In this episode of the B2B Marketing Methods podcast, host Terri Hoffman, CEO of Marketing Refresh, interviews Rachel Kennedy, the founder of Southern Lighthouse. They discuss the power of LinkedIn in building personal and company brands, especially for B2B businesses. Rachel shares her journey from a career recruiter to an employer branding expert, and offers insights into creating a compelling LinkedIn presence.
Key topics include the importance of consistency, strategic content creation, and overcoming common LinkedIn challenges. Rachel also introduces her upcoming LinkedIn Brand Accelerator program, designed to help business leaders maximize their LinkedIn potential. Tune in for actionable tips to enhance your LinkedIn strategy and drive business growth
Topics Discussed:
- LinkedIn’s role in building personal and company brands
- Employer branding to attract and retain top talent
- Unifying HR and marketing for seamless recruitment and brand messaging
- Building a LinkedIn strategy with consistent, sustainable content
- Addressing LinkedIn challenges (time, authenticity, confidence)
- Using LinkedIn polls for lead generation and business insights
- Optimizing LinkedIn profiles for visibility and networking
To learn more about Rachel Kennedy, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelkingkennedy/
To learn more about Terri, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrihartley/
To connect with Marketing Refresh, visit: MarketingRefresh.com
Full Episode Trasncript
[00:00:00] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to B2B Marketing Methods. I’m your host, Terri Hoffman, and I’m the CEO of Marketing Refresh. Let’s face it, embracing digital marketing is daunting. This podcast was created to make it more approachable. Join me as we talk to CEOs, sales leaders, and revenue growth experts who will share lessons learned and tips from their own journeys.
[00:00:24]
[00:00:24] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to today’s episode of B2B marketing methods. I’m excited to have our special guest Rachel Kennedy and Rachel owns a firm that is called Southern Lighthouse. She’s going to introduce what she does and who Southern Lighthouse is in just a second.
[00:00:39] Terri Hoffman: She is a LinkedIn brand building and, LinkedIn expert, but her path to that point is very interesting. Today we’re going to talk about the importance of LinkedIn, how that can be used to build not only a personal brand for somebody in a leadership or sales role, but also how you can use that as a tool to build your company brand, why that’s important, and why a company would want to invest time into that, especially, a B2B business who is like typically and historically very sales driven. I think LinkedIn is seen as a connection tool, but you know what, we’re going to talk today about how that can be used as a brand-building and credibility-building tool as part of your overall marketing program.
[00:01:21] Terri Hoffman: So Rachel, welcome to the show. Happy that we’ve met and get to have a chance to talk to you today.
[00:01:27] Rachel Kennedy: Thank you, me too. I’ve been really looking forward to this. Thanks so much for having me on.
[00:01:31] Terri Hoffman: Absolutely. Let’s start with some basics. Tell us about your business and what led you to starting it and how you got that all underway.
[00:01:39] Rachel Kennedy: Yeah. So I was a career recruiter. I started in the commercial construction industry, hiring project managers and superintendents and landed at the container store, which sells expensive, empty boxes. There I was helping stores recruit in mass as we would open a new location, kind of thinking about strategically, how do we open it?
[00:02:01] Rachel Kennedy: Bring in candidates in a new market where people don’t necessarily know us and I started asking the question to candidates like why are you applying here? You have hundreds of choices why did you choose us? And the answer always came back that it’s the brand. It’s that we think it’s a good place to work.
[00:02:19] Rachel Kennedy: So I thought, okay, as a recruiter, how can I encourage more people to want to work here? And I now realize that’s employer branding. It’s all of those little touchpoints along the journey that influence a candidate to want to work for you. And so I really fell in love with employer branding and marketing.
[00:02:40] Rachel Kennedy: And so in 2020 started my own company, Southern Lighthouse, that helps firms clarify their values, their positioning in order to attract talent and clients. Most of my clients are in the commercial construction space, trying to articulate their brand values, why they’re a great choice to work for, and why they’re a great partner to work with.
