Best Of Sales Skills Podcast

America's Top LinkedIn Thought Leader - Ellen Melco Moore.  

May 03, 2021 Mark McInnes/Ellen Melko Moore Season 2 Episode 47
Best Of Sales Skills Podcast
America's Top LinkedIn Thought Leader - Ellen Melco Moore.  
Show Notes Transcript

Ellen Melco Moore is a recent Forbes contributor and has previously worked on both Oprah Winfrey's book club project as well as with the famous Zappos guys.

Forbes has labelled Ellen "Arguably, America's Top LinkedIn Thought Leader"

Ellen is also the CEO of a LinkedIn agency called “Supertight LinkedIn”.
 
In this episode, Ellen and I talk about the new features coming and from LinkedIn, which ones we think are good and which ones are not so good, we cover off.
Creator mode
Cover story
Live broadcaster in your banner
Pronoun inclusions
 
Without giving too much away we think LinkedIn has stuffed up at least some of these new features. It does make you wonder just how deeply does LinkedIn understand what people are using the platform for?
 
Ellen Melco Moore
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellen-melko-moore/


Mark McInnes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mcinnes/


Newsletter sign up
www.markmc.co


POW Courses.
www.markmc.co/pow 

Catch all versions of me here.

https://linktr.ee/markmcinnes
LinkedIn profile
VIP sales mailer
Tactical Pipeline Growth
BOSS Podcast
1 on 1 Consulting

Mark McInnes:

Welcome to the boss podcast. I'm Mark McInnes. If you want, some growth is around how to be better at selling how to start conversations with your audio clients. Then this podcast is perfect for you today. We're joined by Ellen ELAM is a recent Forbes contributor, and previously she's worked with Oprah Winfrey as well as does that pro guys Ellen, also the CEO of a LinkedIn agency called super tight LinkedIn. In this episode. And I talk about the new features coming from LinkedIn, which ones we think are good and which ones we think out, not so good. So we cover off creative mode, have a story, live broadcast, or showing up in your banner as well as pronoun inclusions. So without giving too much away, we think LinkedIn might've stuffed up. At least some of these new features. It does make you wonder, just have deeply, does LinkedIn really understand people are using his platform for. Before we jumped into this episode, let me share something with you. If you want to get access to some style skills, sales training, or sales tactics for free, that's a hundred percent. All you need to do is come across to my LinkedIn profile. But if we're not collected, then let's connect and you'll see right there. My featured section, there are always some really interesting things, absolutely free for you to grab and put to work straightaway. It could be a free training video, or it could be an email breakdown, or it could be an infographic. It might even be some free PDF downloads or whatever. If you want to stay across the very best strategies in a timely manner, then your best bet is subscribed to my fortnightly newsletter, where I share the very best sales strategies are found during that two week period. I promise I don't spam you. It's one email every two weeks. It's nothing more currently I have over a thousand sales professionals getting that as of tonight. So feel free to come and join them to sign up, simply go across your Mark mc.com. Okay. Right now let's come here and hear what Ellen milker Moore's got to say about the brand new LinkedIn features. Welcome to the boss podcast. This week, I'm joined by Ellen Milko. More Ellen. Welcome to the boss.

Ellen Melko Moore:

I was like, Hey Mark. Thanks for asking me to boss cast. I liked being here on the boss cast pod cast.

Mark McInnes:

You can't say it ADA, so that's great. So Ellen, you, and I've stopped a few LinkedIn messages over the years. We're not completely new to each other. You've got a great business called super tight LinkedIn. And we just love your headline too. So listeners go to Ellen Malco, LinkedIn profile. Your profile is hurting my eyes. It says a lot right about what's going on on LinkedIn. So Ellen, you've worked with Oprah Winfrey on the book club project. I believe you also worked with the famous is APOE guys recently had a great article published in Forbes. Congratulations. That's great. Thanks for joining

Ellen Melko Moore:

us. Thank you for having me Mark. Yeah. The article in Forbes just kind of goes to show what you can achieve when. You know, as we've discussed before Mark, when you go just a little bit slower, I'm LinkedIn and you're really working on the quality of your network. So that particular gentleman who wrote that article, I, he actually made a connection request to me. And because of the way I responded, he wrote that article. There's good stuff. Good stuff can

Mark McInnes:

be done, but they got say, LinkedIn does it again?

