Act Now: LinkedIn Newsletters Convert Faster Than Posts! with Dean Seddon

Episode Summary

You can find Dean Seddon at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/socialsellingdean/
LinkedIn Newsletter: https://signalnewsletter.deanseddon.io/

 Dean Seddon Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day. I am your host, Kris Ward. And today I get in the house ’cause listen, it was so good and we don’t do this very often. Almost never. It was so good. We said, oh, we gotta bring him back today in the house… Dean Seddon and he is a number one social selling coach on LinkedIn.

And we had a fascinating conversation that was truly enlightening to me about lives on LinkedIn. It was, it really opened my eyes. And so now we might dabble in that a little bit, but now we’re gonna lean into the LinkedIn newsletter. Welcome to the show, Dean. 

[00:00:38] Dean Seddon: Thank you for having me again, Kris. I feel like I need a little trophy to be a second participant, so thank you for having me on.

[00:00:45] Kris Ward: Thank you for appreciating the honor. ’cause we don’t do it very often and we don’t do it this quickly. Let me tell you, we don’t bring them back that fast. So I did learn so much from you about the lives. It was just crazy. It’s a great episode. You guys gotta check it out. We’ll put the link in the [00:01:00] show for sure.

And but before we dive into, ’cause you’ve just got a wealth of wisdom. Whenever you bring up a topic it seems like, oh, okay, we talked about this before, and then you go so deep in it that it’s incredibly enlightening. So before we move over to LinkedIn newsletter, here’s my one little question. I’m not sure if we addressed this with the lives last time.

Here’s the thing the age old question of when do you know it’s working or not working? If somebody’s doing lives and they’re like, okay. What are we looking for? Okay, I got good engagement, or it doesn’t matter. I got great engagement because I’m doing the lives every week. And LinkedIn can be just a lurking type thing.

Just ’cause somebody’s not chiming in doesn’t mean they’re not watching. And I know we got our stats and stuff, but is there a point where you change your game, change your day, or say, okay, I’ve been doing this for three months and I’m spending an hour a week on this and it’s just not washing out. Do you have any parameters for that?

[00:01:51] Dean Seddon: So yeah, so I would think about a couple of things, right? If people are signing up, it means they’re interested in the topic. [00:02:00] 

[00:02:00] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:02:00] Dean Seddon: Yeah. So whether they show up or not, they’re interested in the topic. I would ask this question if they signed up, does it mean they’re also interested in what I offer? So the title tells you, not should tell you.

Not only are they interested in the topic. Does that same title give you an inclination that they’re interested in what you offer? Okay. If that works, it’s working. ’cause then you’re going, I’m getting signal. I’m getting signal that this is resonating. Whether they show up in one sense is irrelevant because you’ve now got a list of people, a hundred people, 200 people, 300 people who are interested in the topic that directly connects to your offer.

So then it’s about what do I do to convert them? 

[00:02:53] Kris Ward: Isn’t that insightful? Hold on here ’cause back the truck up. Beep. So many of us that are new to LinkedIn live, ’cause I like [00:03:00] told you the last time I just saw, every time I scroll by, you’re doing a LinkedIn live. It’s, oh, poor dean, he’s doing a LinkedIn.

Because I thought it was just sad and nobody’s, I don’t, I mean there were people on yours, but when I see people I just assume nobody’s there on LinkedIn live. ’cause we’re all trying to get people to read a post. How are you getting them to save for live? Yeah. So I didn’t understand the value in it. And here’s the big thing, which you’ve just enlightened me to.

I just thought we hopped on and did a live, I figured who the heck is actually gonna register for this? Or just gonna show up or not show up. So first of all, give an alert set up that you were doing a live tomorrow at this time, which I just thought was another post people ignore. But whether they, if they chime in, that’s our signal that they’re, okay.

I’m registering for whether I show up or not. It’s getting somebody’s attention and that’s an indicator. 

[00:03:45] Dean Seddon: Yeah. Okay. So I’ll give you an example. If I go five tips to optimize your LinkedIn profile, I know they’re interested in optimizing their LinkedIn profile, but do I know they wanna buy my social selling program?

No. But if I go [00:04:00] how to optimize your profile to get more leads, I now know that they have an interest in getting more leads, which my pro product or program solves. 

[00:04:10] Kris Ward: Oh, that was a really good clarification. I thought I understood it, but I see what you’re saying. Yeah. Okay. That was really good. Can you give us one more example?

[00:04:18] Dean Seddon: How to win the hour, win the day you help people, get the best out of their team, whether that be VAs or what have you. So you go should you hire a full-time member, staff, or a va? That’s people weighing it up. So if you were a VA placement service for an example, you’d be going, actually these people are weighing it up.

