LinkedIn Profile Mini-Audit with Kristi Huss Ep 103

Unlock the secrets of LinkedIn success with Kristi Huss, a dynamic entrepreneur who's mastered the art of connecting and achieving life goals.

In our latest candid conversation, Christy shares her experiences as a travel advisor, coach, speaker, and author, and how she uses LinkedIn to empower individuals. Whether you're looking to boost your professional presence or seeking inspiration to reach your next level in life, this episode is a wellspring of actionable advice. Get an insider's look at optimizing your LinkedIn profile as I offer Kristi personalized tips including the following:

▪️  Uploading a professional headshot to the Headshot Photo field, instead of a distant photo on stage

▪️ Creating a business page. How to: https://www.mellermarketing.com/blog/how-to-create-a-company-page-on-linkedin-free

▪️ Adding websites to your Contact Info and sprinkling them throughout your profile

▪️ And more!

Want a LinkedIn profile mini-audit? If you're a coach / consultant / solopreneur, download these 15 LinkedIn Profile tips, and follow the instructions in the final email: https://www.mellermarketing.com/list

On YouTube: https://youtu.be/h-piAUMbL2Q

Connect with Kristi on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristi-huss/

LinkedIn "Power Hours" (Single Session, x4, x12)
Each package includes: 

• LinkedIn consulting / coaching, personalized to your needs and focusing on your questions.
• Review of LinkedIn profile / company page to provide guidance / advice / recommendations

https://www.mellermarketing.com/powerhour 

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:48

Hey, this is Brenda Meller, back for another LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit, and I'm joined today by Christy Huss. Hey, christy, how are you doing today? Good, how are you? I am doing great and I'm so delighted to be here working with you. So, before we get started, I want to give you some advice in a LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit, why don't you first take a few minutes, tell us your name. What do you do for your business? What do you do for your business?

Speaker 2: 1:16

What do you help them with? And just tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, my name is Christy Huss and I am a entrepreneur and my business is. I've been a travel advisor for many years, getting people to where they need to go in the world, and as a coach and a speaker and author, I help people get where they need to go in life. So if they have a goal or they need some clarity around what they need to go in life, so if they have a goal or they need some clarity around what they want to do to reach another level, I help them plan out a path and get them. I'm a guide to help them get there in various ways.

Speaker 1: 1:43

Okay, wonderful, and as we go through here, I'm going to give you some couple tips here on LinkedIn. Are there any specific questions you have about your profile that you'd like feedback on, or you just like some general feedback?

Speaker 2: 1:54

I think mostly like how can I utilize it to reach the people that I should be reaching? Maybe, if there's things that I'm not utilizing or areas that you could see, this needs to be, there needs to be a little bit more. Like I said, I'm not big on being on it as much as I should be, and anything will be helpful, I'm sure. On being on it as much as I should be, and anything will be helpful, I'm sure.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Okay, good. So part of that equation trying to connect with more of the right people will involve you doing outreach and searching for people on LinkedIn and inviting them to connect with you. But keeping in mind a lot of those people if you haven't met them before, if they don't know who you are, sometimes what they will do is they'll come back to your profile and they'll give it a once over and they're trying to figure out is Christy the type of person that will be valuable for me to connect with or not? And there's cues and clues we can get from individuals' profiles. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you some feedback, and here's some things that were jumping out at me as opportunities for improvement on here. Starting with, I see that you're a TEDx speaker. You've got a really cool photo on the TEDx stage, as well as your profile photo on there as well. Do you have a professional headshot photo?

Speaker 2: 3:00

by chance I do. I just recently updated this because I just completed the TEDx talks. Yes, I used to have more of a more professional banner, but I wanted it to be more. Until I get that updated, okay. But yes, I do have several professional headshot photos, okay.

Speaker 1: 3:16

So actually I love the banner showing you on the TEDx stage with the TEDx words on there. One thing to think about and sometimes it's hard because you have the photography is the size and the scale that it is, so it's really hard to find the right photo. As you can see on the left-hand side of your screen, christy, your TEDx, or rather your headshot photo is covering the TEDx, and our mind knows what that means. So I like filled in the blanks, and I know that it is. I would love to see a photo where TEDx is not hidden by your headshot photo, if you have one. If not, we can make do with that. We understand that. But I would also say, instead of using you on TEDx stage as your banner as well as in your headshot photo section, I would use the headshot photo section for your headshot photo. And when you upload that photo, I want to encourage you to make sure that your face is most of the space. So from the top of your forehead to the bottom of your chin, your face should cover about 50 to 60% of the circle, and I'm just going to show you an example. In the lower right-hand side of your screen, adam Grant is an example, and Adam's huge and a great leadership coach and individual and he has what we're looking for here. And in comparison, when you look at your headshot photo, space versus Adam's Adam's is pretty small and this is to keep in mind that even if you have your face zoomed in 50 to 60 percent, there's still a good likelihood we can make out your facial features. Versus you on the TEDx stage, we can't see your face, and when we can see your face, we're creating an instant human connection with people. It makes you more approachable, makes you look important and makes you look impressive. So having that in there, I think, would be key. Especially, I heard you say you're looking for coaching clients and for speaking clients, and when we book individuals to help us with coaching and with speaking, we want to know who the individual is. Does that make sense? Yes, sounds great. Okay.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Next thing I'm looking for in here, or next thing that jumped out at me in here, is at the top in your header, top header section. The white area at the top on the right-hand side is two things, two items that are in here. Your current employer or your business page will be the first one listed and the second one will be the latest college or university or educational institution that you've attended and I'm noticing next to both we're seeing that gray box and the building icon with your business and the school has like the bubbles inside there, and the reason for these appearing without a logo next to him is there either there's no business or organization page on LinkedIn or they haven't properly been linked. Now, in the case of your business, I'm going to scroll down to your experience section. Do you have a company page yet on LinkedIn for your business for christyhusscom? Say that again. I'm not, that's okay. Do you have a company page on LinkedIn for your business for Christie House dot com?

