Speaker 2: 0:06

Welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast with Thomas Helfrich. Get ready for a thrilling adventure as we uncover entrepreneurial journeys and life-changing business insights every week. And now your host, Thomas.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Welcome back to another episode of Never Been Promoted. Thank you so much for tuning in. Hi, I'm Thomas Helfrich, your host. If this is your first time coming here, I appreciate you, and I hope it's the first of many. If you have been here before, you know our mission. Our mission is to help a million entrepreneurs get started, get unstuck and get better at entrepreneurship and life, and we're doing this through the journey and stories of other entrepreneurs. So the idea of micro mentoring. If you can learn one thing from this episode, you have done what you needed today to take a step forward to become better at entrepreneurship. Today, though, I'm joined by. One of my favorite people is Corey Warfield. He is a LinkedIn influencer and influencer maker. He's been very influential as well into how I've approached LinkedIn and continue to struggle with my own content, but he's a fantastic human. He's out there, corey, why don't you introduce yourself?

Speaker 3: 1:22

Well, first of all, hi, sexy voice guy, I know you back from those days but, yeah, great to be here. I was in my first startup. I was demoted. Actually, once we raised a big round they brought in the gray haired CEO and gave me the world's funniest title of chief visionary officer. So I can say I've been demoted. But I've also been like weirdly promoted, you know, way back in the day before my entrepreneurial journey, a couple of times. So you know I'm always the anomaly.

Speaker 1: 1:54

but I love it and you have, you've had. I want you to give your backstory, because you have just quite a. I mean, it's, it's truly. You can write a book just on your own backstory, not even to what you're doing today, but drop your backstory a little bit to set up who you are and how you got here.

Speaker 3: 2:10

Sure. Well, so about 25 years ago maybe a little bit more I dropped out of college after a year and I went to do some software testing at a company called Rand McNally, and at the time they were building the world's first Atlas and GPS software, and so I was there as an alpha tester. They kept me on as a beta tester, and so that was a lot of fun. I was part of that project for some time, left there to go do some temporary work at a pharmaceutical research company called Searle Pharmaceutical here in Chicago. Their biggest product is NutraSweet, but they make stuff that's supposed to make you good, not bad as well, and I did such a good job filing paperwork there that they promoted me a couple of times to the role of metrologist, which is the science of weights and measures. So I was a 20-year-old college dropout with a lab jacket, my own lab making. I think it was like 32 bucks an hour or something which at the time was really good. Lab making, I think it was like 32 bucks an hour or something which at the time was really good. And for some reason you know, I stayed there for a while, but then I decided to go and try to be a rapper, and so I tried to tour the country, you know, performing on some of the smaller stages, opening up for some of the other acts. That turned out about as disastrously as it might sound, and so I ended up washing dishes at a restaurant in the mountains of Colorado and that turned into a busboy job. That turned into a waiter job and I did such a good job kind of waiting tables, attending bar and I got certified as a sommelier. So I did that for almost 20 years.

Speaker 3: 3:40

Right, I was a waiter basically through all of the 20s, all of the 2010s, and I was finally almost 40 years old and realized I was tired of being the servant in the castle. I was just burnt out. I was tired of working 100 hours a week on my feet, tired of getting demeaned by people that you know, whatever it takes all types of people to put butts in the seats of restaurants, and so I just couldn't do it. And what had been the most problematic for me is you never know when you're working in the restaurant industry. You're always on these on-call shifts and they tell you last minute yeah, we need. You know, we don't. It's hard to forecast how much money you're going to make. So I said, well, wait, all the data exists. The data is there. They know who's going to be needed on what day. They know it many days in advance. They know, you know effectively how many people are going to come through the restaurant and how many waiters they're going to need.

Speaker 3: 4:28

So, with no experience, I started a software company and we were able to build a product using data to help restaurants schedule more predictably, and that turned into kind of a whole startup. We raised about $850K, grew to about $35K headcount when I left, and so that was my first entrepreneurial journey. But so now I found myself finally you know, had successfully executed on entrepreneurship finally gotten myself out of the industry, as we called it. You know, waiting tables. So I've gone on now to start a number of other companies. I've helped founders raise millions of dollars. Typically, I like to try to help founders get where they thought they needed money for without having to raise money, and you know that's much better, because then investors want to throw big, big amounts of money at you and you don't have to chase them.