I can show them the benefits of a VA versus a full-time employee and follow up to say we can place a VA for you. 

[00:04:43] Kris Ward: I see. I got you. Okay. Okay. That was, 

[00:04:46] Dean Seddon: so if the title doesn’t align with the reason why people buy, okay. You are basically just creating a lot of awareness, but it won’t go anywhere. 

[00:04:56] Kris Ward: Okay. Okay. That’s an important distinction. I bet that [00:05:00] faux pa a lot.

[00:05:01] Dean Seddon: A hundred percent.

[00:05:02] Kris Ward: ‘Cause we think we’re educating people and then somehow they’re magically gonna follow the breadcrumbs, but we need the cycle to be much shorter. 

[00:05:10] Dean Seddon: Yeah. So education alone does not sell. But what it will do is inform people and they go, do you know that Kris? She’s amazing. She’s really good at what she does, which is great.

[00:05:21] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:05:21] Dean Seddon: But it won’t be, that Kris really understands my problem. Maybe I should talk to her about how she could help me. Different context. 

[00:05:28] Kris Ward: So I’m just thinking on my feet here and I’m sure I’ll get this wrong. Would that be the difference of, hey, the five biggest myths when hiring a VA, or the five biggest mistakes you’re making when hiring a VA versus, why you never wanna buy for, or get a VA through a VA agency? Because one, I can solve and tell you why you don’t wanna do it, and here’s how we do it. I, is that a good example? 

[00:05:52] Dean Seddon: Yeah. Water is here. So would if you were if you were selling a VA service, that’s the cleanest way of doing it. Off, off the top of my head, [00:06:00] I’d go how to get the best productivity out of your VA. Could be one. Okay. Yeah. But that would appeal to people who’ve already got a VA. I’d be going how to as a, how to get more, how to so I’d put solopreneur in there. Okay. And say how to hire, how to hire the best VA as a solopreneur. Okay. Okay. Tells you they’re thinking about hiring a VA.

[00:06:24] Kris Ward: That makes sense. Okay.

[00:06:25] Dean Seddon: So you have to think about where they are in their journey, what they really want, and then align your title to that. 

[00:06:32] Kris Ward: Okay. That makes so much sense. Hi.. Finding, hiring, onboarding the virtual assistant and putting them in our leadership program is one small step we do, but it’s the part that people are most interested in and it’s the entry point.

And then we teach them how to manage the VA and keep the VA. ’cause most people burn through four or five VAs before they meet with us because they don’t know how to work with them and it ends up being more work. So they let them go. But I don’t, that’s the thing where you get lost in giving too much content when I just need to solve that [00:07:00] problem to get them interested. Okay. That is commission loan.

[00:07:04] Dean Seddon: Why you are burning through VAs. Okay. Because then you can explain to them and they go, oh, I get it. Okay. And then they go, I need to put all that stuff in place and Okay. And I know we said newsletters, but this kind of leads into it anyway. Yeah. Is, and this is really tough to do because we often don’t understand the value of this.

The difference between why content or a why message versus a how message. And it’s really difficult to do because our brains don’t process this very well. How to content tips and tricks actually move people, build trust, build confidence, but don’t actually drive sales. 

[00:07:50] Kris Ward: Okay. That makes sense.

[00:07:51] Dean Seddon: Why content? If you think about it, if I did five tips to hire a VA Yeah. And you did that, I’d be going, thanks Kris. I’m gonna try that. Thanks Kris. Yeah. I’m gonna try [00:08:00] that. Thanks. Yeah. And then you follow up with me to say, do you know maybe you should come on my you get your VAs on my leadership program. I go I will do thanks for that, but I’m gonna try these tips first.

[00:08:10] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:08:11] Dean Seddon: But if I go. Why you need to train your, and you explain the importance of it. Yeah. We don’t see that as valuable, but actually when they go, oh, that’s why it’s not working. Yeah. They go, wow, Kris has just helped me see why this is failing. That’s valuable in itself, but we don’t think of it. And then they go, so how do I do that?

And so if you lead with the why, you get the how, if you go for the how they go and try and do it themselves. 

[00:08:44] Kris Ward: Yeah. And even if they say, if they find their way back to, lazily to you, there’s a delay. At best they’re gonna come back if you’re lucky months and months later. And if nothing else, they’re also a little bit more fatigued and a little bit more beat [00:09:00] up and I’ve tried what you said and that didn’t work, or I never got around to it, so how am I gonna get around to this stuff you’re gonna give me?

Like it just puts them in a bad situation if they ever do find their way back to you, which they likely don’t. 