[00:03:03] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, those are all really important things. Cause it’s funny that you talk about that commercial construction space because I think this is not only true for that space, but also other B2B industrial brands in manufacturing or, oil and gas or energy is that recruiting is a big issue for them, right?
[00:03:19] Terri Hoffman: Like selling and getting leads and building revenue, is always a challenge for any business, but then once that business is secured and sold, now you have operational challenges and you’ve got to figure out like, how can we deliver on this? How can we ensure that we’ve got the right staff in place and the right team members in place,
[00:03:37] Terri Hoffman: and we’re minimizing turnover. And so now you’ve, you know, it sounds like that’s really where you’re interested in focusing your time and how you’re able to help companies, but it does ultimately tie back even to revenue growth, don’t you think?
[00:03:51] Rachel Kennedy: It totally does. Yes. It’s funny. I always come at things from a recruitment and employer brand standpoint of like, how are we positioned to attract talent?
[00:04:01] Rachel Kennedy: All of these frameworks apply when it comes to selling, too. So, not only are we marketing to candidates, we’re also marketing to our clients in much the same way. We always have to know what makes us special, better, different to a candidate. What makes us special, different, better as a choice for a client.
[00:04:18] Rachel Kennedy: It is so much the same of really knowing your position in the market and then marketing out to both candidates and clients.
[00:04:26] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, who are you usually working with within your client relationships?
[00:04:31] Rachel Kennedy: Yeah. Often I’ll get brought in by an executive who says we need to do things differently. This isn’t working or coming into a new year, post election, we’re concerned about revenue. Can you come in and train our team to leverage LinkedIn more effectively? The partners I end up working with are heads of marketing and heads of HR who often are strapped for time or resources or strategy and bandwidth and need a little extra support.
[00:04:58] Rachel Kennedy: I like to say you can’t read the label from inside the bottle. You’re too close to all of the issues and problems. And branding is really the external perception of what’s going on inside. And so an external expert come in and say, here’s what it looks like from the outside.
[00:05:14] Rachel Kennedy: Those touch points can be really helpful to an internal partner.
[00:05:19] Terri Hoffman: Well, it’s really interesting that you say too, you often are bringing like the HR and marketing functions together. So within one client relationship, you’re even working with those two operational areas?
[00:05:30] Rachel Kennedy: It’s a fun part of my job because I think so often marketing is thinking we’re externally focused, we’re just here to bring in clients. HR is internally focused, our stakeholders, our employees we already have. The truth is that marketing is selling and recruiting is marketing.
[00:05:49] Rachel Kennedy: And so by bringing those two areas together, we can really find mutually beneficial relationships. Marketing knows the graphics, they have the resources, they understand, you know, maybe the psychology of bringing in people. Human Resources gets the policies, procedures, the brand, the culture and are able to articulate that.
[00:06:08] Rachel Kennedy: And so if you push those two things together, it can be a really beautiful marriage to, to help the company brand itself.
[00:06:15] Terri Hoffman: So how do you typically get started? I would imagine a lot of times when you’re starting with somebody and they’re like, we need to make a change. There may be also thinking like, when can you start posting for us on LinkedIn?
[00:06:27] Terri Hoffman: Like what comes before that? What are some of the things that they need to think through before they make those first posts?
[00:06:33] Rachel Kennedy: One of the beautiful things you said to me last time we talked was like, we don’t want to have this ready-fire-aim kind of mentality. We really want to set the strategy for our work together.
[00:06:44] Rachel Kennedy: And while there is urgency and excitement to jump in and start posting or start with outreach. It really starts with the strategy. And so the first thing I do is an audit. What do we look like right now in terms of recruitment? What is our score on Glassdoor? What is our score on Indeed? Do we have a careers page?
[00:07:02] Rachel Kennedy: Are jobs even posted? What do they look like? And then looking at a competitive audit. What do our competitors look like? What are they selling? Are they offering a 401k and a bonus and a truck allowance? And how do we stack up just so that we understand the layout of the land before we jump in and start with those random acts of content having the strategies set from the beginning is really important.
[00:07:30] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, it is. Do you have a certain process or methodology after that audit that you’re using to show like, okay, here’s what I found? And then here’s what I recommend as far as what the next steps are.