Speaker 1: 5:12

But so that's kind of my encapsulated journey, you're you're and people don't realize this about you because I've gotten to know you over the years You're very like service oriented, from, from helping others, services first. One of the few people I know that truly still you know writes posts to their own, does it from the heart and and I think that's I think people should understand this they hear your story that you're. The sense of altruism and service to others is like at a core of your and I'm not sure how you got that way. Maybe it's just like tell you you. So I'm not sure how you got that way. Maybe it's just like tell you you know years in a restaurant or just so you see it as a better path. But you would talk because I think that's a really important skill for entrepreneurs that a lot of them don't have it and you bring that. So could you, could you talk about that a little bit, from just how that is, maybe just as a strategy or just as a daily thing.

Speaker 3: 5:58

Well, I think that's one of the ones it's hard to teach, because for me it really was that almost 20 years in the service industry. You can't turn it off right. You're on stage every time their wish is your command. If someone takes a sip of water, you put the water back in the glass and they say thank you, and you know that so many thank yous adds up to extra percentages on the tip line and really being at the mercy of people to leave me good gratuities, which really I was able to make six figures as a waiter for years because of that hospitality, and so I just can't turn it off. I've even I've been the guest of honor at some pretty pricey dinners, you know where I'm still walking around and wanting to take people's plates away and people are like no, Corey, you're, you're here as a VIP, like You're not working, You're not a waiter anymore. But I think, after just doing it so long, it can't be turned off.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Well, and I get this. I mean, obviously I have a sense that you still do it because you feel it's the right thing to do, and it's great to get the additional tip or the additional customer, but you're doing it with really not the expectation that's just the right thing to do. The result is you still get rewarded financially often not always, but some people are just aren't wired that way either, but that's the sense I get from it. I think that's one of the differentiators of true altruism, true services. I feel like you do it without the expectation, even though it's great when you do, because you're like, yeah, I need to make money in life and do the things.

Speaker 1: 7:19

But I think that's a fundamental difference between you and many people I've met is it's, it seems um, and it seems it is real and it's it's, it's more ingrained in you. It's just it's enabled through success and those. Those become a nice cycle. Uh, talk about your, your, your kind of like. You know your original people on like LinkedIn. You, you figured it out early and I think of people who really I won't call them all influencers, but people have gone from having a clue to like making a living out of the LinkedIn world.

Speaker 3: 7:49

Can you take a few minutes to talk about that journey. Yeah, when I first kind of left my first startup, I had, you know, probably 50,000 followers or something, which at the time was a lot, and people kept coming to me asking me how I'd done it, and so I started helping a couple people, I taught a few people and now those people have over a million followers.

Speaker 3: 8:10

But about two years ago I said wait, I've got time, everyone's wanting me to do this, why don't I start coaching people on it and making a little bit of money doing it? And so I started doing that and I'm still very close to those first people that I coached. But it became pretty evident pretty quickly that the people I coached were all fast track to 100,000 followers and they were all getting millions of impressions. And I realized that if I put them all together in a little community it could only help strengthen all of the initiatives. And so I put together a community. Right now I've got about 50 or so people in there.

Speaker 3: 8:44

Not everyone I coach makes the cut right. I've learned how to discern over time who is coachable and who is someone that I do want to represent and introduce to my other influencer buddies. But in that community we've done now, I think, just under, or maybe we've exceeded, a billion dollars of inbound pipeline that's all coming down through LinkedIn. Of that, I'm aware of at least 200 million that's been actualized as inbound revenue from LinkedIn. So right, that's huge, and you know everyone that I've coached. My goal is to help them make at least a million dollars inbound through LinkedIn within the first 12 months and you know most of them have at least 100,000, some of them, you know, half a million, like I do.

Speaker 3: 9:27

One guy's got, I think, 800,000 followers now and we're not huge on the vanity metrics. To me that's just proof positive. But the guy with 800,000 followers has done hundreds of millions of inbound pipelines. So right, once, once it makes dollars and it and yeah, I'm still doing that. You know I have two startups right now. One of them is a scale up and so it's. It's hard to find the time to do as much coaching as I'd like, but you know, just like the waiting thing Now I feel like I'll do the coaching thing forever. I just love it, and to see how it can transform lives has been pretty incredible.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Yeah, We'll talk about that. So what's the difference between uh, uh, from the personality set? So we'll get into, maybe kind of like you know, you know without the secret sauce. I mean, you know, both of you can give a secret sauce away, but unless you know what to go put it on and how to go remake it, it doesn't, it doesn't matter much if you've eaten it once and have it in a jar, right, you have to, you have to. On LinkedIn or just in business in general, who know how to use the network to make net worth Right, Talk about the kind of here's what works and here's the people who don't work.

Speaker 3: 10:36

Well, it's interesting. You look on LinkedIn and virtually everyone's content follows the same formula I'm going to teach you something so that I can sell you something. And first of all, that's condescending right. To think that you're going to show up on LinkedIn and teach a billion professionals around the world something that you know, that they don't know, is inherently condescending. And no one's on LinkedIn to be condescended. But here's the crazier thing no one has ever pretty much gone to LinkedIn to learn anything, and no one's ever gone to LinkedIn to buy anything.