[00:09:11] Dean Seddon: If you want a speedy conversion, you have to help people like turn light bulbs on, not give them tasks. 

[00:09:18] Kris Ward: That’s, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I do have thought of that a lot over the years.

That was my natural in inclination there. But then we go, we get distracted and you hear people say, oh, you know what works really on the LinkedIn algorithm is if you say, here’s how to do it, and you can show people you’re giving away content. And I’m like, okay. But then I know, even when people give me, we all know that.

Somebody’s oh my gosh, you get this course for free or for $9 and you download it. Now nothing’s free. ’cause I need the time to do that. So now it’s in my pile of, oh, I didn’t even get to use this free course just yet. To hell if I’m gonna pay for something. 

[00:09:54] Dean Seddon: Instinctively we want, we instinctively, we immediately go to, if I give you a how to, you are gonna [00:10:00] value that and you will.

And it’s an important part of trust building. But when you need quick conversion, it’s all about why. 

[00:10:07] Kris Ward: Okay. 

Okay. Alright, so let’s take that quick conversion and go to newsletters on LinkedIn. Cool. 

[00:10:17] Dean Seddon: So newsletters on LinkedIn, they were brought out, and I’m gonna give you the hopefully LinkedIn don’t watch this.

So LinkedIn newsletters in somewhat are a little bit of a scam. Okay. Because what LinkedIn’s doing, LinkedIn’s business model is how do we keep people on the platform longer? Okay. And in, in essence, what LinkedIn’s doing is using you to keep people on the platform. Okay. So if you’ve never seen a newsletter, you can create a newsletter.

You can give your newsletter a little cool little title and people can subscribe. What LinkedIn does is automatically invites your connections to [00:11:00] subscribe. So you’re thinking what’s the difference? When somebody subscribes to your newsletter, LinkedIn will notify them on their app or on their desktop that you’ve published a new edition.

The idea behind that is it pulling people back into long form content. Okay? So LinkedIn’s retaining the users, keeping their ecosystem, okay, protecting their ecosystem. But LinkedIn does one more thing. Every time you publish LinkedIn. Emails, not email, emails, the people who’ve subscribed a teaser of your newsletter and invites them to come back onto the platform, back to the app, back to LinkedIn, on the website, on the, the computer to come and read it.

So LinkedIn uses the LinkedIn newsletter as a way to retain its own users. Okay. So for most people, if they get this right, it will be the best piece of [00:12:00] content in terms of reach and visibility that they put out in that entire week or month. Okay. Because it bypasses the algorithm. 

[00:12:09] Kris Ward: Oh, so it’s not the, so it’s not getting cut up in all the things that are changing in the LinkedIn posts. And we want this, we want that. It’s in the link LinkedIn ecosystem, but also outside it at the same time. 

[00:12:22] Dean Seddon: Yeah. Okay. So LinkedIn is if you were a subscribed to mine. Yeah. When I publish LinkedIn will send you an email to your right Kris dot Ward. Do win the hour. Win the day.com. Yeah.

[00:12:32] Kris Ward: Yeah.

[00:12:32] Dean Seddon: And say, here’s a teaser of that newsletter you signed up. So come back and read the full thing on LinkedIn. Okay. So it’s a great way to stay in front of people on an ongoing basis. Okay. You can put your own videos in there. You could do one, like literally as Win The Hour Win The Day podcast newsletter.

Okay. And every time you publish, you could embed the YouTube video in it and it would fire it out to everybody who subscribes. 

[00:12:58] Kris Ward: Oh, okay. I do. I [00:13:00] think we have a lot of visuals and all that other stuff, but I didn’t actually think about putting video links in there. 

[00:13:04] Dean Seddon: Yeah. So you could embed the YouTube video and then basically push it out It LinkedIn emails it.

They start watching the video. 

[00:13:14] Kris Ward: I thought, because you know how we don’t, they don’t like it when you put links in the body of a post. I would never have occurred to me, put a link in the newsletter. 

[00:13:21] Dean Seddon: And that’s true from a post. Yeah. But when LinkedIn’s pushing that newsletter to people in the app, in on desktop and on email, yeah.

You bypass all of that. 

[00:13:33] Kris Ward: Okay. That is interesting. Oh my gosh. Okay. That is interesting. Okay. And we’re still gonna follow the same process of why not how in the LinkedIn newsletter? Yeah. Okay. And then we’ll put videos in there as well. Yes. Is there such a thing as too short, too long? 

[00:13:51] Dean Seddon: So some people do it as little short updates.

Some people do it as like a collection of things. 

