If I had to say what the core foundation was to generating high quality leads on LinkedIn, it would have to be having a good quality, well set up personal profile page on the platform. And the best thing about this is that even though there’s a lot you can do with your personal profile, about 80% of the results really just comes from about 20% of the effort that you can make pretty much in one day. So, my name is Ryan Caswell and I help B2B professionals generate more leads on LinkedIn using their LinkedIn profile. And if you’ve ever thought about using LinkedIn to generate leads or find your ideal clients and make more sales, then this is a great video to watch because we’re going to go through the core foundations of getting your LinkedIn profile optimized and ready to reach out to people and start generating new leads.

So the first thing that you need to realize when it comes to writing your profile on LinkedIn, and where there’s so much opportunity, is your core foundational understanding of who it is that you serve and what specific problem that you solve. So your profile is less about you and more about the actual client who you’re actually serving. What problems do they have? Are you highlighting these problems? Are you presenting yourself as the solution?

Too many people are going about it, talking about their qualifications and services, and so it’s a little bit like a plumber telling you about all his tools that he has in his bag. To the client, or to the person who has a broken sink, he doesn’t care. They don’t care about the tools, they just want to know if, do you solve my problem? And do you understand what that problem is? So we’ll get into this in a little bit more detail, but the core foundational thinking around your profile is, are you writing it for your client or your prospect? And, are you identifying that problem and presenting yourself as that solution?

All right, so when it comes to your profile, I would like to think of it as three core components. Now, there’s obviously a lot more to LinkedIn and a lot more things you can do. But like I said, most of the results really just come from these three easy things that you can do. So think about it as in terms of headline, your images, and then you got your about section.

Now, the real core purpose of your profile is two things. To capture your prospect’s attention and to demonstrate the value that you can provide to them, enough to warrant taking the next step. Whether that’s downloading our free resource guide, sending you a message, getting on a call with you. The idea is to, first of all get their attention, and then second of all, demonstrate value. So we’ll go into each of these different sections and how they fit into that core purpose.

So first, and possibly most importantly, is your headline. Now most people’s headline is just what their current role is. So director at company XYZ. Now, unfortunately, company director XYZ has no value proposition, and it doesn’t really mean anything to anyone. So your position at some company or brand that no one’s ever heard of doesn’t really warrant a lot of authority. So the best thing to do with your headline is to have some form of who you help, what problem you solve, and what solution you provide.

So a really great template is, I help blank solve this problem with this solution. The headline is so important because it really satisfies that first criteria of how do we get attention. And I might just put these up here because they’re two really good things to keep thinking about. Attention and value.

So the headline, the core purpose of the headline is to capture people’s attention. Now the headline sits underneath your name and it follows you around wherever you go on LinkedIn. So when you start commenting on people’s posts or send people messages, people will see your headline. And if it just says director or founder of XYZ, something that doesn’t mean anything to anyone, chances are it’s not going to capture people’s attention. But if you can identify who it is you help and that core problem that you solve, now when you are in front of that person, it has a much better chance of capturing their attention enough to warrant them coming into your page and checking it out.

So the next thing is, once you’ve captured enough intention with your headline, what happens is people will come to your page, and the first thing they’re going to see is that big banner image and your profile picture. It takes up most of the top part of your page and it’s gold. So above the fold, above the scroll area is gold. That’s where you want to make sure you really focus on capturing your client or your prospect’s attention, and get them to want to read more.

Now, a lot of people don’t do anything with this, or they just put a pretty picture there that doesn’t mean anything to anyone. So a really right thing here to do is to obviously theme it so that it’s obvious what niche or what specific industry that you’re focused in. So it’s very obvious when they land on the page that, that’s where you serve and that’s where you add value. And you can also do things to build credibility. So, say you wrote a novel or you do a lot of talking events. So say you had a picture of you speaking in front of a big crowd of people, that builds instant credibility when people land on that page.

If you help a lot of big, well-known brands, a great way to leverage known credibility and credibility by association, by leveraging big brands on your page. It’s a very effective strategy. I’ve seen it firsthand where profiles went from getting very little attention to just getting tons of messages, just by having that instant authority build in that banner image on the front page.

And finally, if you can’t leverage brands or authority by having talking events or books, or big brand names to leverage, you can build credibility just by having a really slick, professional looking banner image that looks professional and demonstrates that you are in fact a professional in your niche.
Now, the about section is super important. So your headline your and images are really about getting your client’s attention, and a little bit of demonstrating the value that you serve. But the about section is really like, it’s your sales pitch at this point. It’s telling them in a bit more detail how you actually help them and giving them reason to want to get in contact with you.

Now, I’m going to post a link below with my template for how to structure out the about section as it’s a little bit more involved, depending on your credibility, your background, who you’ve helped in the past. But it’s a really nice, neat way to lay it out and answer all the questions that your prospects want to know in the order that they want to know them. But the about section, as long as you really use this section to understand your client’s problem and demonstrate that you are in fact the one that can solve them, and give them a reason to want to take the next step.

And then, finally, finishing with that next step. Holding your new client’s hand and really making it obvious what the next step is, because I’m telling you now, if you don’t give them the next step, they won’t take it. You’ve really got to help people through the process and guide them. So demonstrate the value, give them a reason to take the next action and tell them what the next action is.

If you really want to get more out of your LinkedIn profile, just think about how can I use it to get people’s attention and then how can I demonstrate the value that I add? Remember to think, not tell them about how smart you are, or how many qualifications you have, or how much experience you have, but to demonstrate that you are in fact the one that can solve this specific problem that you address. Remember, headline, images, about section. All about drawing in their attention and demonstrating your value enough to want to take some initial first step. Get on a call, download a resource, or send you a message.

I hope that helps. I’ll provide a link to the template document below in case anyone wants to go and update their LinkedIn profile. A lot of great resources, and information, and examples, and case studies in there that’ll help you get on your way, generating new high quality leads on LinkedIn. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below. I’d love to hear what you have to say. Have a great day. Cheers.