Speaker 3: 11:07

It's not the platform to do either of those. If we want to learn, we go to YouTube, we go to chat GPT. We go to the library, we go to a book, we ask a friend. Right? Linkedin understood that so well that they created their own company, their own API, their own technology called LinkedIn Learning. They bought a company called Linda for almost a billion dollars, right, because they understood people didn't go to LinkedIn to learn, but they wanted that to be part of their business model.

Speaker 3: 11:32

But I've never talked to anyone that specifically went to LinkedIn to learn a thing. Similarly, no one's ever gone to LinkedIn to buy anything, not even a coach the closest that you would come as a recruiter might go to LinkedIn quote, unquote to buy an employee, right, to place them to make their money. But if we want to buy something, we go to Amazon, go to any of the marketplaces, go to a website, go to Google, go to the store, right, but so no one's on LinkedIn to learn, no one's on LinkedIn to buy. But then 90 plus percent of people's content is let me teach you something so I can sell you something, and those 90 plus percent of people's content is let me teach you something so I can sell you something. And those 90 plus percent of people come back and say LinkedIn doesn't work. It's like, well, no, you're literally just doing it completely wrong. And it's the overwhelming majority of people on LinkedIn. So what I understood is it's a networking site. It's a 24-7, 365 networking site. It's free unless you want to give them 30 bucks a month for premium and see who's seen your profile. Right, Like. It's really very, very methodical.

Speaker 3: 12:32

Once you use LinkedIn to start networking, you do what you would do at a networking event you talk with people, not at them. Huge difference, right? You try to add value and you try to do things that are going to make you memorable and stand out without being too over the top. You know we've all been in networking events where that person comes in wearing 15 colors and they go around and they're throwing their business card at everybody and they're trying to pitch everybody and you know afterwards everyone's kind of like oh, I hope they never show up at another event I'm at. Oh, I hope they never show up in another event, I'm at. Right. So not being that person on LinkedIn and really just being there to be part of something bigger than yourself and it's really easy at that point to craft a headline that positions you as a one of one, so that that headline can jump out Every time you post on LinkedIn. Everybody that sees that post will see the first five to seven words of your headline. So packing a punch in those first five to seven words, that's huge.

Speaker 3: 13:28

Also, you can engage with anyone on LinkedIn. I can engage with Gary Vee, richard Branson it doesn't matter Now they might not see it or they might have a team right, but I can engage with them and I can get in front of their audience. And if I really want to get in touch with them, then I'm going to find out who their executive assistant is or who else is on their team. I'll use Mr Beast as an example.

Speaker 3: 13:49

Mr Beast is amazing, just got a $100 million deal with Amazon for a TV show, but he's got a whole team and his team's pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. So if you want to get in touch with Jimmy, it's super hard to get in touch with Mr Beast himself, but you can get in touch with his team on LinkedIn and if you've got a profile and a headline, that's going to resonate with them. It's not very hard for them to reach out to you and at this point I have a friendship with some of his team and I'm hoping to do some stuff with them. And again, it's all that kind of mindset of adding value, not coming off too over the top and putting yourself in the right positions to succeed.

Speaker 1: 14:28

Are you focusing more on the strategy of? I mean, this has to tie to a bigger strategy of yourself. What do you want to be known as that kind of idea and what content? So there are different strategies you can use for LinkedIn of giving attention or giving value that gets attention, and so the content being you're very good at content. So tell me, I guess maybe my question is is it because is it something that someone has to be good at, or can they learn how to write good content?

Speaker 3: 15:02

Well, I think that's almost a misconception, because you don't need great content. Now, linkedin when they named me, their official top voice gave me the badge. They said it was because of my content and actually they laughed and said Corey, we're trying not to give these blue LinkedIn top voice badges to people with huge followings and viral content. That's kind of antithesis of our model anymore. But with you, you know, even though you've got a billion views and a half million followers we had to give you the voice badge. Because do you?

Speaker 1: 15:30

have a specific voice. It's like somebody to follow for whatever Like. Is it because of consistency, or what was the blue checkmark?