[00:13:56] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:13:57] Dean Seddon: Some people, like I do one thing in one [00:14:00] email. Okay. One newsletter. There’s loads of different ways, but what you should do is be consistent with the way that you start because people get used to that format and want more of that format. Okay. And the big thing that’s very important.

So Kris, how many connections you got on LinkedIn? 

[00:14:17] Kris Ward: I don’t know. I know I’m supposed to know, is this like my blood work? I’m supposed to know, I don’t know, like 10, like I’m supposed to know my numbers. I don’t know, maybe 10,000 or something. 

[00:14:26] Dean Seddon: Okay. So you start a newsletter today. 

[00:14:28] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:14:29] Dean Seddon: And let’s call it remember the whole thing about titles as well?

Yeah. Let’s say you called it awesome VAs. Okay. Or high performing VA tips or something like that. Oops. All 10,000 of your connections would be invited. Okay? And if they, if the title flips their switch, in other words, something they want, you’ll get about 30% of your network signed up.

And then each week you could email 3000 people your [00:15:00] newsletter every week. 

[00:15:01] Kris Ward: Okay. My head’s hurting. Hold on. Back up. So two things. One is how often should we be doing this?

And should we also do a LinkedIn mini newsletter once a week to promote our live? Do these things bleed into each other? Where does this begin and act?

[00:15:20] Dean Seddon: So my newsletter is weekly. Okay. You can choose biweekly, daily, whatever you want to do. Yeah. I tend to encourage people, it’s a bit of a commitment to go weekly because monthly and biweekly, you risk losing the rhythm, right? Yes. But you can use, so what I do in mine is I promote my programs.

So a bit like, when you read a blog or an article on the internet? 

Yeah. 

And they got those little banner ads. Okay. I put my own Canva gif banner ads inside my own newsletter. 

[00:15:55] Kris Ward: Okay. Hold on. Stop the truck. 

This is what we’ve been doing and I think it [00:16:00] seems to be a waste of what we could be leveraging.

We’re taking blogs and stuff that are well done or have done well, and we send it out as a LinkedIn newsletter. That’s great. People comment on it. It actually does pretty good On Fridays we do it, it’s fine, but that’s just a blog. You are sending it out. Really like a old school newsletter. Hey, I’m doing this live.

Hey, I’ve got this product coming up. Hey, you’re doing like newsletter style. 

[00:16:25] Dean Seddon: Yeah. So there or a mixture. There’s always something valuable in there. Okay. But interspersed, I will put my own ads and my own call to action. 

[00:16:35] Kris Ward: Okay, so then would I be rep, like what we’re doing right now, repurposing a blog that was done well And then at the bottom have, hey, we’re promoting our winner circle masterclass.

Hey, I got a live tomorrow. Would we add those things at the bottom? Okay. 

[00:16:50] Dean Seddon: You can add them at the bottom or you can put exactly like you would on a blog on the internet. Okay. Make your own little Canva banner ads. Okay. And put joiners on [00:17:00] this webinar and insert them in the paragraph between paragraphs.

Not every paragraph. ’cause that’d be annoying. Okay. Strategically you can get two or three good ads or insert, shall we say, like a magazine where you’d go, the content is like 75%, but 25% of it is promotional stuff. Okay. 

[00:17:18] Kris Ward: Wow. So this is what sort of gives LinkedIn a little bit of a bad name as far as dry content is.

’cause we’re all the good stuff we’re not doing. 

[00:17:28] Dean Seddon: Yeah, but the good stuff. But remember, that newsletter should still be why content, not how content, or at least a mix. 

[00:17:35] Kris Ward: No, I, yeah, and I hear you. But I also think that, so we are using great, we’re using for blog, but it’s almost if we’re putting the cake out, we might as well ice it.

So I hear you. Yeah. Make it put out good content. It’s a why content. Here we are boom. But I can put a couple ads or a couple things that I just would’ve never done before. 

[00:17:53] Dean Seddon: Yeah. Okay. And it’s really important we’ve we’re operating now in a very low trust environment. Yeah. Everything can be [00:18:00] faked.

We’re not sure whether what’s real and what’s not. No. So the fact that you, and this is something a lot of people don’t get. You obviously don’t want to be a promotion machine across LinkedIn because that doesn’t work. No. But very often what I see is people not promoting anything at all. 

[00:18:20] Kris Ward: Yes. That’s the, I was gonna say, you’re so afraid of promoting that you promote nothing.

[00:18:24] Dean Seddon: Yeah. And so what you look at profiles, you look at newsletters. Yeah. It’s not going anywhere. Yeah. And so what we’re doing is we’re putting out a lot of trust. Yeah. But trust in us is great, but it takes something like seven to 15 times for somebody to see what you sell, to actively consider it. And you are hiding it.

