Master Social Selling: Heidi Medina’s Strategies for Engagement

You can find Heidi Medina at
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidimedina/

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Heidi Medina Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day, and I am your host, Kris Ward.

[00:00:04] And today in the house, we have Heidi Medina and she is a So0cial Media Marketing Strategist. That’s a mouthful, but let’s get into how she can make social media easy for us and more effective. And just, not something we dread. Welcome to the show. Heidi.

[00:00:23] Heidi Medina: Hello.

[00:00:25] Kris Ward: Okay. Heidi, you talk about social selling. What does that mean? Where do we go with that? Is that when you get a bunch of crazy DMs in your LinkedIn and you say hello to somebody and they’re trying to sell you 17 courses all of a sudden, or I guess that’s not what you’re teaching, right?

[00:00:45] Heidi Medina: That is not what I’m teaching, but that is what people immediately think when they hear the word social selling.

[00:00:50] They think it is cold pitching and DM and you’re just gonna be flooding people with all the nasty little DMs with their pitches that nobody likes because you weren’t asked permission and I had one yesterday came in from a fitness coach and he immediately hit me up and he’s oh here’s all my stuff and all my lead magnets and everything else.

[00:01:10] If you want them and I’m just sitting here. And the 1st thing that pops in my mind when that happens is. Do you think I’m fat?

[00:01:16] Kris Ward: Yeah, I was going to say, you have to be careful. The, I don’t even know. I guess I would love to know, has this ever worked in the history of humankind? Because, I just delete these people.

[00:01:28] I disconnect from them and I delete their message. But I’m like, “Hey, what made you want to reach out?” And then they, I was looking at this and I can do all these things for you. And or like still your website, I can make all these changes in a website. I’m sorry, sir. What’s your name? I don’t even know your name.

[00:01:44] And you think I’m going to give you all this money and access to my website? Like I, you must think. Especially someone like me, I’m out there all day long. I’m very active on LinkedIn. I do a lot of podcasts. You must think I might know somebody if I needed this done or other people that would at least a more of a relationship they can pitch, but anyhow, I digress.

[00:02:05] I don’t know how it works. Okay. So we don’t want to do that. What do we want to do?

[00:02:10] Heidi Medina: Yeah, that’s just it. So social selling is not that. You did ask a question there. Does that type of marketing work? Yes. Or people wouldn’t be doing it. Do most of us like it? No. Social selling is social media marketing with a plan to build relationships that turn your connections into clients.

[00:02:31] And it’s done using conversation and relationship building tactics. So it is not actually about immediately cold pitching people in DM. Instead, if they do reach out at all in DM is to introduce yourself and get to know the other person to see if first of all you can even help them to begin with. So a good social seller is going to start out by just getting to know you.

[00:02:55] They’re going to start out asking questions. They’re going to be intentional. Are they driving the conversation? Do they know where it’s going to go for sure? No, because they don’t know you yet. So it may be for the purpose of, yes, obviously we are intentionally trying to get clients, but we’re also building relationships with peers so we can do full guest spots like this, or because once again, social selling is about also using your audience, your peers, your everything to expand your networks to even larger so you can borrow their audiences and their people and get in front of more of your people. So it’s almost in a sense collaborative relationship building that also leads to clients at the same time.

[00:03:38] Kris Ward: Okay. So I have had a turn on LinkedIn and I will tell you, shame on me, but for the longest time, I would just show up once a week and go, okay, I’m supposed to be here on LinkedIn.

[00:03:48] How is this enough? You know what I mean? Like visiting in laws you don’t like. It’s like, all right, mark down on the calendar. I was here. How long have we put in our, do we get credit for this is what I’m looking for. And then I moved to, okay, make sure people know I liked their post or I threw it down an emoji” Hey, I tagged you.

[00:04:05] I’m here. Do I get points for this? And then I grew to like, one sentence or whatever.” So recently I’ve, putting, be putting a lot more thought and relationship into this and making much more meaningful comments. And it really is making a difference. People are reaching out to me, the relationships, the conversations are more meaningful.

[00:04:25] This is ridiculous for me to tell you, but it really then is like back in the day, if you were in a room full of people and you’re starting to have conversations with them, and that has been a game changer for me and it’s taken me. I’m not kidding you 10 years because it was just so Oh, I’m busy.