Ellen Melko Moore:

Yeah, absolutely. And that's how I met YouTube. So amazing.

Mark McInnes:

Yeah. Tell I met a lot of people, which is good, fun, LinkedIn. So we're going to talk about some really cool or maybe not so cool. Anyway, new features coming out and we're going to figure it out, whether they are and how we might be able to use them. But before that, Ellen, please tell everybody that's listening a little bit about yourself and also about super tightly.

Ellen Melko Moore:

Well, thank you so much. Our tagline is we transform LinkedIn for the top 1%. And for us that top 1% is really about mastery and integrity. So we tend to work with people who are very evolved specialists, but we actually work with a lot of marketing people, which surprised me because I thought, well, marketing people won't want help with their social media marketing, but because LinkedIn is so weird. We have quite a few semi famous clients that are internet famous on Twitter and other places, but LinkedIn is just its own weird thing. So when we say transforming LinkedIn, the main thing we are focusing on is we do promise to deliver a certain number of clients. And the basis of all this is we're going to create a profile. We're going to create a practice and we're going to create content. That really engages a very specific audience, hence the name super tight, because we really do focus on building those exclusive niches. I love the

Mark McInnes:

super tight tag because it's really fundamental to sales full stop. So many people trying to sell to everybody, or they're trying to, you know, might be a LinkedIn pro attractive to everybody when in actual fact that it needs to be super tight. I think that's genius. Well,

Ellen Melko Moore:

thank you. I used to be in dance and as probably many people listening now in, in music and dance, the word tight, something is a performance is tight or it isn't. And what we're always looking for is when our people introduce themselves, can we hear can the right person get it immediately, like, get that value immediately? And of course it's easier said than done, but that's what we're always going for. So these

Mark McInnes:

clients that you work for to do get leads for them, or do you set them up so they can get their own lights? Like, is it a done for you sort of

Ellen Melko Moore:

thing it's done with you? And the reason I think that's important for us is we find that sure, somebody else can get out the front door and pretend to be us on LinkedIn. And there's nothing wrong with getting some help with that. But again, what we're focused on is high value clients, high fee clients. And when our clients are typically going after a client for my client might be a quarter of a million dollars. And so for that person, kind of the bigger strategy the done for you stuff does not tend to work as well. And what does work is developing more quality relationships? We are more of a done with you. I don't have a problem on done for you. I just think with certain people and certain audiences that doesn't work as well. And Mark, I'm sure you know, this when people are doing sort of messaging strategies where they're using automation and templates, the return rate on that is like 0.0, 2%. It's not very high. And we think the real question is. Not how many sales conversations are you having per week? How many sales conversations are you having per week with people who are, as I'm sure you would agree and say, Mark, I know you teach this. How many of those conversations are with people that are pre-qualified to accept your offer? Because they've got the money to pay. They've got the mindset, they, they understand all this already. So that's what we're always trying to do is work on that number for

Mark McInnes:

people. Yeah. Good stuff. And, you know, I can just share a little bit on that. We very recently ran a virtual event. And part of that process of course, was, you know, in bonding people who we thought they'd get some value from one of the people in their team set up an automated outreach through LinkedIn. I just sent out about 30 manually every day. And I got great responses. You know, I had two pretty good conversations, you know, he probably sent out 30 messages. I had 20 responses and they went all week. Like, yes, I'll cover the events. Some of them were like, Hey, I haven't heard it from a role. And you know what I mean? I've been in a conversation, you know, 10 and say, yeah, I'll come like that. That sounds like something that's

Ellen Melko Moore:

interesting. I mean, your listeners probably know this already Mark, but is, I mean, I hear what you're saying and I'm just like, wow. I mean, that just goes to show you. Having that type of response to messaging and having 20 people say whatever they say to you when they write back, it just goes to show that obviously that approach is in my opinion, just so much more effective.

Mark McInnes:

Yeah, I agree. That's cool. Let's talk a little bit about these new features or whatever they are. What have we got? It's relatively new from LinkedIn.