Speaker 2: 5:59

Have you set up a company page yet? Ok?

Speaker 1: 6:01

so I would highly recommend getting a company page set up on there because of the fact that can help you to create some credibility. Having the gray logo next to your photo or next to your business name on there creates a question Is it a real business? Is she just getting started? Is she working out of her business? Whereas if we see a logo next to it and the logo is linked to a company page and we can click and learn more about your organization, Yep, Good tip.

Speaker 2: 6:28

And even the very top part. It was like, okay, change my college thing to my coaching certification. And yeah, okay, got it.

Speaker 1: 6:36

Absolutely, and then in your education this actually is illustrated here. So Northwestern College you have linked to their page and you see their logo. Spencer College isn't linked and it's either because they don't have a page or just because it hasn't been updated. But if I were you, I would either get that updated to point to their page or, if they don't have a page, I would probably show Northwest College in here in the top header card instead.

Speaker 2: 7:01

Okay, yeah, they are no longer in existence. So that's why, oh, I gotcha.

Speaker 1: 7:06

And sometimes there's issues that are beyond our control. Organizations no longer exist, colleges and universities go out of business and are emerging because probably we had a changing world out there.

Speaker 2: 7:17

There's no really such a thing as travel school anymore, but there is yeah, things are changing.

Speaker 1: 7:22

Okay. The next thing I'm looking for, christy, is if I want to hire you for my business, how can I get ahold of you? And I mentioned, do you have a website? I can see it on here so I could visit christyhusscom. Now, if I click on contact info, I want you to keep in mind the only people who are going to see this information are first level connections. Now you and I are first level connections, so I can see your LinkedIn URL. I can see your email address.

Speaker 1: 7:46

There's also a way that you can add contact info, or rather websites, into your contact info, so you can point three web pages inside here. It could be your landing page for your website. It could be your book me as a coach that page on your website. Or it could be your speaker biography or book me for speaking on your website as well. So let's make it easy for people who are connected with you to get ahold of you.

Speaker 1: 8:08

And then, keeping in mind that only your first level connections can see that information, I want you to spend some time scanning through your profile and just figuring out where are there links that people can go to learn more about working with you or that they can get a hold of you. Now we do see christyhusscom, so that's one avenue, but as I scroll through, I want to incorporate, I want to encourage you to incorporate into your about statement some type of a call to action in there, and then maybe even in your featured section you can have a link to your website. You can put multiple items in there. Even in your experience section, you could add some items in there as well, and this can work for you, christy, even if you're not a heavy user of LinkedIn, if you're not on LinkedIn all the time, keeping in mind that LinkedIn is a professional directory. So let's make your LinkedIn work for you, even if you're not active on the platform. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 9:03

Yeah, and so what you were saying is in that top banner. If I make a company page which can be about my website, then that would show as more of a not the group, so that would be a good idea instead of putting directly my website there. Right, okay, got it. Yeah, and that's even good, because I didn't even know where you were all able to put links in, and that's very helpful.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Yeah, absolutely, and I see you've had. You've got a couple of links in here, like at the top header card, the TEDx flipping point right now I think. If I click on that, does it take you to YouTube? Yeah, so it takes you to YouTube. So I just want you to think about if you want to use LinkedIn to book more business for your speaking business, for your coaching business. I want you to think about are you including calls to action that make it easy for people to get a hold of you? And some people may be ready to book with you now and they want to find that booking link, and other people might want to explore and learn more about you before reaching out to you. So let's give them an active way, like they can make a direct contact with you, whether it's email or whatnot, and let's give them a passive way, which is directing them to a website or a webpage in there. Okay, all right, awesome.

Speaker 1: 10:05

I'm going to pause there, christy. I just want to, before we wrap up, see if you have any questions before we end up here. No, that's very helpful. Thank you, all right. I want to thank you so much for joining, and this will be going on the podcast as well. So for those of you who are listening in, interested in checking out Christy's profile, go to LinkedIn and her name is Christy Huss K-R-I-S-T-I-H-U-S-S. Are you open to accepting new connections, christy, or do you have anything that we should be aware of there?

Speaker 2: 10:32

I would love to accept new connections for people that think that we would be good to connect with. So I'd love to collaborate and connect with people.

Speaker 1: 10:40

All right, wonderful. I wanna say thank you so much, Christy, for your time today. I hope our audience enjoyed this session and I wish everyone a good day.