[00:04:43] I don’t have time for this. I’m like, I’ll hop into LinkedIn. Oh, nothing’s happening. I’ll leave. So now in my case, I, I did do a couple of posts where people were really excited about something I showed them. And so now I’m going to make a little funnel and say, “Hey, here you go.” Just so that they’re on my mailing list.

[00:04:59] That’s fine. But in my situation, a lot of people, when I’m a guest on somebody’s podcast or like you, Heidi, you’re here, whatever we start having meaningful conversations, the nature of my work where most of my clients look good on paper, but then they’re putting in way too many hours for where they are at this point in their journey.

[00:05:16] They tend to, after they get to know me, whisper like, Oh my gosh, Kris, you know what you’re talking about? Actually I know I’ve got two books and a podcast, but I am going to, I’m killing myself. I’m working a hundred hours a week. So the problem with me is people aren’t going to be online complaining about that because they have, they could likely be a very good speaker and they’re doing all these things, but they’re just putting in too many hours.

[00:05:36] So where would I be leaning more in that social selling as well? I guess in the DMS in the back, I don’t want to say to them, “Hey, how many hours a week are you working?” Cause I don’t want to look like, like when somebody sends me a message yesterday, “Hey, are you satisfied with the business you’re getting off?”

[00:05:50] LinkedIn? That’s a leading question of what the hell is that? It’s like my grandmother used to say back in the day, she was very funny. She was very smart. She should have had a business. And when I’d be visiting her in the retirement home, cause by the way, she was like 98, 98 at this point, she’s 98 and she would see me wearing a little jacket and she’d say, “Hey, She’d say, do you think that jacket’s too small for me?”

[00:06:12] And so the answer was like, she was leading me and I would be like no, it could fit. Like the answer was going to glide into what she wanted. And I I, I lost a lot of jackets and clothes that way. Do you, I do think that way? Yeah, here you go. So yeah, no, I think you’ll, it’ll fit you because it was fell into this positive conversation.

[00:06:32] So I don’t want to be leading people in the DM. So how do we get around that?

[00:06:36] Heidi Medina: Honestly, it’s up to them to tell you. And so you open the door for the conversation. You invite in, you let them know what it is you do through storytelling. Maybe a lot of people, what I recommend is a lot of people are in your situation that people aren’t sharing maybe the sensitive side of things they’re in.

[00:06:55] You’ve got health coaches, you’ve got people that work with trauma, people, actual coaches, that’s a good point. And all these people. So of course people aren’t raising their hand. Yes, my mental health needs some help. Most people aren’t doing that. So these guys, they get the conversation going, they start sharing stories where they can on what they can about, the changes they’ve helped people make, or if they had something cool happen, and they’re just opening the door.

[00:07:22] Just by the conversation of, “Hey, I’m Kris, I do this, and this is really freaking cool that I help people with productivity and you start talking about, I know one of your common examples is that you had a client and I saw your post that you had a client, a couple of weeks ago or something. You saved her 24, 25 hours a week, wasn’t it?”

[00:07:40] Kris Ward: Yeah.

[00:07:40] Heidi Medina: And so just by sharing that story, then somebody is going to be like. Oh I’m doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I’m writing the book and I’m trying to be online and I have a life and I’ve got kids and I’m also running a podcast and they start listing off all of these things.

[00:07:57] You immediately know what’s happening at that point. It’s huge. Providede the safe space. I, it’s not leading questions, but you can ask them more about how they’re going about. Like one question I would ask if you were then somebody rattled off an entire list, I would be like, wow, how do you manage doing all of that?

[00:08:17] And just ask, let them tell you it’s not leading. Just have general curiosity, real curiosity into how are you managing all that to accomplish that? Because some people are accomplishing an incredible load of stuff. And some people are, they’re going to say I’ve got a team helping me. So you immediately got information, but if they’re this one person and they’re like oh my God, I’m feeling underwater.

[00:08:40] I don’t, I’m just managing and I’m working. 80 hours a week or whatever, or they, whatever they tell you, then, and you get, it’s about being curious and just getting the information, listening to what they’re saying, opening the door by asking the questions.

[00:08:56] Kris Ward: So I guess you call it social selling.

[00:08:58] And I think what you’re doing beautifully is you’re reminding us of two worlds and they, maybe they’ve always been there together, but no one’s been identifying them like you are. So we think, Oh, I’ve always had the reluctance or the pet peeve that selling has a bad name. Selling sounds like something you force upon somebody else.

