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Ep 100: Maximizing LinkedIn: Growth and Sales Strategies for Founders with Molly Godfrey

• Sarah Noel Block • Season 4 • Episode 100

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Ever wondered how to make LinkedIn work for you? Listen in as we kick off Season 4 of the Tiny Marketing Pod with a powerhouse guest, Molly Godfrey, co-founder of Build Impact Convert. Despite battling a cold, I'm here to bring you Molly's invaluable insights on maximizing LinkedIn's potential for business growth. Molly specializes in empowering women leaders, and in this episode, she shares her strategies on creating platform-specific content and the fine art of balancing professional storytelling with authenticity. Learn how to resonate with LinkedIn's unique audience and algorithm for optimal results.

Packed with actionable strategies, Molly and I discuss the technique of adding 100 new connections weekly with personalized messages. These efforts, when combined with engaging comments on posts from strategic partners, act as mini billboards, driving valuable traffic to your profile and converting leads. We highlight the importance of building relationships with complementary businesses and borrowing their audiences for early-stage growth. Molly provides tips on creating a curated list of strategic partners to streamline your engagement efforts and maximize your impact on LinkedIn.

Transitioning into sales, discover the power of storytelling, particularly client transformation stories, in conveying potential results to clients. Molly and I talk about integrating passive sales techniques, such as adding a postscript with a call to action, to your content strategy. Learn how to tailor your content based on your audience's needs, their buyer journey stage, and your expertise. We emphasize the necessity of continuous testing and adaptation to keep your content effective and engaging. Don't forget to check out the Tiny Marketing Club for exclusive coaching and training opportunities to further amplify your marketing efforts. Get ready to elevate your LinkedIn game with this episode!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-godfrey/
Website: https://molly-godfrey.kit.com 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Tiny Marketing. This is Sarah Norrblatt, and this is a podcast that helps B2B service businesses do more with less. Learn lean, actionable, organic marketing strategies you can implement today. No fluff, just powerful growth tactics that work. Ready to scale smarter, hit that subscribe button and start growing your business with Tiny Marketing growing your business with tiny marketing.

Speaker 2:

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to season four of the tiny marketing pod. I almost said tiny marketing club, but it's the tiny marketing pod. We are talking to you today and I'm sick, so sorry my voice sounds like crap right now, but I didn't want to miss my opener of season four. This season we have some amazing guests that I'm so, so excited to introduce you to and to launch season four.

Speaker 2:

We're doing a series on LinkedIn, so the next three episodes are all about LinkedIn, and today I have the amazing, amazing Molly Godfrey joining me. She has the business Build Impact Convert. Hold on one second while I share the screen so you can see it for those who are watching. All right. So for those who are watching the pod instead of listening, this is Build Impact Convert's website and she puts on one-to-one accelerators to help women leaders grow their businesses on LinkedIn. She's really freaking good at it. I subscribe to her newsletter. We're friends on LinkedIn. That's how I got to know her. I met her on Pollen. Subscribed to her newsletter. We're friends on LinkedIn. That's how I got to know her. I met her on Pollen, but we became friends through LinkedIn. So if you want to grow your LinkedIn presence. She's your girl. Make sure to follow her and I'll put her link in the show notes page, but yeah, so stay tuned. I'm talking to Molly and enjoy this episode. There it is. Do you think you could introduce yourself to the audience?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, definitely. Thanks again for having me. I'm Molly Godfrey, based in New York, co-founder of Build Impact Convert. My business partner and I run a LinkedIn growth agency for leaders and founders who want to expand their presence online without burning out, without feeling overwhelmed through content strategy and LinkedIn messaging.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and we met through Pollen, I think it was, and everybody just raves about you on Pollen. Yeah, molly, she's the expert on LinkedIn.

Speaker 3:

Oh, it's a great group. I'm so glad he found it. You're newer, right. You joined this year.

Speaker 2:

I did join this year, yeah, um, I'm still deciding if I'm going to stay in it or not. Everyone seems cool, though.