[00:07:41] Rachel Kennedy: Yeah, we do the strategy, the audit, and really, it’s like, it’s a competitive analysis. It’s a brand analysis of where we’re at today, and goal setting, like, what are we even trying to do, and this works for both individuals, like, what is my goal on LinkedIn? Do I want to get a job?
[00:07:58] Rachel Kennedy: Do I want to recruit? Do I want to be well known? Do I want to have new opportunities to speak? Companies do this too. It’s like, where are we trying to go? Do we want to gain new clients? Do we want to be recognized as a leader in the industry? Do we want to recruit better? So having that goal-setting strategy meeting of like where do we want to go so that we know when we get there is really what we do after the audit.
[00:08:21] Rachel Kennedy: And then we get to do what I think is the most fun is the content creation. So now we know who our target customer is. Now we know how we’re going to get there and the right messages to use. Now we can actually start creating strategic content that resonates with our target.
[00:08:37] Terri Hoffman: How do you go about gathering what you need to put together that strategic content? What does that cadence look like? Who do you involve? How does that whole process work?
[00:08:47] Rachel Kennedy: A lot of times it depends on what our goal is. So if our goal is like, we want to be recognized as a leader for recruitment and be seen as an employer of choice. Then, pulling in HR and really understanding like, what is our culture? Who are we trying to reach? Okay. Now we have content pillars, and I always recommend starting with three things we’re always going to talk about.
[00:09:09] Rachel Kennedy: Again, it avoids that random acts of content, just whatever comes up, or whatever holidays out there, we should talk about National Pet Day. Well, you shouldn’t talk about National Pet Day if that’s not really a part of your brand. Yeah, my philosophy is just always add value, always add value content and I don’t think Happy Labor Day is a super valuable piece of content, but if your commitment is to veterans that is one of your pillars, absolutely.
[00:09:35] Rachel Kennedy: Like talking about, you know, Labor Day or Memorial Day or Veterans Day. Those are great holidays to talk about. So I think understanding your strategy and your framework of like, what are those big three things we’re always, always going to go back to? What’s our North Star? Really helps kind of drive that train.
[00:09:51] Rachel Kennedy: One of my clients is a small construction company in North Texas, and they are all about building opportunity. So we’ve built that as their tagline on their website, all of their LinkedIn profiles talk about that, and that’s also our framework for what we’re going to talk about. If it’s giving an employee an opportunity and giving them a promotion, if it’s giving a subcontractor an opportunity to partner with them, if it’s a new project that’s going to build opportunity for jobs in North Texas, that’s something we’re going to talk about.
[00:10:20] Rachel Kennedy: So having that pillar or those frameworks to think about what are we going to talk about and staying on brand. We’re always going to stay consistent with that content really helps drive more strategic.
[00:10:33] Terri Hoffman: That’s one of the key components to branding, right? Consistency over a period of time. Like if you’re trying to get to know a person in life, right? The more consistent they are with every interaction, now you’re starting to really learn their personality, right? Because you’re seeing the same traits and the same qualities and that same mindset and process applies to a business brand or your professional brand, and how you’re trying to, you know, get whoever your audience is to know you you’ve got to be consistent.
[00:11:04] Rachel Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. I think about that in terms of LinkedIn content, especially people get excited and then it kind of drops off. One of the things I work with my clients on is like what is sustainable? Posting every day, probably not sustainable for most of us, but if we put into our calendar two times a week, 30 minutes, like that’s just a consistent way to do it.
[00:11:27] Rachel Kennedy: If you’ve blocked it off on your calendar, you’re more likely to do it. It’s just like exercise. We have to build these habits and once we have the habit, we can do it. But I think, you know, just getting excited and trying it for a little bit, we’re probably going to fall off that treadmill.
[00:11:41] Rachel Kennedy: The habit building of putting it in your calendar, practicing, really, really helps with that sustainability.
[00:11:48] Terri Hoffman: I think it helps you to have someone like you. We do that same type of service for our clients across a broader range of services, I do think that it helps to have an outside person.