Speaker 3: 15:56

No, yeah, so that's something that they give out to some people every year, but that's been notoriously like Ariana Huffington, richard Branson, gary Vee they'll get the top voice badge and the branding top voice and all these things. And you know, that's a little bit more of something that can be gamified. I've got everybody that I coach gets those gold top voice badges, but no, the blue one specifically was because of the quality of my content. But I say that to say this there are people that have moderately good content or not very good content who do go viral and do close business, and sometimes people relate to that content that's not so good because it's more relatable. People are like I can write that, right. They're like I don't need to sit around and spend 45 minutes to get this perfect post, I can just throw something out there conversationally, right. And if we go back to the analogy of a networking event, the people that walk around that networking event with the world's best pitch or the best things to say aren't necessarily the ones that are going to walk away with the big book of business, right? Sometimes it's just the people walking around making small talk. And so if you're not good at content but you're on LinkedIn to network. Don't worry about having great content, just show up, be consistent, be there, be present, try to add value in whatever capacity you're wired to do, and so, yeah, I don't think you need to have great content.

Speaker 3: 17:16

Now my content. I've been talking about blockchain and metaverse and digital twins and AI forever, and so now the AI is this huge boom. All the big companies have been coming to me and you know I had the company I'm now partnered with, interesting engineering, came and said Corey, we want to do an AI newsletter, you're our guy, and so we started AI logs together, and so I do think being known for something like I'm very, very much known in the generative AI space has served me well, but that was just a North star, right, I was talking about this stuff before anybody was using it, and right, and so I think it's just, I almost got lucky in that sense. I just I stayed on brand and it turned out that I had whether it was intentional or unintentional, I had skated to where the puck was going when we first started talking.

Speaker 1: 18:00

Like you know, I had open AI beta access as the AI nerd you years ago and saw it. But I also saw like I ran from content a bit because I was like so many it's going to just be flooded. And so I took a different look. I said you know, the strategy I've played with that's really done really well for our company is I give attention to others. I was like everyone's going to have content. So I'm going to go engage on a completely different strategy. Like our contents I mean not great on my personal we're sorting it. This podcast helps. It's actually a better direction. We'll come back to that here. But I said you know what, I'm not going to worry about content because it's going to be overwhelming and I think the algorithms will push down content no-transcript. So I said let's just go give it. Let's go give attention and drive some conversations on someone else's content and then set up our profile. So it's clear what I can do for you. But I'm not going to ask you for anything. If you want it, you'll come to me and that's been our strategy for two years and it's been fantastic to go, you know, over a hundred percent growth year over year.

Speaker 1: 19:06

Now, the other side of that is content, which is a giant void. And, like you said, like you know, like I took the ideas, like you know what I love doing podcasts and meeting people and networking it's my favorite thing on the planet to do. And if someone asked me what I would want to do full time, I would I'd rather just meet people and talk with them and promote them, and this is what never been promoted it's about. So that's become my content for for LinkedIn and it's actually I can just see it. It's getting more and more people are viewing it because it's consistent, it's it's it's value added messaging. So what you're saying is true when you find your niche, just learn something, do better, be better. They interact with it and you just got to be consistent and be fully behind it when you do it.

Speaker 3: 19:49

That's it Right, and and that's not trying to oversell, I mean it's. It really is this thing where if you, if you, can convey your value, then you just show up wearing your value on your sleeve and you let the right people come to you.

Speaker 1: 20:03

That's patient, though. So there's. That speaks to something else that I think, people, it is not network. Linkedin is is not Google. It is not a find something and transact and you're over. It is a networking based platform that is designed to take time, develop trust and to become known for something, and so if you think you're going to go hit it for 30 days, 60 days, and you're going to get a bunch of leads and say you're, you're probably a little bit misled on what your outcome is going to be, Would you? Would you?

Speaker 3: 20:33

Unless.

Speaker 1: 20:33

I'm coaching you Agreed, talk about your, your coaching a little bit. Like you know, I just just high level, like if high level, if I'm a potential customer who's really interested in, let's say, I was coming to you and I said I really want to improve my content. Here's all this shit that I got going on. What would you recommend? Take me through the journey, a little bit of what you do, to kind of take some of the next level.

Speaker 3: 21:03

Yeah, and before I do that, I just want to make sure, am I?

Speaker 3: 21:05

frozen on your end, I'm frozen on my end and I think, okay, so it looks like I'm just very pensive. Yeah, there's a, I'm in Chicago and there's a thunderstorm starting right now, so I'm sure that's that's affecting my my connectivity, but as long as I'm coming through, that's all. Good People can can look at a screenshot of me while I talk about this, but for me, when I coach people, the first thing I have them do I have them watch a three and a half hour video that I recorded. It's all the kind of tips and tricks of the algorithm.

Speaker 3: 21:32

So that I don't have to explain everything as we go through the coaching, right? I want people to understand certain things about what does and doesn't work, why you should post when other people aren't, why you should start off a post with inclusive language, right? These types of things. So they watch the video Now they know everything that they need to know for me to really hit the ground running with them. But once we're there, the first and only most important thing for me is optimizing their profile, and it's fully optimizing a profile.