Speaker 3:

Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, it's a cool group, it's cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we're going to dig in. So this episode is specifically for founders who want to grow on LinkedIn, and that is so many people who listen to this show. I get that a lot. So let's start with what I hear the most from founders, and that's I don't have the time to do this, I don't know what to talk about and I don't have the time. So how do you address that? When you, let's say, I'm a founder and I'm like Molly, help me, what's the first thing that you do? A it's totally understandable.

Speaker 3:

I don't even have the time for LinkedIn and I run a LinkedIn business, so definitely not alone. I would say the first thing is take the pressure off, like you don't have to be on there 24 seven. You don't have to even be on there every single day. We literally have all of our clients posting three times a week, so for some people, that's a huge relief. Also, for some people that have never posted, they're like, oh my God, three times a week. But you definitely don't have to be on there every day and know that with the right strategy and focus, you can have a huge impact on LinkedIn without a ton of effort. But most people just have no idea what they're doing, myself included when I started. So you're not going to see results without an intention and without a strategy is the first thing I'll say.

Speaker 2:

That is so accurate. Well, I started LinkedIn in 2006. I think they're probably still in beta. They were brand spanking new, but over the years I've consistently been on there and I didn't gain traction until the last I don't know, maybe two years. Until the last, I don't know, maybe two years. So, yeah, you can be active on it and still not gain traction if you don't have that strategy to rely on. Now you mentioned that you have strategy meets authenticity. What is LinkedIn algorithm really like, but what also works for you? So can you explain that to me? Totally, totally.

Speaker 3:

So I came from the blogging, instagram, facebook, pinterest world before LinkedIn, so it's super important to also just have the right mindset. Like, linkedin is a totally different place. I love the idea of repurposing, but just a hard truth you cannot take the same content from other social media and put it on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

That's like mistake number one that a lot of people make in the beginning.

Speaker 3:

So you have to understand that LinkedIn is a very unique platform. A it's originally built for job seeking networking corporations to do recruiting, talent search. So you have to know where you're. You have to know your audience. You have to know where you're showing up, so you can't. A the storytelling is very, very different than you'll find other places and. B you have to play to and leverage what LinkedIn likes but also find that intersection of what's actually authentic to you. So I would say it is. It is more professional. So you've got to understand the hearing level of that audience to really get traction point, the one, the posts that I pay attention to.

Speaker 2:

it's always like, oh wow, that that's pretty freaking smart. I'm going to save that one, something that I can take with me and take action on, and so I want let's talk about the LinkedIn algorithm. What right now constantly changes. What right now does LinkedIn really like? It is constantly changing.

Speaker 3:

They're doing a lot of behind the scenes. They just launched games, which I think is very interesting. So just launch games. I noticed that too. I haven't, I haven't experimented with that. They're apparently in the in the midst of launching like a shorts, like a YouTube shorts, or I got access to that.

Speaker 3:

Oh, you did, yeah, cool, um, and it's. It's really a mixed bag. I would. I would say, still to this day I this happened to me last week. It's good writing. The algorithm likes good writing. Like last week I had a post I, just to be honest, like nailed the hook and I was like, wow, that post did so well in comparison to the rest of my content because I just like got the hook right. You know, so I would say, kind of an annoying answer. The algorithm likes good writing. It likes when you are speaking about the subject matter that your profile is built for. So if you go into a word, I also like oh, I really was just like in line with what my profile is built for, and then it's really a mix. Sometimes our short form gets reshared and does really well, but I will say a long form, kind of explainer, like going in depth into one of your frameworks. Those are also doing well right now too. So even it keeps me daily on my toes, to be honest.

Speaker 2:

It really does. It's constantly changing where, like one month, I'm killing it so much engagement and then I'm like what did I do wrong? Why is LinkedIn mad at me this week?

Speaker 3:

I know Well, I wrote this post this morning and I was like, oh, there's so much psychology in here. This is going to be a banger Nothing. I wrote a post last week so informal, it was just literally how I would speak as a human and it's just honestly something that I personally feel blew up and I was like, wow, all right.