[00:11:58] Terri Hoffman: So if that’s something you’re investing in as a company and someone is sort of holding you accountable to gather that information and review posts and improve them, you’re more likely to follow through. Having an outside consultant is a really helpful way to build that muscle and build that set of discipline and consistency.
[00:12:17] Rachel Kennedy: The three things that hold people back on LinkedIn are I don’t have the time.
[00:12:21] Rachel Kennedy: I don’t know what to say, which to me is strategy. And then I don’t want to sound dumb and I can’t keep it going. So that’s where accountability and consistency and habit building in this outside perspective all can help overcome all of those hurdles.
[00:12:38] Terri Hoffman: Maybe even another that you could add to that list is, I’m not sure there’s value in it, right? Maybe my time is better spent somewhere else. But, you know, part of the reason I do the podcast is to help people understand the value of these different channels and why it would help
[00:12:53] Terri Hoffman: meet their buyer needs, right? Like whether the buyer is a new candidate or an actual prospect buyer, as a client, you’ve got to understand why LinkedIn is an important tool first. And then second, now you’ve got to overcome those other objections. Like I don’t have time. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to look stupid.
[00:13:13] Terri Hoffman: But the, not wanting to look stupid is big, right? I want to make sure I come across as an authority and that I don’t say something that then makes my potential candidate or my potential buyer think you’re not even credible. Like you’re not even saying something that holds credibility to me.
[00:13:29] Terri Hoffman: Right? Like, how do you coach someone through that particular fear?
[00:13:33] Rachel Kennedy: That is a very real fear. It’s sometimes confidence in themselves, but confidence in their message. I mean, I can think of two women in particular who are fabulous executive leaders at construction companies and both get imposter syndrome. From my perspective,
[00:13:50] Rachel Kennedy: I’m like, I want you to talk, we want to hear what you’re saying. There is a real fear of sounding dumb, turning someone off, being too vulnerable and not knowing what to say. I think when you really think about the strategy of who do I want to reach and what messages resonate with them, it kind of takes the pressure off your own shoulders.
[00:14:10] Rachel Kennedy: The other concern I hear is I don’t want to talk about me. I don’t want to sound salesy. I want to avoid the me monster. You know, and I love the shift to shining a light on your people or your processes or your projects, your partners, those four Ps, can kind of take the burden off.
[00:14:27] Rachel Kennedy: It isn’t necessarily you always talking about you, but using your voice to shine a light on people around you.
[00:14:36] Terri Hoffman: I think that’s huge, especially if that fits into their strategy. Like you said, like if there’s a natural tie to the strategy in a natural way that that helps draw the prospects that they’re looking for or the, the job candidates and employee candidates that they’re looking for, that does take a lot of pressure off that person.
[00:14:53] Terri Hoffman: I have found like the companies that we work within in the commercial construction space. People are very humble. and they don’t want to, they don’t want to sound boastful. I do think that there is a real way to make sure that you’re not coming across as boastful, but you’re still
[00:15:10] Terri Hoffman: building your own credibility and that’s, that’s another reason to work with an expert, right? I think people can be surprised by what somebody with a lot of experience doing this is able to help them accomplish. And that’s why what you and I do, we’re in specialized career paths, right?
[00:15:25] Terri Hoffman: If you ask me to go out and build something, that’s not going to happen. But if you ask me to help someone build a brand or if someone asks you for your expertise on how to build their brand, those are the exact kind of problems we can help people solve to meet their goals.
[00:15:39] Rachel Kennedy: And I think about a good practice, you know, every week when you get off a call, think about what someone just asked you. What are those questions you get over and over again
[00:15:50] Rachel Kennedy: and what are the things people always come to you for? What are those things that are super easy for you just off the cuff and create a post about that. So a great thought leader post could be I just got off a call and this is the question that I heard this week. Here’s what we’re doing about it.
[00:16:05] Rachel Kennedy: Here’s what we’ve done to fix this. This is, a different way to think about it. So position yourself as an expert just based on the things you’re hearing. Not imagining. What is an actual question someone came to you for this week? Just writing about that, write that story of what that person came to you for can position you as an expert in a pretty easy way.