Speaker 3: 22:00

You know, most people's profiles literally read like an extension of their cv, right, and it's like here's my title at this job and this company and you're like that means nothing to me, right? No one gets excited that you're the senior vice president of the company no one's ever heard of, so why would that be your huge first impression, right? So we get together. We work on a headline. I've got a girl in Canada that I coached recently. She's a career coach and she only does group coaching, and her model was really simple. She did these free master classes once a month. She had 100 people there, convert 20% of them to a paid group coaching and she charged a thousand bucks.

Speaker 3: 22:42

So she was making 20 grand a month as a solopreneur. That's fantastic. But it took her all month to get these hundred people to sign up for this masterclass and she wasn't getting much visibility. So the first thing we did we had to come up with the right headline, and so we crafted it. Her headline now says I will get you a six-figure job you love DM. Yes for the next free masterclass. And what do you know? Within days she's got more than 100 people that want to be in her next master class. Oh my god, corey never had more than 100 people want to join one of these, and this only took me days instead of months.

Speaker 3: 23:14

Well, we've optimized her full profile top to bottom all the social proof recommendations, right. Make sure you've got enough skills listed. At the time it was 50. Now you can have 100 skills listed on LinkedIn. So it's all of these little things. Let's make sure under languages it says all the languages you speak. Let's make sure that we have some volunteering and some interests and everything that the algorithm needs to know to really know you as a professional profile and as a power user. And once we've got that profile completely dialed in, the headline's perfect banner represents it as your billboard and all the little disparate pieces.

Speaker 3: 23:49

Now it's content time. Now that you've got an optimized profile, you're one of the only people on the platform to have an optimized profile. Now let's get to going viral. And that's really easy. It's very formulaic we just need to find a perfect time for you to post, which is probably when most others are not posting. We need to find the right way to get people to lean into that conversation and to stop scrolling somebody juggling or a cat waving at a you know cars going by. I'm going to probably post something more along the lines of a great 3d render of a digital twin or, you know, potentially a robotic surgeon or something that's cool, but still something that's going to grab attention and that I can speak to. And so you know, within that first week optimized profile. Second week optimized content, going viral. I like to see people get at least a million views of their content in my first 30 days working with them Once we've got that dialed in. So that's typically halfway through the first month.

Speaker 3: 24:56

Now it's time to start to find other influencers on the platform that we want to get on the radars of, that we want to get on the radars of, and it's less about getting on their radars, more about getting on the radars of their audience, right, who's got a big audience who all needs what it is that you offer. Start showing up wherever they are, start adding value, start leaving really meaningful comments on their posts, but also on their audience's posts, on theirs, right? And maybe, if you see some of their audience who's a perfect clientele, start to go to their profile and engage with them a little bit as well. Kind of your approach, right, of giving people that attention that they want.

Speaker 3: 25:30

And one of the things that I teach my clients is it's really not advantageous to send a connection request, because if you send a connection request, you're asking for a favor. So if I say, hey, tom, will you accept my connection request? And you say, yeah, you just did me a favor, so if I say, hey, tom, will you accept my connection request? And you say, yeah, you just did me a favor, we were strangers, I just asked a stranger to do me a favor and a stranger did me a favor, that's not a power position, right? So what I'll do instead?

Speaker 3: 25:55

If I want to be connected to Tom, I'm going to follow you. Well, I just did you a favor, now I'm going to go on. I'm going to engage with one of your recent posts, I'm going to leave a reaction and I'm going to leave a comment. Those are two more value add favors that I've done. I just didn't use, as the stranger, three favors. I followed you, I liked your post, I commented on it and I've got this great headline and nine times out of ten, tom's going to send me a connection.

Speaker 1: 26:21

Especially if they already follow you. If they already follow you, that's a super important piece. Like hey, this guy already follows you. They're like ah, I like him Done.

Speaker 3: 26:31

Yeah, and now you send me the connection request and when I accept it, I just did you a fourth favor. Right, and to have this blueprint with as many? You know, there's a billion users on the platform, so there's unlimited amounts of people that you can implement this strategy with. I'll see who I am, what I'm all about, See. I can help them start a company from scratch with AI, or I can help them become a LinkedIn influencer. I can help them raise a million bucks. You know whatever it is. You know those are three of my superpowers, but so let's go right. This person is now a really warm lead and they show up to my inbox and they say hey, Corey, you know, thanks for all the connected. So that's the entire strategy, and it typically takes a month to get fully rocking. When I'm coaching somebody, I then put them into my private community if they pass my sniff test, Basically, if they're a nice, honest person and they're truly adding value.

Speaker 3: 27:27

Yeah right, they have to be coachable. I no longer will coach people that aren't coachable, because that just wastes my time and both of our time.