Speaker 2:

Got it? I don't. I don't get you LinkedIn. Gods, why are you loving this?

Speaker 3:

one, so I'll I'll go back to one of your opening questions. The other thing to to save time and save just mental peace when it comes to LinkedIn is you just you have to know what are the right metrics for you. You will get burnt out, you will get overwhelmed, you will get exhausted If you're paying attention to the wrong things and comparing yourself and trying to be a different type of creator. That makes sense for your business, because there's just different strategies for your intention. So knowing how you're meant to be showing up, depending on your business goals, is also super important.

Speaker 2:

That's really good advice. I have an itch in my throat. It's that time of year. Yes, yes, it is. Allergies are rearing their ugly head right now. Something I noticed about LinkedIn lately is remember the carousels were doing so so well, and they're dead now.

Speaker 3:

Totally. I still love a good carousel but I agree I don't think that's the tool for audience growth, like it was a year, a year, year and a half ago yeah, yeah, probably like 2023.

Speaker 2:

They were on fire and now it's like the it's now.

Speaker 3:

It's the uh, it's the tweet screenshots, so yeah, that's true. I was just looking at a friend. All her tweet screenshots are going viral.

Speaker 2:

That is true. I did one of those and I barely put any content as part of that post and that one blew up.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it was was it the one that I love this post your real internet friends support.

Speaker 2:

Oh yes. Yes, it was about biz dev and like making your business friends. That's right. Yeah, that blew up and it was mostly just a screenshot of a tweet.

Speaker 3:

There you go.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I found that that topic really resonated because anytime I talked about it it blew up, so maybe it was more of the topic than anything. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

But again, to go back to your other question, the LinkedIn algorithm, it just wants conversations happening in your content. It wants it to be social, it wants people to be collaborating. So the more replies you get in your comments, the more ways you're getting tagged in your own content, the more that's going to be pushed out. So I always like to try to reply, like if. If my co-founder has a post, I will try to reply to someone else's comment within the comment feed just to like start another thread of conversation. Cause that that does boost it.

Speaker 2:

That's really good advice. I've never heard before so stealing that Okay. So how do you work with founders? You have them post three times a week. Is there anything else that you're advising them to do to grow?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I should really make a post about this. If there was one thing to do every single week, no matter what, regardless. If you post, regardless how you feel for the week, matter what, regardless. If you post regardless how you feel for the week, max out, if this is, if you have premium, max out your hundred connections that you can make every week. So make industry lists. Go through the communities. That's how we met. We've literally met through a community me adding people on LinkedIn. Go through communities. Sometimes it will even suggest your address book, he consistently adding that a hundred people a week.

Speaker 3:

I can't tell you how many times we've added someone just with a simple message hey, came across your profile. Or hey, we help female founders. It doesn't have to be spammy or pitchy, it can just be a hey, saw you on here. This is what we do. Let me know if it makes sense to chat If you do that a hundred times every single week. The way that that compounds. We are getting so much business from the people that we added anywhere from like September to February. Because we added them, they've been lurking in the audience. Now they're reaching out and like hey, you know, I saw your post, I want to chat now. So it's a phenomenal kind of passive. But important is dev strategy. Just add a hundred connections every single week.

Speaker 2:

That is really good. I am not good about that. Only when I attend events. I go to a like um virtual events and I'll immediately go in the chat, like everybody dropped your LinkedIn profile and I'll connect with everyone then. So it's always in spurts, but I by no means do it that way, which I'm going to start doing, and again, it comes down to your business goals.

Speaker 3:

If you're newer to LinkedIn, don't really know what you're doing, that's a great way to just again build an audience, get some momentum. You will eventually get to the point where it's organic, organically you're having 100 new followers come in every week, so you don't have to do it forever. But I would say, if you're trying to get some momentum, it's a great and again you can. You can have a team member. Do it. Just get those added to the audience every week.