Ellen Melko Moore:

Well, so you're talking about creator mode and that is a new feature that LinkedIn is rolling out. They haven't rolled it out to me just yet, but if you are able to do it, it would be on your phone. I don't believe that they've got it for desktop yet, or at least when I'm speaking right now, April 21st, I haven't been able to see it. So the idea is I did some research on this since I wasn't able to touch it firsthand. And there's a couple things I'd like to share about this Mark, if that's okay. So first I think LinkedIn is doing this because they want to be more like YouTube. And the idea of a creator mode is that they're featuring this for people who are going to put together consistent quality content. I think LinkedIn is a little jealous that people enjoy the content so much on YouTube. Whereas the reputation in general that LinkedIn has for content is not high because most of what's out there is, Hey, we had an office party or, you know, yay. Our brand is neat. It's not particularly educational. It's not particularly entertaining. So I think they're going more in that direction. And the idea is that if you switched to creator mode, a couple of things that are going to happen, your featured section will now appear towards the top of your profile and people will be able to follow you. And that's going to be the first offer is to follow you rather than to connect with you. And then this is the direction they're going. They're also thinking about how do we monetize LinkedIn for creators. So just like on YouTube, if you've got a popular channel, you can get paid for that. LinkedIn is definitely trying to go in that direction, which we'll see how that works. And then the one other thing I would say that's kind of, I think, a little, well, I wouldn't recommend it. Is there, they're putting out these videos and saying, Hey, you know, you put this introduction video on your profile and it's however long it is 15 seconds. And LinkedIn itself is making recommendations that we should do 15 seconds of like, hi, I'm Ellen. And here's what I'm passionate about. And here's what I like. And here's what I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear me say, I totally disagree with that. If you don't know me yet, you don't care necessarily what I'm passionate about. You care about what can I do for you? Basically. So I would recommend that people think about it more than that. If they want to do a 15 second introduction, like teach us something cool in 15 seconds or whatever the statement you're going to make, make it about us rather than about yourself would be what I think. And again, I haven't got a chance to get my hands on it yet. So perhaps I'm speaking out of turn or speaking out of school, but that's, that's the immediate thing I thought when I looked at that.

Mark McInnes:

What's that called the video?

Ellen Melko Moore:

I don't remember. So creator mode is the name of this whole new feature. And then the video is like one piece of the, of the creator mode.

Mark McInnes:

That's right. Yeah. The promotions that I've seen have been around people saying, hi, my name's Mark. And I'm passionate about helping salespeople. And I'm looking for my perfect role in a multi-billion dollar company, then they're pretty boring. Right? I think there's a lot of opportunity for you to say, Hey, my name's Mark. And you know, if you're in sales, download this free piece here that you can have, or. I

Ellen Melko Moore:

completely agree. I think this is so I don't know if I told you this Mark, but one of our clients, because of the content he was putting out on LinkedIn, he actually got hired by LinkedIn and he's involved in talent, acquisition hiring. And so they liked what he was doing, but his content so much that they, they hired him to help them find a talent, mostly tech talent in for California. But what I think is so interesting is he told us that meeting with all the higher ups on LinkedIn, that most of those folks are still very much focused. Their primary focus is on LinkedIn as a way to help people find jobs. They, at least to him did not occur. Like they were very clued in to all the rest of us and the different things that we're doing as far as sales and social selling. And. Leads and all that fun stuff. So I wonder that you just did a perfect imitation of the, of the promotional video that they suggest. And I wonder if again, it's guided by the fact that leadership of LinkedIn tends to think about LinkedIn as the most important thing about it is to help people find jobs. So, I don't know. I think that's worth noting though.

Mark McInnes:

The feature I'll remember what the feature is called, the features called cover story. And what do you do when you, when you apply for a job, what do you send with your resume? A cover letter,

Ellen Melko Moore:

right? Oh yeah, there you go. That must be exactly why it is Mark. I'm sure.

Mark McInnes:

Marketing departments thought very hard about that. So I think this is another stuff up from LinkedIn where they don't really understand. Okay.