[00:16:26] Terri Hoffman: Our agency is very data-driven and I, Always try to bring any conversation I have about marketing back to like. Data and results and expectations. When you get into metrics and data with your clients, how do you set expectations around like, all right, if you start a program like this, here’s what you should expect. Here’s the data we’re gonna be looking at. Give us a little bit of background on the metrics and how you view those.
[00:16:53] Rachel Kennedy: Yeah, that’s a great question.
[00:16:55] Rachel Kennedy: One of my clients I’ve been working with for the last two years and we’ve tracked his overall engagement, his overall impressions, his overall connections, which have doubled in a year. over the next year, I expect them to double again. So it’s been fun watching that growth. And I think he would say, I went from zero, like I was doing nothing on LinkedIn.
[00:17:18] Rachel Kennedy: I had a profile, but I was never engaging. I was never posting. So for him, the jump from, zero to 60 was massive. Consistency is key. And if you continue showing up, if you continue engaging, commenting, posting, liking, sharing, your engagement will continue to increase.
[00:17:35] Rachel Kennedy: He has not really seen a plateau. There’s over one billion, billion with a B, members on LinkedIn. And so, you know, I just think the opportunity to grow your business, your brand, your reach on LinkedIn is tremendous. Most of the people I start working with are starting from zero, right?
[00:17:57] Rachel Kennedy: They maybe have a profile, but have never commented or strategically engaged or created content. So for that type of person, the opportunity to start leveraging your profile is massive. But even for people who have been actively using it or actively commenting, sharing, liking, there is tremendous opportunity to keep growing.
[00:18:19] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Let’s think about what a typical candidate does, right? Like if they’re trying to hire a superintendent or a project manager. or somebody who would work in procurement and planning. They might be targeting someone who’s in their 30s, right?
[00:18:33] Terri Hoffman: What’s the first thing the candidate’s going to do when they’re researching, the company and thinking about preparing for an interview? What’s maybe not the first thing, but what are some of the first things, they’re going to be doing?
[00:18:43] Rachel Kennedy: Yeah. So if a candidate is, you know, looking for opportunities, I think searching their network, the people they know, LinkedIn does that so well, literally listing out here all the people you have in common.
[00:18:55] Rachel Kennedy: So looking for those referrals, researching the company’s brand, like. What do they look like on social media, particularly if they’re millennials, Gen Z’s, Gen Alpha, they are looking for a social presence. And then I think looking for cultural alignment, like, do they care about the environment? Do they care about, you know, all of these value things that are so driven by the next generation coming in?
[00:19:21] Rachel Kennedy: So checking out their presence and reviews are incredibly important, particularly for, Gen Z, Gen Alpha coming up.
[00:19:29] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah. And so that’s where they’re going, right? And so if there is a CEO or a project executive or somebody in a senior leadership role who’s already active on LinkedIn and that particular brand is posting about what they have going on in LinkedIn.
[00:19:43] Terri Hoffman: I think the failure to show personality online and show your values through a consistent level of publishing, whether that’s on LinkedIn, or on your website. There’s a lot of different entities and properties that you can control as a brand. And if you just fail to show anything, people are just going to jump to their own conclusions.
[00:20:03] Terri Hoffman: Take charge and put out the content that you want to proactively let people know about your brand. Otherwise, they’re going to jump to their own conclusions.
[00:20:11] Rachel Kennedy: 100%. I like thinking of your brand as a bird’s nest and birds nests are full of sticks and twigs and feathers and cigarette butts that you find lying around.
[00:20:19] Rachel Kennedy: And if candidates are birds, they’re just going to pick up whatever is lying around. But the truth is we can control some of those sticks and twigs. We can control the controllables. And so if there are things like our website, our social media presence, what our employees presence look like, all of those are sticks and twigs that we can control.
[00:20:41] Rachel Kennedy: So that when somebody comes by and picks them up, they reflect positively on us. And that’s really the best way to start positioning yourself as an employer of choices, taking control of those little sticks and twigs so that the image in our candidates’ minds is a positive one.