Speaker 2:

That's true. Just have some sort of conversational script that your team member can use so it doesn't sound spammy when you're reaching out to someone. I'm at that point where I'm getting like 100 organics but I mean I could do more. I'm not doing anything to do that at this point. Yeah, hmm, okay. So we're connecting with our 100 a week and we're posting three times a week. What are? What's your stance on commenting? How important is it? It is.

Speaker 3:

It's, it is and it isn't. There's just weeks that I like last week I was traveling, I was at a conference. This week, oh, I had tons of comments. I need to reply to you. Just, you never know.

Speaker 3:

So I got my mom on LinkedIn. She's a founder, she's in her sixties and I love it because she doesn't necessarily know what she's doing, but she's just having fun on there and she left a comment on um, I can't write it. It was a bigger post about uh products that women have invented, so she left a comment on there. The comment went viral. She got like 50 likes on that and I was like hey, go, mom, but B, if, if, you, if, and why I did well is she just added her really unique, authentic POV on that.

Speaker 3:

So comments are, they're like mini billboards for your business. Again, if your headshot's clear, if your headline's clear, you leave a comment, a thoughtful comment that provokes some sort of new perspective in someone else, they'll likely go to your profile. If your profile's optimized, they may literally convert from that comment. So we've gotten a lot and we've gotten a lot of business and through comments and also when people tag you. So they are important. You know, don't burn yourself to the ground. You know, trying to leave comments every single day for hours and hours, but I would say, once or twice a week, get on there for 20 minutes just to leave, and what you can do to save time on that is make a list of your strategic partners. So, sarah, you're one of mine. I love leaving comments on yours. I try and prioritize getting on your content, just make your list of people.

Speaker 2:

I have a bell ringing for yours too. I love it.

Speaker 3:

Because you like the work that you're doing. So just strategically making that curated list, it should only take you. You know, if you do that once or twice, two or two ish times a week, it's, it can be really impactful. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have found that my biggest growth weeks are when I make it a priority to comment on other people's posts, especially you said strategic partners. Comment on other people's posts, especially you said strategic partners. It has been really helpful to find ones that have the same ICA as you ideal customer avatar, because the people your dream clients are already commenting on that other person's posts, so they're seeing yours. You end up in their feed when you do that.

Speaker 3:

Totally. The best advice I can give is think about. This is how I grew my first business so quickly as I just nailed it with my strategic partners. I found a coach who I am now really good friends with. I found a coach who did something just slightly different but had the exact same audience, and so we would just comment on each other's stuff all the time and just so many of her people came over. We eventually did a big collaboration. My people would go to her. So think about someone who does something tangential, but not quite it. If you nail it, yeah, you just got to find those like one or two people and again building off that, we're now really good friends, but the potential is there to just really take advantage of what other creators have built. And you know reciprocate, you know support their content.

Speaker 2:

It's borrowing other people's audiences. I talk about this all the time, especially when you're first starting out and you're at net zero. I rely very heavily on borrowing other people's audiences, building strategic partners and building a platform where that you could leverage to build those relationships in the first place Totally.

Speaker 3:

Makes everything so much easier.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh, you have what's authentic to the founder's story. Can you tell me what that is?

Speaker 3:

Totally so. We, we, we did a challenge, I guess about a month ago now, and we really dug into this with the people that joined. But you want to think about, like, what are the values of your decision maker? So, for us, our founders value courage, risk-taking, persistence, resilience, and you know, they, they, they resonate with that. That's, that's, those are values they try and embody, those are values that are important to them.