Ellen Melko Moore:

It's so interesting. It's like on the one hand, it's the oldest social media network. It's even older than like Friendster and MySpace. And at the same time, I think it's strange. I don't know about you, but I've seen many other people attempt to create platforms that rival LinkedIn, as you know, it's going to be the professional platform period. And yet nobody's been able to do that. And at the same time, we've got this one platform that is exclusively for professionals, and it does seem like the focus, at least the way they recommend people use it. If I were looking for a job, I would not be putting one of those open to work stickers, like on my picture. That's just me. But again, I think it is important for salespeople listening to this. That, when it comes to the new feature, cover story, whatever they keep up with the good habits that they have and that they have from listening to the boss podcast. Which is again a forced to be of service and yeah, here's cool stuff. I have check it out is a lot more useful. I think then introducing your passion and discussing how you're it is weird. It's weird how wonky LinkedIn is in some ways. And. The conversation I have with people all the time is first. If, if the LinkedIn algorithm where your boyfriend or girlfriend, it would be like the worst one of your life, because it would be so inconsistent. And secondly, you meet the most amazing people on LinkedIn. Despite the fact that the platform can be that wonky. It's just like, I don't know if this happens to you, but people are always asking me to explain aspects of LinkedIn algorithm. And sometimes I know something for like a week and then they changed the algorithm. And again, it's like, like that terrible boyfriend or girlfriend that, that tells you one week, like, Oh, I just want to cuddle. And then the next week is like, Hi, Hey cuddlers. Why are you doing this? So it's just good to know that you can enjoy the platform and you don't need to listen to everything that LinkedIn recommends for you to do.

Mark McInnes:

They have made some changes or making some changes as part of these add ons, the ability for people to put pronouns next to the name. I think that's pretty cool. So if you know, people want to do that. That's nice. That's going to be rolled out as part of it. And I also believe that we're going to put captions on the cover story. So you won't need to have your audio turned on. I think that's a big challenge too. You know, like when, I mean, most people walk around and take turns on all the time and I do that, you know, you'd probably just want to see what I say

Ellen Melko Moore:

strange. No, I'm, that's a really good point. But what, what we're told is that even on the phone, 85% of people don't have the audio turned on. For LinkedIn. So again, I don't know if that's true or not, but yeah.

Mark McInnes:

Include captain capabilities at some point. Is your outreach, getting you labeled as a spammer? Well, once worked in B2B, outbound doesn't work anymore, the

Ellen Melko Moore:

goalposts have moved and so much your approach to sales. Sure. You might land odd conversation. Or even a reply to an odd cold email,

Mark McInnes:

but is it scalable? Will it provide you with enough revenue to hit your

Ellen Melko Moore:

yearly goals? Having worked with sales teams all over the world, we see

Mark McInnes:

what works and what doesn't. Our new power coaching program

Ellen Melko Moore:

provides sellers with access to the very best training available today. It doesn't matter if you're a team of 50 or a team of one. We have flipped traditional sales training on its head. And allow you to learn in your own time and still get the important coaching, help that you need. Grab all the details@markmc.com slash

Mark McInnes:

pow with the creative mode, really, to try and help people stand out from, you know, you've got people on LinkedIn who created a lot of content, write stuff, share stuff, and make it easy for us to see who they are and what they talk about. Or is it more about keeping those people happy? You know, that those creators do you

Ellen Melko Moore:

think? I don't know. I feel my feeling is, and this is just a hypothesis. I feel like they're jealous and they're trying to compete with the popularity of new platforms like clubhouse. And what they're trying to do is figure a way to keep up is my feeling. So in the sense that they want people who are going to be as. Successful to be a creator on LinkedIn, as people are successful creators on clubhouse, Twitter, or YouTube. And also this monetizing thing is big. I think they're definitely looking towards that and I think they're trying to stay, stay in the game. So for all those reasons, I think creator mode is definitely a good thing. I think it's going to be interesting. I think people want to think about it. Like you really want to think about if you're going to turn on that creator mode, are you going to be consistently producing? Fun. Interesting content. It seems to me Mark. And again, I haven't got a chance to get my hands on it yet, so I may be very wrong, but it seems to me like, there'd be a lot of folks that this wouldn't necessarily be the best try for like picture a, one of my clients has a lot of law firms as clients. And I'm thinking about the types of content. These people typically turn out as a law firm. Would that be a good fit for creator mode? Like I had a hard time imagining it. I can't wrap my brain around it yet. So I do think it's important for people to educate themselves about it. You know, read some articles on it, check it out. Don't just assume that just because it's new that you have to have it. I think you want to be more thoughtful than that. The other thing is, remember, they're going to rearrange the actual sections of your profile based on creator mode. So you gotta decide, okay. If I switch over to creator mode and my feature section comes up first now, is that doing me any favors? So just like take a moment to stop and look and think, and also just remember LinkedIn is doing this because LinkedIn wants to stay in business and because they want some of the features that other platforms have. So you don't have to oblige LinkedIn by being the Guinea pig for this, unless you want to, unless you're excited about content creation on LinkedIn. And, and obviously there are people who do feel that way. Yeah.

Mark McInnes:

Look, I liked the idea that featured section might be higher because I think that's a really important part. Of the profile. And I'm looking at my profile now on the mobile phone while we're talking, you know, if I've got creative mode, hashtag sales, hashtag new business, hashtag prospecting, whatever it would make it easier, somewhat easier for people to see that without me having to have all of that in my headline. So I'm wondering if they turn into Mike is because everyone's going to mental on your headlines, right. So, you know, I've got like four sentences. You've got, you know, your, your profile setting, my eyes, you know, whereas if we've got hashtag hashtag LinkedIn training might make it easier because some people are mobile to get a quicker idea about what it is. So people like you and I are doing. And I think they're trying to move more people onto mobile. Because desktop is like, I spend most of my time on desktop on LinkedIn, because that's what I do during the day. But I think, you know, for them, they need to grow people using it on their mobile. So I wonder if that's part of that, getting people onto the mobile pace and make it easier for them to engage in a business way.

Ellen Melko Moore:

I think you are probably dead on that seems to me very likely. And you're absolutely right. I'm the same as you like. This is what I do for a living. So I do it on my desktop, but because mobile is so important for these other platforms, I think absolutely that LinkedIn is, I think you could be 100% right about that motivation. And I just wanted to say also the whole thing about the crazy worst sentence headlines. I think the most important thing about a headline is does it, I'm always trying to write ones for people that make people smile when they come to the profile to give that feeling of affinity and liking. But I'm just so just so we're clear, my profile says your profile is hurting my heart as well as my eyeballs. So just to be clear, I know it's my heart that's hurting as well. So anyway, the point is I do feel that way. I feel that way when. I look at really cool people. And then I look at a profile and I'm like, Oh boy, ouch. And again, it's not anyone's fault. It's because the ability to get good direction and training on it is a little harder to find them. I think it should be. And this whole idea about, so Mark, you know, how on your phone, you can actually make the headline for your LinkedIn profile actually quite a bit longer than on desktop. You remember that like that you get more characters. So I see all these people whose headlines are just at S H I T show it is just nonsense because they're trying to use every single one of those characters. And so what I always laugh at is when I see ones that are like that, the first, the first choices are like author podcast, host, you know, I'm trying to think what else they have, Oh, speaker trainer or consultant, coach. Like they list every possible way of interacting and whatever that person's expertise, as far as podcast hosting and all those other things just mentioned might be the very last word. In the headline. So all, when this person is running around LinkedIn and leaving comments or liking or whatever they're doing, all everyone sees is nothing about their expertise, but a big giant list of all the different ways that they do, whatever it is they do. And I just mean that's. I think what happens when, when people don't get a chance to kind of learn what this stuff is for. And then it's like, always, it's like, Oh, well, if you've got X number of characters, you need to use X number of characters. And I just, I don't agree with that personally.

Mark McInnes:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I'm looking at my profile now, as we're talking on my phone and I'm like, yeah, look, I'm actually falling into that. You know, you just get, you make small changes and then over time and you end up making a big mess. So it's good to, good to have these chats. Yeah.