[00:09:17] They’re a victim and you make them take it right. But, I say selling is everywhere. You sell your kids to get them to bed at night. Oh, we got a big day tomorrow. You don’t, whatever. So selling is intrinsic and everything that’s done with anyone. You got your spouse by selling the idea of that first date.

[00:09:33] So then there’s selling and then saying, “Hey, we can do it in a social setting that to your point, then we make that post and then other people are going to see it and we’re creating a conversation. I took me a long time to do those posts to that one you referred to took forever. Cause a couple of years ago, I would have never done that because a, I was a little concerned about sharing my client’s business and B, I just thought it looked like such a big false promo.

[00:10:03] I don’t know, whatever I had to get over that. Nobody knows. Nobody can like, you can’t get over that. Yeah, my husband used to say he, some people have described me as a rather private person. And so when I started my business many years ago, he’d say, cause we’d be somewhere and somebody asked something, I’d say, he said, how come you didn’t tell them about that?

[00:10:22] I’m like, that’s not their business. They don’t need to know that. And so then he said, do you understand if you start a business, people will need to know your business. Like you can’t, it cannot be a secret. So I think we just get lost in throwing our messaging out there. But what you’re doing is take a breath and just have conversations.

[00:10:41] Heidi Medina: Yes. And even think about that with content it’s funny you’re saying, they need, it’s not that people need to know everything. They don’t. Yeah. But we do need to be, because it’s credibility and authority we’re building. We’re building an actual relationship. Trust doesn’t happen immediately.

[00:10:56] So think about it. If you were in the room with someone, you literally just met them. First of all, you’re not going to walk up to them and say, here’s my stuff, buy it. You’re not going to do that. Instead, you’re going to walk up. Hey, how are you doing? Who are you? What do you do? It’s going to go through some of that.

[00:11:13] Maybe you talk about the weather a minute. Maybe you don’t, but you’re not going to immediately jump into sales mode. Instead, you’re going to get to know the person. Even if you’ve gone to a networking event where you know, that’s what everybody’s there for. You’re still going to get to know the person first.

[00:11:27] You’re going to share stories about what your day was like working with the clients or and think about it. Even then, this even I remind people. Even if you worked a job as an employee, when you go to work you’re working out with your coworkers, things like that, you’re still sharing stories of your life, I shouldn’t say nobody is very rare.

[00:11:48] Most people go to work and never share anything. This is the same thing. We’re sharing what’s going on in our world because we want to be a relatable. So this is where a little personal stories come in. That doesn’t mean we got to share a dirty laundry. Everybody. We do not.

[00:12:01] Kris Ward: Bye.

[00:12:03] Heidi Medina: We don’t need to share everything we can have boundaries, but I am sorry about your childhood trauma, but however

[00:12:11] Yeah, we don’t have to know everything and if you wanted you get to share a little or as much as you want to that’s okay. So whatever it is works for you your ideal clients your…

[00:12:24] Kris Ward: And I think to that point is I’m having conversations that so recently, here’s a quick little story. Recently somebody asked me to be on their podcast and they said, Oh, they’re doing this new podcast. It’s a 60 second podcast, right? And I’m like, all right, I don’t know about that, but okay.

[00:12:40] And he was engaging and personal and DM sent me a DM and I thought, that’s fine. I’ll help anybody. I know it was like when I started mine, I was so thankful for anyone to give me the time of day, especially when it’s new. So I thought, sure, I’ll do that. And even though it’s just as much of a nuisance to do 60 seconds because it goes on the calendar, the whole process, fine.

[00:12:57] So I do it, then I get the video and I think, huh, this seems a little bit weird because there’s none of their messaging on it or their branding. And I, they’re like, Oh, promoted everywhere. And then I think, I don’t see, what’s the name of this podcast? It’s new, but you must have a name. So I’m starting to get, my spidey senses are tingling, right?

[00:13:14] So then they’re like, great, promote it. So then I said, I’m not promoting this, it’s just a video of me talking. There’s nothing about them, no intro, no banner, no nothing, right? So I thought, what’s up with it? So then I get a message the next week, “Hey, we were looking at your video and you do so well on video and we thought we could help you do even more.”