[00:18:46] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:18:47] Dean Seddon: Yeah. And I go to people’s profiles and business coaches and solopreneurs are the worst for this. 

[00:18:53] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:54] Dean Seddon: You go to their profiles and go, okay, I’m gonna go and see if I can figure out what [00:19:00] they’re selling. 

[00:19:00] Kris Ward: Yeah.

[00:19:01] Dean Seddon: Can’t find it. And sometimes, like I am expanding my reach or I meet somebody comments on something, so I go to their profile ’cause I wanna connect with them and I wanna comment, build the relationship off on a conversational style, networking.

And I can’t figure out what they do. And I’m like, this is not I don’t know what you do, so how am I supposed to talk about it? Do we. When we promote the lives, the newsletters just go out. We don’t do another promotion on that. They just go out. Anybody on the list, fine. And then if we promote the lives, does that step on our own post?

If I do a promo of why you should be on my live on Tuesday, ’cause my live is on Thursday, then I shouldn’t do an additional post that day as well. 

Yeah. So I’d keep treat it as a post on that day. Okay. Yeah. I wouldn’t double up. Okay. 

[00:19:45] Kris Ward: Okay. So we got one post, so that’s two out of the five. We got a promo for the for the LinkedIn live.

We’ve got a LinkedIn live, so now we’re down to three workdays. Okay. 

[00:19:53] Dean Seddon: The LinkedIn live, when you build a LinkedIn live event, 

[00:19:55] Kris Ward: yeah. 

[00:19:56] Dean Seddon: That becomes a post as well. So that’s

[00:19:58] Kris Ward: Yes 

[00:19:58] Dean Seddon: that’s done.

[00:19:59] Kris Ward: That’s what I’m saying. [00:20:00] Yeah. So if you have five days and we got one day, we’re promoting the live and we have one day where there’s a live and then the newsletter is also a post. Correct? Yeah. Yeah. So we only have doing two posts Monday to Friday. 

[00:20:12] Dean Seddon: Yeah. And the secret. The secret with the newsletter is I can send you this afterwards. I’ve got six different ways to grow the newsletter. Okay. Is go and find the niche groups on LinkedIn and repost the newsletter in the niche groups.

Okay. For example, can you gimme an example? 

So let’s say I was helping executive coaches and I had a newsletter for executive coaches. Yeah. I would write, why executive coaches should be focused on AI search. Okay. I could write that, put it out as my newsletter, and then go, there’s an executive coaching group.

I’ll join that group and share this. Because what happens then is they go, oh, this is interesting. I’ll subscribe for more. And you’re basically using each newsletter edition as a… As a kind of bit of [00:21:00] bait in a pond, and then you pull it out and you pull out all those people into your newsletter and you can talk to ’em again and again then 

[00:21:06] Kris Ward: okay. I think that’s another thing that I like, just speak for myself that I’ve just not got any understanding of, because I think most of us got burnt out with the Facebook groups like, oh mother, like a Facebook group for having, I don’t know, long fingernails or whatever. It was just crazy, right? You just too many groups.

And then the LinkedIn stuff, every once in a while I’ll see a post where I go to comment on something and say, you can’t comment unless you’re in the group. But other than that, like in one way we’re burnt out from Facebook and another way from back in the day, but in another way, then I don’t, you almost have to go and search the groups so you don’t, I don’t see them, so then I think I decide outta mind.

[00:21:45] Dean Seddon: So here’s one secret that many influencers will not want you to know. Okay? What they tend to do is to grow their following and to grow their engagement with a niche audience. What they will do is find a group, okay, [00:22:00] public group where on LinkedIn, which is obviously all the right persona or generally the right persona.

And they will do lots of how content in those groups because they want those people to go, wow, that dean, that Kris is amazing, loads of useful advice. I’ll follow them. Okay? And so you have to think about LinkedIn groups. Yes, you can be like, try and do the Facebook thing on LinkedIn, but it’s not the same.

[00:22:28] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:22:28] Dean Seddon: You have to think about the LinkedIn groups just being brutal as a place to fish. 

[00:22:33] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:22:34] Dean Seddon: Not a place to build out. 

[00:22:37] Kris Ward: Okay. So in that case, you don’t have to be in there commenting on Steven Ethel’s comments like you had to do with Facebook group. Like you could just be in the group and do a post once a week or something. You don’t have to be in there working the group all day long. 

[00:22:51] Dean Seddon: No, I would never build a group, put it that way, but I would look for groups to phish in. Okay. 