Ellen Melko Moore:

Well, and I always think about when you're, when, and unfortunately I can't look at your, uh, because I am on desktop right now. If I switch over to look at your profile, I would knock myself off think gastro, but. What I will say is I can't say your headline word for word, but I do know absolutely what you do from your headline. And more importantly, I also know what you do from those first few words. So again, often people, you know, they sort of warm up and then they get whatever it is. They really want to say at the end of the headline. And then every single time you're interacting with anyone else on LinkedIn. They're not going to see that. They're just going to see those first few words of the headline. So thinking about the first few words is important, I think. Yeah, I

Mark McInnes:

think so. So that that's pretty good. I've just made a few changes while we've been chatting. So there you go. Yeah. So look, I think creator's going to be in interesting for a lot of people who are spending a lot of time on LinkedIn and creating stuff. I think it is a drive to try and keep people on mobile or to use LinkedIn instead of Facebook or Instagram. And so, you know that when we go live for those of you who have LinkedIn your background, did you say that

Ellen Melko Moore:

no, I'm not allowed to have LinkedIn live yet. So unfortunately,

Mark McInnes:

either. But what will happen is when I go live, I can't because I don't have it, but if I did, my background would disappear and you'll be able to watch that live direct from your phone. So that little gap where your batteries expands to 200% of its current size, and then you'll get to see me going live. And what I suspect is that concept would be quite have hashtag sales, hashtag business development, whatever the case may be. Right. And then whatever I was talking about was supposed to be about that topic, you know? So then from, uh, walking around with your mobile phone, watching little videos, which sort of reinforces what you were saying about YouTube,

Ellen Melko Moore:

doesn't it? I think so. I mean, again, it's just interesting. When you think about what most LinkedIn content looks like, sounds like, is like, I mean, this seems like it's going to be a pretty big jump is what I'm trying to say. I think it's going to be interesting. I think it's a great idea and it's going to be interesting.

Mark McInnes:

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So that'll be pretty cool to see how it comes. How it all plays out. So, but, you know, make sure you do some research before you start making tenures and don't just listen to LinkedIn because I think if you put on LinkedIn that you're looking for your dream job, it's not gonna work out.

Ellen Melko Moore:

Yeah. And just remember LinkedIn, isn't making these changes because they care about you. They're making the changes because they want to keep up with the competition. And that can be a good thing. But exactly like Mark just said, don't, don't, don't assume that you have to jump into that. Take, take some time to look at it and see how you feel about it. And of course, there's another question, Mark. I don't know how easy it is to switch off creator mode after you've switched it on. No

Mark McInnes:

idea. Very interesting. Well, we'll just have to wait and see, as this has been rolled out across the planet. Step-by-step so there's a few people, LinkedIn fashion. So a few people who've got it every day or every week. And you know, so you'll have listeners eventually. So Ellen, how can people get in contact with you? What's the best way for people that are listening to this? Think I got somebody on I'd watch them get a bit more off. What's the best way to do that. I would

Ellen Melko Moore:

be very honored for anyone who thinks that and a very easy way to do it is find me on LinkedIn, Ellen Milko Moore. I'm the only one of that name. If you heard me on the boss podcast, I'd love to know that. So when you send a connection request or however you choose to communicate, say, Hey, you on the boss podcast and I will, I will pay extra special attention because it's a big deal for me to be on a podcast in Australia. It is I'm serious.

Mark McInnes:

Well, we've got about five, five regular listeners. So you might get one or two connection requests. You never know it. Sorry. We have a few more than that. Let's see. I will be

Ellen Melko Moore:

thrilled.

Mark McInnes:

It's been great having you on the podcast. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on line. We've had a bunch of calendars, just getting connected to die with tissues and whatnot. But I do appreciate you sharing your wisdom on the bus podcast.

Ellen Melko Moore:

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me Mark and hello to everybody who's listening.

Mark McInnes:

How would you want a copy of tactical top line growth sent directly to you for free you? They paid to swap before. All you have to do is leave us an honest review on Apple podcast, as it would really help probably on us. It helps us find mold, right? Yes. In the future. And of course the pin of a guest. So we get 60 seconds to do some reviews function directly from the device you're using right now. So really appreciate the review and then screenshot back to me.