[00:13:29] So I was in this funnel that now they’re going to sell me a product. Okay, fine. Bye. Then this week I get another message from somebody else with the same whole language about the 60 second podcast and I’ll give them they’re engaging. It sounds friendly and it’s very well written. ” Hey, are you in I can really use your help.”

[00:13:46] It’s a pitch. So I here’s this pay attention. This is the 10 minute story, but I, for the first time ever, I screen captured it. And I wrote a post, I’m going to put it up on LinkedIn say, “Hey, everybody, cause this is part of my week. And I want other people to be aware. I wouldn’t never have done that five years ago.”

[00:14:05] So I am really starting to look at things I wouldn’t have done a year ago, look at things in my life and say, can I, can this be something I can share because it’s not that I’m all about business, but I can’t be the only one you get in the business mode and you think, okay, I don’t want to, I don’t want to brag about my clients.

[00:14:22] I don’t have anything interesting in my life. I don’t, and even if something exciting happened with Accolade, then you don’t want to brag about that. So I certainly start disqualifying all these things that I can talk about. So I think to your point, just having a conversation, remembering it’s a person and pretending I’m talking to one person. Like I told that story to you, why couldn’t I put it up on LinkedIn?

[00:14:46] Heidi Medina: And that’s what I recommend when people are going to go create content. We actually recommend that you picture the person you’re creating that piece of content for. I know a lot of people would jump on and they’re creating it for this entire audience of people.

[00:14:58] But when you single out one person for that conversation, it is just like they’re sitting across from you. And I do that. And I often have this one poor client. She always thinks I’m talking about her and I’m actually not. She’ll send me a message. She’s did you write that for me? No, I wasn’t even I wasn’t even thinking about her.

[00:15:21] I didn’t realize she was having the same, but it was so funny. But if you are literally creating a piece of content for that person you’re speaking to them, it’s going to resonate with more than just that one person. You’re going to speak to every person that has that or experienced that. And it’s going to make more people put their hand up and say, wow, she’s talking to me, she gets it, she understands me.

[00:15:46] And I don’t care whether it’s because you’re talking about the dog you have, or the past or this situation where somebody’s obviously, this is a Yeah, that’s a

[00:15:57] Kris Ward: Bait and switch. Not cool. Yeah. No.

[00:16:00] Heidi Medina: Not cool. Talk about icky marketing tactics. That is something we don’t do in actual true social selling is that kind of stuff?

[00:16:07] It’s not about those icky marketing tactics where you are a cold pitching a DM, you are baiting and switching, you’re the friendly DM that’s Oh, I’m your best friend.

[00:16:20] Kris Ward: And so what do we do then? What do we do? Cause I do notice your posts are very engaging. They’re very conversational. I swear you can make something about nothing sound interesting.

[00:16:31] Like you’re really good at it. And then yet you’re not spilling your life angst and telling us, your traumas and like these other things that. I, when you see it so often, I hate to be negative, but then it comes off like a bait, stop the scroll. Here’s all the horrible things that happened to me before.

[00:16:47] I’m six. I’m like I’m on LinkedIn and I’m just trying to get through the day here. People like, so your stuff is really personable. It personable without being personal. So what is it we’re missing in the social selling aspect?

[00:17:00] Heidi Medina: I think that’s just it everybody, and this is gonna be on LinkedIn.

[00:17:03] To everybody gets on LinkedIn and they immediately freeze and say, Oh, my God, it’s professional platform. I think buttoned up suit jacket briefcase kind of situation. And they forget. It’s just another social media platform. Nobody cares. Just be what you are in your business. And when you let that go, and that was, it wasn’t 28.

[00:17:24] It was. Yeah, late 2018, when I realized that is that I, and this was a rant, it was first time I ranted on LinkedIn and it was the first time I dropped the F bomb multiple times on LinkedIn in one post, which today, no cussing because LinkedIn will put you in the time out.

[00:17:41] Kris Ward: Oh, you actually did say the F word on there?

[00:17:44] Heidi Medina: Oh, yeah.

[00:17:45] Kris Ward: You didn’t put any asterisks or anything. You went all in. Okay.

[00:17:48] Heidi Medina: No. This was, I was pissed at the world and I literally fastest post I’ve ever written. I literally ranted for about, it took me about two minutes to write it. I was, I don’t even remember what I was upset about now. I’m going to have to go back and try to find that post, but I literally dropped the F bomb in it three times and I slammed the computer lid down and I walked away after I hit post 10 minutes later, I was just freaking out.