Speaker 1: 27:39

And I end up sending their money back and firing them as well, because if I don't, please finish, I had an idea I'm gonna. No, so I always try to have any reflective moments. Just something you said about going back a little bit and uh, is it what? And this is what I love about it.

Speaker 1: 27:48

So when I see cory post, I'm gonna go check it out, because I know your videos are interesting. I because cause you consistently do good videos. So I think part of the thing is, if you're going to choose a strategy, you got to make sure you know you can repeat it. And because I know you're gonna have the same ones, I check them out even if I don't read your posts, cause I think the videos are interesting and and and and I think that's an important piece to know is that you, you have to be consistent with what you're doing, and so if you're going to be doing you know kiddie videos, you better be the guy that can convert your business ideas and value through that kiddie video every time, because otherwise I'm not showing up, I'm not going to look at it, I'll ignore it.

Speaker 3: 28:28

That's true.

Speaker 1: 28:29

That's true. The other pieces on your strategy, you know, like you know, if you think about that, right, the other pieces on your strategy, if you think about that, the favors first, and even the same thing I do with my pieces are lots of stuff. I don't ask for anything. I may say, hey, listen, love your stuff, Come shoot me a connection request. I would say 50%, 60% of the time they shoot it sight unseen just because I made a comment. It's usually our kind of closing comment after the conversation is over and if we really think we want to be aggressive, we I will send them a connection request, but at that point it's more hey, I really liked your stuff. I just want 15 minutes to hear about you and in that 15 minute meeting I don't do anything except ask them questions and if they ask me one, then we'll go from there.

Speaker 1: 29:09

Yeah, and it really works, I think the person coming on. So maybe I like that, Maybe let's bring in the younger group, Gen Z and before. What are they doing? Well, Because they come from more of this TikTok Instagram kind of idea. I think a lot of times, by the time they're on LinkedIn and I see some of their content really struggle on LinkedIn, and so what do you have advice or what are you seeing on the younger generation coming in on LinkedIn?

Speaker 3: 29:39

They're just trying to do too much of the me TV right, and no one logged into LinkedIn to learn about somebody that they've never heard of, and so you know, I see a lot of them do the.

Speaker 3: 29:48

Here's my my workout routine in the morning. Nobody cares, right? Maybe on Instagram you've got people and they care about what your workout routine is in the morning, but on LinkedIn that's dead on arrival, or they're coming with the. Here's a picture of me. I see it, especially the younger ones. Like you're talking about love. To talk about how hard it is to be an entrepreneur. Like how hard it is to be an entrepreneur like if you're, if you're you think of.

Speaker 3: 30:18

The average age group on linkedin is probably mid-40s, right? Who's going to resonate with some 20 year old saying entrepreneurship, so hard you're like. You're like what? You couldn't sell enough candy bars on your college campus. Like you know what I mean. So I think they make it too much about themselves and they're having these revelations at 19, 20, 21 years old that you know most of us had at 18, 19, 20 years old, but that was 20, 30 years ago, right? So we're we're not leaning in to go oh wow, you're having this epiphany that you know to me is, you know, not even second nature anymore, it's just, it's a known, known, right. So when I see some of the younger people instead showing up and saying like hey you're 45 years old, you started a couple of multimillion dollar companies.

Speaker 3: 31:01

I want to learn from you. That's the type of rate that the 45 roads like me were like okay, cool, Then I'll teach you Right. Or you know? I know a guy mid twenties rang the NASDAQ bell company, went public. I'm coaching him now. Um, he's doing's doing really well. His net worth is probably in the moderate tens of millions of dollars. But, younger guy, I think he got a little bit lucky, so he goes. Yeah, Corey, I want to be like Gary Vee on LinkedIn. So what does that mean? He said.

Speaker 3: 31:29

I want to teach people about entrepreneurship. So okay, by all counts, you have done it. You started a company, you're national, you're public, you've raised a bunch of money. It's like, however, why are people going to, especially if they don't know who you are, haven't heard of your company, why are they going to care necessarily what some 25 year old is saying how about, instead, you start to go out to the people that are also entrepreneurs, engage with their stuff and kind of commiserate with them a little bit?

Speaker 3: 31:59

Or hey, you know, what you just said really resonates with me. When I started X company, you know we were going through this and again it's just more of that dialogue, that back and forth. Right, it's not look at me, look at me. I started a company, it's? You know, hey, a lot of us are entrepreneurs here and you know, let's see how we can support each other.