Speaker 3:

But the the, the trick then is like, what, what of your own story does that authentically again intersect with? So, um, you know, for me leaving corporate, for me starting starting a second business, thinking about those, those parts of my own journey where I had to keep trying. You know, I worked for startups and they didn't, and they didn't work. I, you know, moved cross country to start a new career. So you want to think about, like, what are those authentic? Like pivotal, I would say, the pivotal moments in your life? Like, what are those pivotal moments that you can turn into a parable or a story lesson? Linkedin loves those, but again, it's got to intersect with your. You don't want to just talk about yourself. To talk about yourself, it's got to intersect with what your decision maker, how that, how that will build more trust with them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. I think that it's important to to talk about the mistakes that you've made. It feels, I mean, it's a lot more authentic saying, well, my, you know, things aren't as perfect as they look on social media. This is the mistake I made. This is how you can avoid it.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that content is literally like literally. So much of our business has come from the mistakes, the quote, unquote, failure. What we learned, taking account, if you take accountability for the ways you messed up, we love it. We love humility and leadership, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it just feels so real to hear that and it gives you permission to try new things because, well, they messed up. I can try something new and mess up, and I've messed up a lot.

Speaker 3:

Oh, so many. The lessons are rich in entrepreneurship.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, they are Well. Okay, I'm looking at number three on your list of your learning points how to convert followers into buyers through testimonials and key studies. Let's talk about that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I actually I was super excited to talk to you about this. I was just, uh, the conference I was at last week and it was this, this workshop on sales messaging versus marketing messaging, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is literally what what we teach our clients to do, but that wasn't how I was-, did you post about?

Speaker 3:

that I haven't yet, but I totally am, because it communicated in a way that really had me understand. That's actually the work that we're doing with. This point is marketing is super important, getting visibility, brand awareness but if your intention on LinkedIn is to get business and see conversions, you also have to have sales messaging. And one of the easiest I'm going to say yeah, I guess the easiest and kind of can fit in with the rest of LinkedIn content and not stand out as like, hey, this is a sales post is telling a story about a transformation you took a client through. So that is the. So our company name is build impact, convert. So build an audience impact with your story and then convert them with those sales messaging posts embedded in a client case story, a client transformation Cause. At the end of the day, people want to know if I hire you, you're going to get me results. So how can you again, authentically and tastefully do that in the context of a LinkedIn platform?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think I saw one of your posts recently where you were talking about one of your clients and how they brought on new clients through LinkedIn. It was like a very specific example, but I was like that that works. Molly knows what she's talking about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, we, I again. I I love storytelling. I like to try and fit it into. You know, uh, uh, the. You know where they started and and and have the the post start with what, what, what. What's the dream of your ideal client? So I I'm trying to think of which one you might've seen. You know, we helped a client get booked out. We helped her, we, she is. She got so much business from LinkedIn she doesn't have time for LinkedIn anymore.

Speaker 2:

So that that might've been, I think was the one that's that pops out to me.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, but those are. It's a super important part of the strategy. A lot of this is. This is the mistake we see a lot of founders make is they're doing all marketing, which is great, but they're not doing any sales marketing or messaging, and so super important to build that in and really think about what is the dream outcome your decision maker wants. How can you take them through a story of how you did that for someone else? We all the time women are founders say you know, we hired you because you post about the results that you get for your clients all the time and I was like great, it's working. Love to hear that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, brilliant. Now you do the same and you look at the same results.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, it's overlooked, but super important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, how to create compelling subject matter expertise through LinkedIn content. So one thing before we move on to that point, which is the final point a more passive way to sell through your LinkedIn posts. It's like a postscript kind of thing. I call it a post signature for my clients. It's just constantly reminding them what you do, the transformation that you pull your clients through and who you do it for. And it's passive and easy. And I have started getting so many more DMs for my service after I started doing that.

Speaker 3:

I love it. Yeah, people love the PS, they love the PS.

Speaker 2:

And emails too. If you're doing an educational email, add a PS with some action that they can take to work with you and you'll get more replies. People just forget. You know they forget that they can work with you and not just learn from you.

Speaker 3:

Totally, it's such a good point. Yeah yeah, really powerful and not not a ton of extra work to add a couple lines of impactful text at the bottom.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I just have, I copy and paste it. I have it in my Apple notes and I just copy and paste it at the end of all of my posts.

Speaker 3:

I love it.

Speaker 2:

So how do you decide what to talk about on LinkedIn?