[00:20:57] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, no, that’s an awesome analogy. Especially for an owner or a senior leader who has worked at the same company for a long time. You’re so intimately aware and you experience every single day what is great about your brand, but you can’t stop telling people about it.
[00:21:14] Terri Hoffman: If you want to continue growing, you can’t just stay stuck there, and I think that’s very easy to do. Even as the owner of a marketing agency, I lose sight of that sometimes because I’m so close to my own brand. I have to make sure that I have people on our team who are like, no, Terri, we need to push this out there.
[00:21:33] Terri Hoffman: It’s just very easy when you’re in like that type of role to be pulled in so many directions and not as aware as you need to be about how important using that platform of LinkedIn to get your message out.
[00:21:45] Rachel Kennedy: It is hard to remember we are constantly ambassadors of our own brands, and everything we do and everything we don’t do leaves a wake. I like to think of the analogy, you know with career sites and hiring and our external perception sometimes it’s like a realtor selling a luxury villa who just like draws out a rough sketch of the house and is like here you go, go ahead and buy.
[00:22:11] Rachel Kennedy: Doesn’t use photos, doesn’t use virtual tours, doesn’t use a walkthrough doesn’t invite you in, just relying on kind of a crude drawing, you know. I think we have to know what’s appealing about us and share that, like you said, over and over and over again through photos, images, testimonials, virtual walkthroughs, through our touch points with candidates and clients.
[00:22:33] Rachel Kennedy: All of that is so important. We can’t expect someone to make a decision about us based on limited or outdated information. We really need to put our best foot forward.
[00:22:44] Terri Hoffman: Yeah,
[00:22:44] Rachel Kennedy: Position ourselves as an employer of choice.
[00:22:46] Terri Hoffman: Something that I’m sure you hear quite a bit is, I feel like we just talked about this, or I feel like we just posted about this recently.
[00:22:52] Terri Hoffman: Haven’t we already said this? Do you ever get asked that question or does that challenge ever come your way from a client?
[00:22:59] Rachel Kennedy: I think that our memory is so short when it comes to social media and also recognizing the algorithm is not showing every post to every person in our networw every time. Probably a fraction of our followers actually see a part of our content.
[00:23:17] Rachel Kennedy: And even if it was six weeks ago, it’s okay to do it again. running it through ChatGPT or writing it just from a slightly different angle or adding a different photo with the same text can be easy ways to say basically the same thing with a different visual or similar things from a different angle.
[00:23:37] Rachel Kennedy: And so if that’s a concern there’s easy tweaks. Because you should be saying staying on brand and talking about those three pillars over and over again but it sounds a lot more familiar to us because we’re inside the bottle, you know. It’s it’s really not droning information for our clients.
[00:23:55] Terri Hoffman: Actually, it’s funny because when we get asked that question, I’m like, that means we’re doing something right.
[00:23:59] Terri Hoffman: For all the reasons that you just said, it’s really important to ensure that you’ve got a good continuation of the same message out there.
[00:24:06] Terri Hoffman: Because it would be awesome if everyone remembered everything we posted. And it would be awesome if everyone saw everything, but they don’t. We’ve got to make sure that there’s a good drip of information and that people are getting that 10 to 12 exposures it takes to start building that relationship.
[00:24:23] Terri Hoffman: It takes some conversation with our clients to make sure that they understand the why. And it’s not just like, well, we just wanted to reuse something.
[00:24:33] Terri Hoffman: That’s lazy, right? Like we shouldn’t be lazy in our roles. We should have a reason behind it and a strategy behind it that it can be explained. Well, what else do you think, brands or people might be missing about LinkedIn? Like, do you leverage ads or are there other areas of using LinkedIn that you think people commonly miss?
[00:24:55] Rachel Kennedy: This is a really fun thing that I love to leverage polls for information gathering, but really for business development and for future content ideas. So, a client of mine, we built a poll that was like, they’re a recruiting agency, and like, what are you, you know, what are you struggling with in the market?
[00:25:15] Rachel Kennedy: Is it compensation? Is it quality of candidate? What are you doing? And then people commented, and responded. And when you’ve created a poll, you can go on the back end and see who has responded, and who responded per area. So it’s like, okay, well, eight people said that they are really struggling with quality of candidate.
