Or is like following you on LinkedIn and engaging with you on LinkedIn aren’t good enough?
Matt Clark: So we use a combination. So here's the cool thing with some of the tools that we're using right now. Is that if we are connecting with people on LinkedIn, we can also enrich that data by getting their email address and getting their phone number. Which means that you can have an Omni-channel conversation with them. And so if we are saying, well, how do we do this? And you know, it depends on the strategy. Like I would always recommend grow your email list. Not everyone wants to join your email list though.
So when we have these conversations, we'll send it out and we'll say, Hey, would you like this thing? All right. we've just created a doc. Would you like it? I thought it'd be super valuable for you. And if they say yes, then we actually open up the conversation there and they say, all right, before I send this thing to you, mind if I ask you a couple of questions? You know, three questions on, you know, what you're doing in your business and where you're at.
So now, before I've even sent them the lead magnet, I've got a conversation going, Right? And either they're gonna be a good fit for what we're doing or not. If they are a good fit, then I'll say, cool, here's your lead magnet, and I'll get them on a call with me. If they're not, I'll say, cool or not right now, or whatever it is. I'll say, no, that's no problem. Here's your lead magnet. We'll typically put it on a very simple landing page that they can opt in for, but I'm also not too sticky about that because I want people on my email list that want to be there.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Clark: I'd rather have people unsubscribe than not read it.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm always tell people I'm happy to see unsubscribed 'cause it means that they don't care enough about what I'm saying. Like, I'm sending useful, I'm not just like, Hey, my dog died today, or whatever. That was a really sad example. I don't have a dog.
Matt Clark: Because he died.
Joe Casabona: Because he died. You know, I had a sandwich for lunch today. That's way more benign. You know, I'm saying like useful stuff. So if they unsubscribe then they're really not interested in the stuff. So I'm always happy to see unsubscribes.
Matt Clark: Yeah, that's perfect.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is great. Gosh, I, we can keep going, but I wanna, again, respect everybody's time. Maybe we'll have to do a follow up. And of course we do have the pro show. If you want to hear that, a free extended version, you can go to [howibuilt.it/join].
But, Matt, if people wanna learn more about you, where can they find you?
Matt Clark: Awesome. And so the first place obviously is on LinkedIn. So my LinkedIn is Matt Clark Rainmaker. It's the same for Facebook, same for Instagram. And then our website is the Virtual Edge, right? You'll see on my LinkedIn page there's a link tree with some free resources that people can go and grab. But those are, if you go to LinkedIn, at Matt Clark Rainmaker, and if you go to my website, [thevirtualedge.com], those are the best places to find me.
Joe Casabona: Perfect. And like I said, I will have all of those In the show notes, in whatever app you're listening to. You can also head over to [howibuilt.it/j401]. That's [howibuilt.it/join]. I don't think it was very unceremonious. I don't think I mentioned the episode number at all, but we are in the four hundreds.
Matt Clark: Oh God. Really cool.
Joe Casabona: So, yeah. Thank you very much.
Matt, this was great. Thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it,
Matt Clark: Man, I've had so much fun. And, you know, I think we got into things and into questions that people don't normally ask. So, I appreciate you doing that and having me on today.
Joe Casabona: My pleasure. That is always my goal. So thank you so much for saying that.
Thanks to our sponsors. And of course, thank you for listening. I really appreciate it. And until next time. Get out there and build something.