Speaker 1: 32:21

That's the message that really resonates and I think that's the message a lot of the younger people aren't bringing to the platform, and I think actually that that's actually works for the 40 year old too. So I think doing that, um, giving the attention to the right group and I think that's a strategy piece, even though I mean I'm learning is, um, you know, we tend to target people and then engage people. I think we could help from a business standpoint and we do it authentically. I don't spend as much time in the vanity play of like giving the other other influencers enough attention, just because there's only so many hours in a day. So it'd be an interesting piece to come into it, because a lot of the conversations they're having are interesting. So I think, if you got to pick your poison, you're trying to get more attention to what you're doing. I think that's that's the way to go. Do it um specifically. So I think that's one that, as a takeaway here, if you're listening, go do um what's. Dispel some some, some let's, let's pivot a second. Let's dispel some of the stuff that I see a lot of people doing Um, and I and I will put this as like a public service announcement Um, you know, probably know where I'm going with this in a minute.

Speaker 1: 33:12

There are a lot of people out there that have a decent followings, like incredible engagement on their content, and they are trying to sell you. Whatever they're trying to sell you, I'm going to throw a buyer beware out there there are a lot of nonsense, just bullshit. Honestly, that goes on, with people tricking vanity metrics for the purposes of tricking you. Do you want to take it from here? I think you know where I'm going with this, with other things, but go ahead, yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:38

I'll even get more specific. I'll say a lot of times it's younger, attractive women that are wearing, you know, 40% shirts or clothing on LinkedIn, and it's always the same picture of themselves with some quote. And then, right, they tell you, if you hire them, for $10,000, you know, and it really starts to feel almost like they're trying to use it as a dating site or they're trying to take advantage of these lonelier, older men types, and it's very formulaic. There's probably 50 of them. I couldn't even tell you the difference between them anymore and they will get 1,000 likes every time they post.

Speaker 3: 34:14

There's probably 1,000 lonely, you know, 50 year old men, um and right, but and I'm sure they're doing some types of business as well, but it's probably from that demographic also but those types of people get really bad reputations, you know, probably for all the all the right reasons as well. I mean that they're not really great at what they do. It's more, more so. You know they're great at showing cleavage and tricking, like you said, the middle-aged crisis people, and so I think, you know, I think they probably ended up hiring those 20-year-old women to build their LinkedIn profiles. But, yeah, I think we can even look at Instagram and YouTube and some of those quote-unquote influencers that rent Ferraris for the day, so you think they've got a Ferrari and yeah, there's definitely a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Speaker 3: 35:13

I'd say, before doing business with almost anyone, especially on LinkedIn, go and take a look at their full profile. Make sure they have real recommendations from real people that aren't just blowing smoke. Make sure that they have real skills listed that they've actually implemented at companies. Before Read through their about section, make sure that they've actually helped some companies or built some companies, generated some monies, because if those aren't all very evident and ultimately it's also a vibe right, if you don't feel like you resonate with the person or that they're just coming across a little too heavy on the sale to your point, buyer beware. Really make sure that you're doing business with people that are going to make you look good as a professional when they engage with you and when they show up and try to attach their name to your brand as well.

Speaker 1: 36:02

Well, I'll tell you so. I'll share this with the audience too. So in the first year of owning the company it was three and a half years ago I made the conscious decision to try everything possible on LinkedIn to see what works Automation, smm panels, engagement ponds, boosts, all of it. We did it all just to see what the hell would happen. Don't do any of that. Let me explain. We got bot spanned right. I got spammed by just shit accounts that killed my engagement for a year until LinkedIn finally kicked them all off. I was so happy when they did that, and we don't even know where it came from. We just know we were part of all these different groups.

Speaker 1: 36:37

Next thing, I know I have 175,000 followers. I'm like. I don't even know. There's no way this is real. We're like okay, whatever, let's just go with it. And we kept saying like, our engagement sucks, like and you could see it. And so anybody who's out there doing like the same response. What happens is and if I'm wrong in this, corey, you're collecting the algorithm. The algorithm is just going to learn that that type of audience is the one that likes your stuff and only that audience is going to see it, so your vanity metrics would be great, but it's going to produce zero revenue.

Speaker 3: 37:09

Absolutely, and even the engagement pods. It's an echo chamber. Those people aren't doing business with each other. They might be able to spike a post at the beginning, but most of those people are going back to the people I said you might not want to associate yourself with anyway. And so, yeah, really it's always best to grow organically. I remember when they did the bot cleanup as well, I lost a lot of followers and I was glad about it. Now I know my 520 or whatever you know thousand followers are real and and that makes me feel good. And the other thing I think a lot of people are not as aware of yet is that linkedin is building their own ai.