[00:25:34] Rachel Kennedy: Those eight people might be really good targets for us. If what their organic reaches doing, bringing in candidates that are not that great. Maybe that’s an opportunity for us to partner with them and offer our services. Cause they literally just told us what they’re doing isn’t working. And that’s our zone of expertise. So,
[00:25:54] Rachel Kennedy: you know, let’s create outreach templates through LinkedIn to, you know, say, hey, thanks so much for responding to our poll, really appreciated that you said you’re struggling with finding quality candidates, which kinds of roles are you looking for? We can jump on a call and talk through some ideas.
[00:26:09] Rachel Kennedy: So, I just love polls as an avenue to gather information, but then also generate leads and start conversations. Cause ultimately I think the goal of LinkedIn is to get off LinkedIn. The goal of LinkedIn is to build a relationship, a trusted relationship, to then take that into the real world, not to sell on LinkedIn.
[00:26:32] Rachel Kennedy: And so all we want to do is start a conversation. And a poll is a really great, fun, super easy, one-click way to start a conversation that you can then take it offline.
[00:26:44] Terri Hoffman: But I love that you said that. Cause I think it kind of removes another fear that people have about LinkedIn is it can end up feeling impersonal if you try to stay there too long. Like you’ve got to have your platform of messaging, right?
[00:26:56] Terri Hoffman: And you need to be consistent with that. Like we’ve already discussed, but once you create that initial relationship and there’s a spark to it, then go the old school route and get to know the person. That’s what you should be doing. That’s a good thing. By the way, for our listeners, that is how we met.
[00:27:14] Rachel Kennedy: We met on LinkedIn. Yes.
[00:27:16] Terri Hoffman: We saw a lot of common threads to what we were each posting and just, like a shared mindset around certain areas. And then we took some time to get to know each other. and you know, that’s really what it’s for.
[00:27:30] Terri Hoffman: It’s a connection tool and a networking tool that you should then build into a more personal relationship for whatever your path is. Whatever the goal is that you’re trying to get down.
[00:27:41] Rachel Kennedy: I think LinkedIn has shifted a lot. A lot of it used to be, that’s the place you go get a job.
[00:27:47] Rachel Kennedy: So I heard the response why should I be on LinkedIn if I’m not looking for a job? LinkedIn has really shifted into a personal brand platform. And especially if you’re in sales and marketing, to me, it’s the number one place to go literally connect with thousands of people at a time whose email addresses you don’t even have. LinkedIn is the one place that follows you.
[00:28:07] Rachel Kennedy: Whatever company you work for, it stays with you and your network is always there. It’s your digital Rolodex, and it has endless opportunities to connect with new people in lots of different ways. It’s been a really interesting shift away from, I’m only here to look for jobs to, I’m only going to connect with people I personally know and have met in real life, to
[00:28:30] Rachel Kennedy: it’s really a website for you and your business. It’s a brand platform, and I think social selling is the new way of selling. You know, I think the old way is let’s pick up the phone and dial for dollars and cold call people we don’t know. And to me, LinkedIn offers warm leads all the time, in mass.
[00:28:49] Rachel Kennedy: And so searching for people, researching prospects, getting to know people, and then taking those conversations offline in a place where they already know your value, know your unique selling proposition, is incredible. And really, I have never seen anything else like it.
[00:29:07] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, you know what’s funny, you’re making me think of a client story. I had, one of our clients on this podcast and he took the recording and published it on at the top of his LinkedIn profile.
[00:29:20] Terri Hoffman: He went to a conference not long after that, and he met a few people at the conference that he planned on seeing them and really getting to know them at the conference.
[00:29:29] Terri Hoffman: But each one of those people did research on him ahead of time and they went to his LinkedIn profile, and they took the time to actually listen to his episode. And they already felt like they knew him, right? And they already felt like they had like a starting point for the conversation. And so now there’s all these things that they didn’t really need to spend time in that second conversation, getting to know him on, cause they already had some background.