[00:22:57] Kris Ward: Okay. And when you’re fishing, how [00:23:00] much do you need to be there to fish? 

[00:23:03] Dean Seddon: Not very much. 

[00:23:04] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:23:04] Dean Seddon: Obviously I, because 

[00:23:05] Kris Ward: you’re just fishing, you’re not growing the fish, you’re just coming there.

You could drop stuff in. You don’t need to be like, I need to be, showing my face in that group three times a week. 

[00:23:13] Dean Seddon: No.

[00:23:14] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:23:16] Dean Seddon: The primary goal is there’s a, an ecosystem there that you want to leverage and that’s the way you have to think about it. Now, you can’t just probe spam promo, which a lot of people do, right?

Instead, what you need to go is what’s the best how to tactical content I’ve got that I could put in there to be genuinely helpful. And those people go, oh my God, that was brilliant. I’m gonna follow Dean. Okay. 

Okay. Okay. So it’s the opposite formula. We’re okay with the how ’cause they want us to follow us.

Yeah. Okay. So the how to content is to build the trust to get them outta the group into your ecosystem. 

[00:23:53] Kris Ward: So we do have our 12 point hiring process with 90% retention rate. We have built out a PDF on that [00:24:00] of how we find the perfect VA. So it’s a lot of giveaway and that’s something I could put in the group.

[00:24:07] Dean Seddon: You can put that in the group, or if you wanna be smart and savvy, break down. I’d like to be smart, savvy, break it down and do one at a time. Oh, you’ve got 12 points. 

[00:24:18] Kris Ward: Okay. And then over 12 weeks.

[00:24:21] Dean Seddon: Yeah.

[00:24:22] Kris Ward: Okay. I do like to be smart and savvy. Dean. Let’s go that way. Otherwise, and I think this, from a newsletter point of view, just bringing it back there, you, we’ve gotta think about all of the content we’ve already made for that newsletter that we just need to just expand on.

Okay. All the little ideas and go, oh, let’s just break this down a little bit more. So you could go actually I’m gonna do a series on the 12 things to do. Okay. Why you need, instead of going how to flip your 12 point checklist into a why. 

I am like a LinkedIn hussy. I just give it [00:25:00] all away. They boy smiles at you.

Give it all away. I think too. 

[00:25:05] Dean Seddon: If you do a why? Yeah. On one of your points, what’s one of your points in your 12 point checklist? 

Just one of them. 

[00:25:13] Kris Ward: How we we always give a test. Always have to do a micro test before they get, okay.

[00:25:18] Dean Seddon: Why you need a test. Okay. And then you can give some suggestions of what types of tests, but don’t go into this is the exact details.

Okay. ’cause then you can say at the end, if you’re unsure about what to test them on, DM me. And I’ll show you some of the things. And now you’re getting leads, right? Because people go, yes, I need a test. How you have to talk to Kris. Yeah. I. 

[00:25:42] Kris Ward: I think we’re all out there trying to elbow our way in and we just, I, you’re right, even I can see this in other people’s stuff, but when it’s your own stuff, you get caught up in overdelivering, which is great when you have clients, but it’s not what you should be doing when there’s no relationship and no one’s [00:26:00] paying.

So you’re throwing it all out there instead of breaking it down and then throwing crumbs for them to come to you. So it all makes sense that way. Oh my gosh. 

[00:26:08] Dean Seddon: Okay. I do it as well. Yeah. I do it as well because our instinct, our, when we know our topic so well. 

[00:26:14] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:26:15] Dean Seddon: But actually the people we can help, don’t. 

[00:26:18] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:26:18] Dean Seddon: And so they don’t even realize the importance of some of the things we take for granted. 

[00:26:23] Kris Ward: Yeah. Because we’re skimming over it. I’ve, I’m surrounded by amazing and smart people and sometimes I’ll be like, oh my gosh, I wish I knew what you forgot. But we forget to break it down for ourselves.

Also, to your point about series, I know when I’ve seen in reels or something and somebody will say, whatever, here’s the five tips for exercises or five part series in longevity and health. I love listening to vitality stuff. And then you are left wondering what were the other four that I missed?

So then you have to go back so then just by virtue of this is number five what have I missed? So I think you’re right. Breaking it down. So to my earlier question, then, if we break it down in the group and we’re going [00:27:00] in there, that’s just a post, that’s not a newsletter. Or we could put a link to our newsletter.

But in the post, going, in, doing that, and in the newsletter it can’t, can it be too long or too short? 

[00:27:10] Dean Seddon: There, there’s obviously a limit, but the limit is probably it could be 700 words, it could be 1500.