[00:18:13] I was like, oh, LinkedIn! And I went running back to try to take down the post. And this was when I was pretty new to LinkedIn. I had just started LinkedIn in late 2017. I was gaining a little traction, but I was getting almost no comments. I was usually getting pity comments from my friends at that point.

[00:18:28] Yeah. I opened the computer lid back up. I had 30 or 40 comments and everybody was sympathizing with whatever I got to look at what I ran it about because I want to know what it was, but I don’t know. And literally everybody was sympathize me. Not one single person mentioned that I had dropped the F bomb.

[00:18:49] And that was the moment that was actually truly the turning point for me of realizing that LinkedIn to begin with, and then social media in general. If we just talk to people, we just have a conversation. That was my turn, my connection for realizing. It’s okay, I did end up taking the post down because I was a little worried about LinkedIn banning me for the F bombs, but it was just 1 of those situations of starting to realize that.

[00:19:18] It’s just human beings. It’s just have a conversation and you mentioned, some of the personal and traumatic stuff. Do I share that stuff? Occasionally every now and then I do when I feels important to me like Perimenopause the last couple of years we need to normalize it for women and so I’ve shared some of what I’ve gone through am I beating the drum with it?

[00:19:39] I’m not, am I on board with the women who are doing? Yes, I am. But I just, I’ve done what it feels good to me. And at the end of the day, that’s what’s so important is to do what feels good to you. But I also have kind of a rule of thumb on content. And this is even for commenting. I do an 80 20 rule and it applies in content marketing and everything else too.

[00:20:00] So 80 percent of the time I’m on business.

[00:20:03] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:20:04] Heidi Medina: 20 percent of the time I can talk about what I want to talk about. It can be personal. It can be whatever. And I even do that with commenting 80 percent of the time I’m commenting to my target audience. The other 20 percent of the time is my fun people, or, people I just want to talk to they’re nowhere in my niche, nowhere.

[00:20:21] I’m, trying to get up and I apply that across the board. And that way because you want to be trained in the algorithms and I’m not going to dive hard into that, but you want to be trained in the algorithms. And the only way you train the algorithms is being by very, Intentional and you’re in what, so that’s where if you’re 80 percent of the time you’re creating the content for your niche, you’re talking to your niche people, your target audience at that point, then that’s going to be, of course, in your feed.

[00:20:45] And you’re going to see more of those people, which is going to help keep you on target. Make your work less.

[00:20:51] Kris Ward: And I think what you’re saying, and this sounds ridiculous. I feel like I need a tattoo that says this, because when you’re talking and especially from someone you do need to check out Heidi’s posts, whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever you go, they are just, they do stop the scroll for me.

[00:21:07] They’re light. They’re funny at which I think funny is really. People sometimes think I’m funny, but funny typing funny is a whole different things get taken out of context. It’s just, it’s really hard to do. And I do think, writing and being conversational versus talking, like I get a lot of compliments about this podcast and people say, it’s so conversational.

[00:21:27] I feel like I’m in the room with you and you’re talking it’s just easy to listen to. That’s great. I wrote a book that people tell me all the time is the easy read. And I’m here to tell you how hard it was to write a book that was easy read. But so I think what I’m learning from you, what I need to be constantly reminded is stop overthinking it.

[00:21:44] Stop being academic. Stop coming from your prison business brain and just talk to one person. Don’t present to people, talk to people.

[00:21:55] Heidi Medina: Yeah, and are you doing it intentionally? Of course you are. You do have a strategy. You are intentionally trying to get clients. You’re, there is a balance of figuring it out, but once you do it and you’ve done it, it just works.

[00:22:08] It does. It comes natural. Like any learning, any new skill at first, it might be a little hard. It might feel weird. It might feel, Oh my God, I hate it. Then that’s what, when I say social selling is talking to people with a strategy. It’s being intentional. We are deliberately targeting who we want to talk to.

[00:22:26] We’re not talking to just anybody. We are deliberately creating a content message we want them to see. So there is intentionality to it, but at the end of the day, they’re still freaking human beings. Just have a conversation.

[00:22:38] And you want me to tell you, you want me to tell you, you’re going to like this one.

[00:22:40] You want me to tell you one of the tricks to learn how to conversationally write?