Speaker 3: 37:44

They're building it through, yeah, yeah, and they're, they're. They're training it only from the collaborative articles and the only people collaborating with the articles are verified accounts. They know they're a accounts. They know they're a real person. They know they're a real professional. They have a bunch of data behind who these people are. But then we look at the shakeups. Reid Hoffman that started LinkedIn started Inflection AI. They just lost two of their executives this week to Microsoft, who started a new effectively company called Microsoft AI. Sasha Nadal came out and said that he's not even worried of what happens to OpenAI now, even though they sunk, you know, a half billion dollars or something into them, because Microsoft now has all the talent, all the.

Speaker 1: 38:26

Well, he's bought a competitor. I mean, that was always going to happen. That's a learning place, that's great. Now we're going to go improve it, but yeah, it's amazing. Um, well, listen, I I think, I think, uh, you know, just conscious of time, I want to always just give you the opportunity. Who should get a hold of you, like, and just be direct, like, hey, if you are this and this is your profile and this is how you would do it, like, who do you want to meet and how do you want them to get a hold of you?

Speaker 3: 38:50

my guess is linkedin yeah, well, you know it's interesting. I get messaged so often on LinkedIn that I actually say one of my strategies that got me connected to some of the biggest accounts on LinkedIn is finding them on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter and engaging with them there A lot of times, you know, we still get engagement on those other platforms, but not nearly as much. So if someone were to start engaging with me on one of those platforms and message me there, I'd probably be a little bit more likely to find it. Otherwise, I've got my contact information available on LinkedIn. People can always shoot me an email.

Speaker 3: 39:25

But right now, the people I'm looking to work with are entrepreneurs that want to use AI to build their companies, and I saw Sam Altman say in his circle of friends they're betting on when the first 10 unicorn company will be built, unicorn company being a private, you know, privately held billion dollar company. But then sam said and soon thereafter he believes there will be one person unicorn companies, and you know effectively what he's saying is the technology will be able to do everything you used to need to hire people for and, and so I just filled a first cohort. I'll do some more cohorts, but where I'm going to bring people together for, effectively, a weekend hackathon, teach them how to go from you know, ideation, really just a thought, to having a company that can produce revenue and generate users and you know all of these things potentially raise capital, if you want, all using AI, and so people like that. I am an investment. It takes money to make money, but people that are looking to do that can reach out to me. I'm happy to talk about my next cohort, but I'll also share the power of LinkedIn.

Speaker 3: 40:31

I posted a week ago about this cohort and the post did really well. I think it's at almost 2 million views. It's got 25,000 likes. It's been shared thousands of times. The entire post was about this cohort. Right, I'm taking nine people on charging six grand five grand if they pay all up front. Otherwise I can finance, but so you do the math on that. That's about a $40,000 revenue from one post. So you know it's cool that it got a million views. It's much cooler that it can do $40,000 in revenue in a day. Right, that's right.

Speaker 1: 41:04

And that was a great post too. I remember that it was like you know, but you don't do that all the time. That's a big piece Turtle. One ask to your network and that's maybe once a quarter, like you don't see very many of those. When you do, you're like hell. Yeah, I've been waiting for that, as opposed to every other post is well, gimme, gimme, gimme.

Speaker 3: 41:22

Well, people were stoked right. My inbox was full after that post. I want to learn how to use AI to grow a company and at that point it's you know, are you budgeted for it and are you someone I want to bring into this cohort, because I'm very picky at the moment? That's great.

Speaker 1: 41:37

Listen, Corey, thank you so much for getting on here today with me. As always, I always learn one thing. The whole point of the podcast is for others to learn. Let's be clear I'm trying to learn one thing from it. I figure, though, if I can learn one thing from it, I think most people can learn probably something as well. So thank you for jumping on here today with me.

Speaker 3: 41:55

Thanks for having me. Sorry about that.

Speaker 1: 41:57

It's a good image of you. At least you weren't making like a duck lips or something that I would be definitely making a post of, Like Corey held a duck lips pose for 40 minutes. Maybe we'll modify that with AI.

Speaker 3: 42:13

If I'd had the duck lips the whole time, I wouldn't need to have the Thomas Helford sexy voice by the way, sexy voice guy is a great place to experiment, because it's all done faceless.

Speaker 1: 42:26

Anyway, listen, if anybody made it this far in the episode, I appreciate you, and if this was your first time, I do hope it becomes the first of many. If you've been here before, I just jokingly always give away dad points. It's just like you know a way of saying thank you. You can spend them anywhere Until we meet again. You know, on the Never Been Promoted podcast. I appreciate you listening and get out there and go unleash your entrepreneur. Thanks for listening there and go unleash your entrepreneur.

Speaker 2: 42:59

Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to Never Been Promoted with Thomas Helfrich. Make sure to check the show notes for our guest contact information and any relevant links. Connect with Thomas personally at neverbeenpromotedcom.