[00:27:15] Kris Ward: In your mind is when does it trail on? I know there’s always a limit, but is what makes a good LinkedIn newsletter?

[00:27:21] Dean Seddon: So what I found, and this is real, like it doesn’t matter on the length. Yeah. If it’s broken up and there’s pictures. 

[00:27:29] Kris Ward: Okay. 

Oh, okay. Pictures you said not pictures. Pictures, yeah. Like walls of text just don’t do 

[00:27:35] Dean Seddon: well no.

[00:27:35] Kris Ward: That I know. I call that visual marketing. 

[00:27:37] Dean Seddon: Yeah. So if you can break it up with little diagrams or anything like that, there’s no big deal.

[00:27:43] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. Okay. All right. Yeah, we do that a lot. But, sorry, everybody needs pictures. They need a, a break from the reading. It just makes it much more digestible and visually easy to, okay. I can do this one little paragraph. Oh, I can do this other little paragraph instead of this big chunk of text.

Okay. Oh my gosh. [00:28:00] Time goes so by so quickly with you. Okay. Anything with your world of knowledge and wisdom, what’s some of the other, what’s something else that we keep dropping the ball on? 

[00:28:10] Dean Seddon: Ooh, now this is a biggie. We could probably do a third episode. 

[00:28:13] Kris Ward: Okay. Okay. I asked everyone, 

[00:28:15] Dean Seddon: so this is a big one on LinkedIn.

Okay. You and I both sell a process. Yeah to get to a result. 

[00:28:21] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:28:22] Dean Seddon: Yeah. Process doesn’t sell. 

[00:28:25] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:28:26] Dean Seddon: Outcomes sell. Okay. So that’s the first part. And then the other part of this is, so outcomes sell. Process is how we deliver it. So often what happens is we fall into talking about process. Yeah.

Yeah. And that just bores people. They only are interested in a process. And they go, you can help me do that. How? Same thing, right?

[00:28:49] Kris Ward: I can lose 10 pounds by Christmas. How not? Oh, here, what the pushup. I don’t wanna hear about the pushups. 

[00:28:54] Dean Seddon: Yeah. 17 exercises you should do. Yeah. Why? Yeah, [00:29:00] because it’ll get you to lose 10 pounds by Christmas, right?

Oh, I’m interested now. So we lead with the bit that helps them get there and forget the bit that actually is the motivator to, to want them to do it. Okay. So that’s outcomes versus process. 

[00:29:15] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:29:15] Dean Seddon: But then there’s another big one which I’m seeing more and more people trying to sell something that people don’t want.

And you’re going, what? So there’s a concept called sell ’em what they want and deliver what they need. What they want is a VA to take. Yeah. All of the stress away. Yeah. All of the angst away. What they need is, yeah. Proper boundaries, delegation, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. If we lose sight of what they want, we bore them and they switch off.

[00:29:49] Kris Ward: Which is exactly the way we do it because people think they just need a VA. I want a VA to get help. Okay. You want that? And I had learned that the hard way I got the order wrong. Great. Oh, they’re [00:30:00] excited about that. What you need is a super toolkit, is streamlined, process is a set up for you and the VA to succeed.

[00:30:06] Dean Seddon: Yeah. So the way I would do it is something like this. So you want a VA? Yeah. Why do you want a VA? I’m working 70 hours a week. Okay, so you want the VA to take up how much away from you? I want ’em to take about 20 hours a week. Okay. And do you know what tasks you want them to take away or, I’m still working on that.

Okay, so you’re not sure right now which VA, what type of VA you want? What the, okay. And okay. So we want to take away 20 hours a week from you. We need to map out the tasks that you want them to do. Okay. And have you got a plan of how you are going to recruit this VA so that they hit the ground running and you don’t end up for the next three months doing 80 hours a week to cover for them while they’re getting ’em to speed.

Oh no, I don’t have that. Okay, so what you need, okay, got you. So you really have to map out what they really want [00:31:00] and then you go, okay, so based on all of that you want, here’s how I can get you there. This is what you need to get there. I think we could do Tuesdays with Dean. 

[00:31:12] Kris Ward: I think 

[00:31:13] Dean Seddon: the one bit, and I know it sounds like semantics, a want is something that they are desiring.

Yeah. And need is something that we know that is behind that, 

that they need to sort out. 

[00:31:24] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:31:25] Dean Seddon: And we, 

[00:31:26] Kris Ward: or at least the first week of every month with Dean, that’s what we could do, get, but you know what I mean. No, I do. I totally agree with what you’re saying. And as I openly mock you, it’s like when they have whatever on the Today Show or something, they’ll have oh, the every month we have this doctor come in once a month for the feature.