[00:22:43] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:22:45] Heidi Medina: Get out your phone, do the talk to text in whatever note app you do, whatever you do. I do, yep. Talk it out a few times and start seeing how you actually talk in writing.

[00:22:57] Kris Ward: I do that all the time. And you can also do that on Google Docs.

[00:23:01] You can just hit up there tools and then you can hit auto I think it’s auto typing. I don’t know. I do it. I use it all day long.

[00:23:07] Heidi Medina: You want me to tell you another way you can use it?

[00:23:09] Kris Ward: Sure.

[00:23:10] Heidi Medina: Most people don’t realize if you use the LinkedIn app on your phone, you could talk out your comments.

[00:23:16] Kris Ward: Oh, I do that too.

[00:23:17] I’m on it, man. I’m on it. So yes, you can hit the microphone and then just talk and get your replies. And I will say for so many things, I tell people all the time that even if you are a fast typist, you’re looking at 55, 60 words per minute and most cannot do that. Okay. But you can easily, an average person talks about 120 words per minute.

[00:23:36] I’m about 160, I think, but so there is that. And then you are right. I find that then you’re not trying to if you type stuff out, then you’ll go, Oh, I can’t end a sentence like that. I can’t end a sentence with the word of it’s a dangling participle. And then you start changing it, but that’s how we talk.

[00:23:54] So we don’t talk in complete full grammar. Paragraph form. So you are right. I totally stand by that. It’s efficient and it’s more conversational.

[00:24:03] Heidi Medina: It’s so much quicker. Do I glance back through it and make sure the periods ended up in the right places and that kind of stuff. Yeah, I do.

[00:24:09] Of course. Or it got my words right. Cause with my Southern accent, sometimes it doesn’t understand me quite that well, But so I checked those few things before I hit post, but yeah, it’s such a time saver, which I know you love with the productivity side, such a freaking time saver to do it that way.

[00:24:25] But then you also start recognizing how to create conversational content too, because you start seeing your words in writing, knowing you spoke them. And you start realizing that yes, what we’re taught in school, the correct way to, with the proper grammar, the proper sentence construction, things like that. Almost nobody talks the way we’re taught.

[00:24:49] Kris Ward: No, I went to college and university. I’m spending all this time, learning how to be conversational and not write academically. It’s oh my gosh, what a point, what a pain that is. Like what people, what?

[00:25:00] Heidi Medina: I’ve got stories on that one. Can I tell you when I got into content writing first back in 2011, I don’t think I’ve told this story, but, i, I took on it was my first paid job. So it was this was before I started on social media. I was just doing blogs and things like that at first and my 1st paying job was 4 cents a word. And I know a lot of people don’t say do it. Hey, it got me in the door. That was my 1st paying job and I had just come out of uni at that point.

[00:25:31] I did uni late guys. I didn’t do it till the 30 and I was in my

[00:25:33] Kris Ward: uni is university. I think it’s an English term. I’m not sure, but go ahead. I’m just interpreting for the audience. I’m

[00:25:42] Heidi Medina: I did college in my 30s.

[00:25:44] Kris Ward: I’m translating because most of us didn’t know what uni is. Okay. Go ahead. Uni.

[00:25:49] Heidi Medina: Yeah. So I got started there and I’m in the poor guy.

[00:25:52] He probably, I probably should have paid him because he was correcting my academic I literally just came out of college, but I was, oh yeah. So everything he got was absolutely correct.

[00:26:06] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah. And not conversational. Oh, I know. I know. I know. Oh my gosh. Okay. And again, I remember when I first started doing videos a long time ago, and I would be thinking as if I’m presenting, like I was on stage where I’m talking to video, including everybody.

[00:26:21] But you’re talking to one person on one phone at a time. So that’s another thing. If we can just remember, speak to one person instead of trying to include everybody in this, that’s why one of the most powerful marketing words is the word you, right? We’re assuming I’m talking to you. And that makes all the difference.

[00:26:37] All right. So it’s just a really good kick in the butt and a good reminder because it’s so easy to get lost when the sky is always falling with algorithms and new releases. And this is what’s happening and this is happening to TikTok, which means this is what’s going to happen to Instagram, which means LinkedIn is going to do this, right?

[00:26:54] And so you just start chasing the noise and you make yourself crazy. But if we remember at the end of the day, I’m a person talking to another person and they’re people you like to, for you to be on this show, it’s Oh, okay. We get, I wouldn’t say get along. It’s not like I don’t get along with anybody, but it’s yeah, I enjoy your time.