Speaker 3:

It's a great question. It goes back a bit to, again, you're a decision maker. What are they struggling with? What in your experience, if they started to understand, and also knowing what stage of the buyer journey they're at? So do they need to be educated that LinkedIn is important or do they know LinkedIn is important but they need to be educated on how to use it better?

Speaker 3:

So, knowing which stage they're at, but also what you want to be known for, is also part of it. Yes, it's, it's about your audience. But what do you like at the end of the day, what do you? Uh, if you walk into a room, what do you want people to be like oh, that's Kathleen, she's the so-and-so expert. So what do you want to be known for? And then isolating within that, isolating the potent expertise that you can teach.

Speaker 3:

So we, in our work, we've got, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 evergreen frameworks of how you can take these bigger ideas and start to build them into pieces of content. So the teachable pieces, the comparison pieces, the framework breakdowns, your observations, your future predictions. So how to do that is again really going to depend on, a, your intention, but, b, what you want to be known for and also, I'm sure you know there's a lot of testing. You're going to have to test and see what, what your audience resonates with, what, what leads to conversions and what leads to people being like oh, that was it. I want to hire them to know more about that or to apply that to my business.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I always say marketing is a lab. You need to have a hypothesis and test it and see what works. And you know what? A quarter from now it might not work anymore and you have to test out something new.

Speaker 3:

Totally. And also I love this combo because you have to remove yourself, yes, like what you want to be known for, but also within that you can't have too many preferences, because it may not be the exact piece of it they may. Your audience is going to inform really what they want to know about a lot too, so you have to not take things personally either.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and when I am just at a loss of what to post about, I'll do two things. I'll look at whatever my core content is what did I release most recently? Can I break a small piece of that and expand on it and make that the post? And the other thing is breaking apart an offer into little pieces. What would people care about or what's an objection that comes up when I'm talking about this offer? Could I post about that? Those are easy ways to find something to talk about. Totally yeah.

Speaker 3:

The questions people are asking you in enrollment. Calls. The DMs that you get. Yeah, Answering people's questions or objections is a fantastic piece of content.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm going to one sec resumed. Okay, I want to know how people can work with you.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that's a great question. Yes, our signature offering. We do a lot of strategy and consulting. So if you're a founder and you're, like I know, my decision makers on LinkedIn, I want to be getting leads from it and be want to have a more robust online presence. We'll sit down with you and we will walk you through the messaging that's going to convert on your through your LinkedIn profile, walk you through a content strategy, coach you for a month while you're implementing all the new content, give you feedback and have it be optimized for the platform. So that's our six week, what we call our LinkedIn accelerator intensive. The other way is we run a challenge quarterly. So we just finished one. We have a well. Our next one will start end of August and and um begin in in in September. So our your story gets business storytelling challenge and then we're also rolling out a whole bunch of digital products. So if you go to our website, we've got in-depth lead gen workshops, content workshops and general LinkedIn how-to workshops on our website as well.

Speaker 2:

I love that. So I have a quick question Is the accelerator one-to-one or is it group?

Speaker 3:

Great question, all one-to-one. So we do everything in Notion. So we custom build out a whole Notion hub for your business. So a lot of it's async. The rest of it is over Zoom and one-on-one. But at this time we don't have a group cohort. We enjoy the one-on-one work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I get that. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm just branching out into group.

Speaker 3:

now, after a hundred years, yeah, it's a whole different business, but I see the value in the coaches and consultants that offer it.

Speaker 2:

So go find Molly over on LinkedIn and I'm going to have that in the show notes page when this goes out to the pod and thank you again for joining me. Thanks so much, Sarah. This was a really fun combo. You love all things.

Speaker 1:

Tiny marketing so much, Sarah. This was a really fun combo. You love all things tiny marketing. Head down to the show notes page and sign up for the wait list to join the tiny marketing club, where you get to work one-on-one with me with trainings, feedback and pop-up coaching that will help you scale your marketing as a B2B service business. So I'll see you over in the club.

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