You could be our feature. I hear what you’re saying, and that’s a really good distinction. And I think I did, it took me a long time to understand that because you’re giving them, like you, I was stepping over what they wanted to get them to what they needed, yeah. Okay. Yes, you need a VA, but here.

Like you need, this is what you really need. [00:32:00] But they can’t hear you if you don’t give them what they want. 

[00:32:03] Dean Seddon: Yeah. They basically, our prospects are deaf to what they need. Yeah. Yeah. What they hear loud and clear what they want. Yeah. 

[00:32:10] Kris Ward: Yeah. Because you’re right. Oh my gosh, Kris, I don’t, yeah, because they’ll say to me, oh, I got SOPs.

I don’t need that. I just, I need a VA. And then you look at their SOPs or 470 pages on how to post on LinkedIn, you’re like what the hell is anyone gonna do with that? So you’re right. That is a distinction that I wasn’t, that I suffered for a long time thinking you’re being responsible. And what I would be doing is somebody’s asking me for a VA, and I would try to be educating them on yes, a VA helps, but you’re gonna burn through four or five VAs because you don’t have this.

Let’s just, why am I doing so much talking? Let’s get them in, change the order, get them going, and then they will be open to hearing the process, because now they have the VA. 

[00:32:52] Dean Seddon: Yeah. And I’ll give you one example of this where, okay. Because if you get this right, it actually makes your market bigger.

Okay? Whereas [00:33:00] if you say I can train your VA, you actually make your market smaller, right? So let me give you an example. Okay? I’ll use mindset coaching, right? Okay. If I say I can help you improve your mindset, I can only appeal to the people looking to improve their mindset, right? But if I say I can help you get that next job and get a $10,000 pay rise, I can present how my mindset coaching will actually improve way more.

Instead of, in other words, I, instead of me appealing to people who want my specific thing, yeah, I can appeal to people who want a specific outcome, right? And I’ll actually convert more people. 

[00:33:47] Kris Ward: So we, I think, talk about that when we talk about, most of our clients say they get 20 hours back a week within the first month of working with us.

So yeah, the outcome is you wanna work less hours, you wanna get your ideas, [00:34:00] execution. You don’t wanna be trapped in the same boring stuff every day. You wanna work on the business, not in it. Those type of things is often what we talk about. And then we’re talking about a VA is the answer to that.

[00:34:11] Dean Seddon: Yeah. And you could do things like, for an example, thinking about an admin VA. Yeah. You could go, you’re, you are, let’s just use a coach. ’cause they hire a lot of VAs. But you are a coach, right? Yeah. And you wanna spend all your time delivering for clients, but you’re drowning in admin. Yeah. And then you find yourself firefighting trying to do client calls.

What you need is to get that admin away. Yeah. I haven’t mentioned VAs, but now I can say with a VA. So what I’m selling them what they want. Yeah. They want to deliver more client work, right? On calls with clients, but they’re drowning in admin and marketing and all this kind of stuff. Right?

And now what I’m doing is I’m selling the idea okay. Of what they want and then deliver what they need. So here’s how I will do it, 

[00:34:58] Kris Ward: because the way I did [00:35:00] it, I just sound like I’m selling to you already. Okay, you’re gonna get 20 hours back a week, blah, blah, blah. But now I say, look you what you’re just constantly putting out fires and what you really wanna be doing is working on what the clients are paying you to do and you wanna be doing more of that.

So then we just, then they also internalize it as to their problem versus me selling them like, Hey, you can, oh my gosh. 

[00:35:18] Dean Seddon: So that there’s what you want, as in I want a VA. And then there’s what you want as the goal or outcome they want. Yeah. Which is bigger. Yeah. Okay. Which gives you more scope to sell the idea of a VA, right?

Okay. 

[00:35:32] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. Alright Dean, we could talk to you all day, time just goes too fast with you. Where can people find more of your brilliance? We, everybody, we gotta sign up to newsletter. We gotta get to the lives, we gotta do it all. 

[00:35:45] Dean Seddon: My LinkedIn profile. Okay. My LinkedIn newsletter. 

[00:35:48] Kris Ward: Okay. We are on it. Make sure send even to a business person you don’t even I mean do not have people suffering on their own.

Just send this to anybody ’cause this is chockfull of stuff [00:36:00] and boy oh boy, he gave us some real goodies here. Dean, as always. Oh my heavens. Alright Dean, everyone else will see you in the next episode and I’m just gonna stay on the call and see if we get Dean back again. Alright. Talk to you later. Thank you.

[00:36:13] Dean Seddon: Thanks.