[00:27:11] Let’s get you on the show. Oh, I enjoy your conversation online. I want to spend extra time with you. So it really is just expanding that relationship.

[00:27:20] Heidi Medina: And even there. I’m still always talking to my people. Everybody loves my masterclasses and stuff because I’m engaging with them. I’m literally talking to my people. I am there. I am there to share tips and stuff with them, but I am also answering their questions. I am including them in my masterclasses even.

[00:27:54] They’re included. They’re drawn in the whole time. And that, at the end of the day, Invitation. Always be inviting people to talk to you. If you are open, you create that safe space, whether it’s your content, whether it’s in the comments, whether it is on a live, whether it’s here on this podcast, or any place like that.

[00:28:15] Not only are you creating the space for you to talk, but you’re creating the space to invite them into the conversation. And I know a lot of people are like,

[00:28:24] Kris Ward: And the more you get to talk, sometimes the more you hear yourself. Like sometimes I’ve said things and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I gotta write that down.

[00:28:31] That was good. I’m like, I, because I’m talking, whereas when you’re looking at a blank page and you’re trying to write it out and sound academic, It’s always tenses you up and draw, it’s like dry content, but there’s many times where if you’re just talking it’s a different game. Let me jump in here for a quick second.

[00:28:45] I don’t want to go too far down this path, but I do think you’re really good at the lives. I keep saying, I’m going to do lives on LinkedIn once a week, and I have picked that ball up and dropped it so many times and never done it. And I certainly wouldn’t do webinars. I’ve done them once or twice, but to me, it’s like hosting a party in high school.

[00:29:01] I’m like, what if nobody comes? And then I have this one, two sad people in the webinar. I’m going, Oh, I know you saw me promote it for six weeks. And you and your cousin are here. So I think also that’s another opportunity for people to get to know you.

[00:29:16] Heidi Medina: Absolutely. And content is changing just from written over to live.

[00:29:22] And the reason mine is shifting that much is we are combating things like AI and things like that. And people are starting to be less trusting on written content because they don’t know a human wrote it, or they don’t know if humans responding to them in the comments or DMs anymore. And people are really starting to ignore things because of that, or just not trust it.

[00:29:43] So if you really, truly want to build trust. And you really get a conversation going with your people show up freaking live or just show up on video And I can’t get out there and talk to people like I did a live a little earlier today and I mean we had six or seven women in the comments. Yeah, they’re having to write it out But man, we had a conversation with them

[00:30:04] Kris Ward: And see, I always worry doing the lives by myself is boring. Like I do so much better. I’m just having a conversation with you and it’s a fool to me if anybody listens, I’m just like that’s bonus. I’m here to spend time with you. And if one person listens, I’m thrilled. And so I guess in the lives, I feel like how interesting can Kris be raving on by herself? Like it just seems like dry.

[00:30:25] Heidi Medina: What I did, because I do sometimes do them by myself, especially when it’s a topic I do. So occasionally I have one by myself, but when I found when I do them by myself, I keep them shorter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 20 minutes max, depending on the topic. I keep it shorter, but when I have a guest and I’d rather have a guest and I started out when I first started out doing that, I was doing interview style, right?

[00:30:50] Then i, me, I liked the conversation, but the conversation, so I switched it over to the fireside chat style and oh my God, I’m having a freaking blast. It’s more like back and forth you and I are doing here now. It is, right. Storytelling and what’s going on. And like today’s was about keeping your voice and personality, but using AI to do it for it, it’s it was a great conversation. So when I have guests on, we redo about 45 minutes.

[00:31:17] Kris Ward: Okay. All right, Heidi. My gosh, we could talk all day. Where could we find more of your brilliance?

[00:31:24] Heidi Medina: LinkedIn is one of the best places to connect with me. Heidi Medina. Easy.

[00:31:27] Kris Ward: Okay. Easy to spell M E D I N A. We will have it in the show notes. Share this podcast with a business buddy. They need to be reminded. I keep forgetting week from week what this is all about. So I can’t be the only one forgetting. So share it with someone. We love your reviews. Please keep them coming. I read each and every one of them. Heidi, thank you so much for coming to the show and everyone else. We will see you in the next episode.

[00:31:52] Heidi Medina: Thank you.