[00:29:53] Terri Hoffman: And they like already felt like he was credible before they sat down for that meeting. So then, you know, if selling is about, I want to do business with somebody I know, like, and trust, I already had a chance to check elements of each one of those three boxes.
[00:30:08] Terri Hoffman: They already felt like they knew him. They already felt like they trusted him a little bit and look, cause he was credible and they liked him because he was personable. and so like skipped a bunch of things that they didn’t have to start from ground zero on. And I think that’s a value of using LinkedIn as a tool.
[00:30:26] Rachel Kennedy: I think it fast-tracks relationships. That’s a beautiful example. And I’ve had a similar situation with a client who is an association leader. He has been posting on LinkedIn every Friday for the last year, and he said somebody came up to him at a happy hour and just started talking like, hey, so you know picked up the conversation where there had never been a conversation. They had never met in person, but this individual felt like they knew him through his videos So it similarly just fast-tracked the relationship because he did feel like he was, you know, known, liked, and trusted.
[00:31:04] Rachel Kennedy: And so I love that, that LinkedIn and podcasts for that case too can really make relationships move a lot faster.
[00:31:12] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. All right. Those are two pretty good examples to wrap up our conversation. Are any other parts of LinkedIn and using it as a brand tool that you want to make sure the listeners hear?
[00:31:24] Rachel Kennedy: It doesn’t have to be scary and just updating your profile is a great first step. You know, there are I think four key parts of compelling LinkedIn profile. It definitely starts with your face. Having a recent photo of you, shoulders up looking at the camera, no sunglasses, hats.
[00:31:47] Rachel Kennedy: Having a compelling headline. LinkedIn is actually a search engine. So when you type in your name in Google, your LinkedIn profile will probably be one of the top four results. And so making sure it’s optimized to list out what you want to be known for.
[00:32:05] Rachel Kennedy: You want to be a keynote speaker. Put in your headline. If you want to be known as an industry leader, put it in your headline. It does not have to just be your title. And then making sure your contact information is up to date. Cause often people can email you. It’s also a great place to put your website and then feature projects, like you said, somebody had featured your podcast on their featured section, that’s something you can add for free and add your thought leadership there. That’s where being on podcasts or having a blog, your company website, your portfolio is a really, really easy way to visually share content that you’re proud of.
[00:32:45] Terri Hoffman: Wow, those are awesome tips. And I think when you’re working with somebody who’s able to advise like, what is the appropriate picture? Like, what should I wear? Who should take the picture? Those are real things that hold people back.
[00:32:59] Terri Hoffman: I’m not sure how I want to come across. So I’m sure you advise your clients on all of those particular details, but it’s really important to work with an expert on those things.
[00:33:09] Rachel Kennedy: Yep, yep, absolutely. It is a joy to help people navigate those splatters.
[00:33:17] Terri Hoffman: Well, I have some fun questions to ask you before we wrap up. I think these are going to be fun.
[00:33:22] Terri Hoffman: First question. If you could see any musical act, a musician who is dead or alive, like you could turn back the clock and see that person or group, who would that be for you?
[00:33:36] Rachel Kennedy: Taylor Swift. I saw the movie, did not get tickets to the concert, but, would love to see her in real life.
[00:33:43] Terri Hoffman: You are at least the third or fourth person who has given that answer. I’ve actually gotten that answer from people that I’m like, that is super interesting. I was not expecting you to say Taylor Swift. Next question. What is your favorite vacation
[00:33:56] Terri Hoffman: that you’ve ever taken?
[00:33:57] Rachel Kennedy: Oh, my gosh. I graduated from college and had saved up all my money and ended up backpacking across Eastern and Western Europe the year after I finished school. I slept in dorms and ate bread and cheese and, it was not luxurious, but it was a pretty incredible way to literally see the history I had just been reading about in school.
[00:34:18] Rachel Kennedy: A future vacation would be to go back to all those places and actually sleep in a hotel and eat in restaurants. So yeah, that is on my bucket list to do Europe, but with a budget,
[00:34:30] Terri Hoffman: That’s awesome. Can you add that up real quick, how many countries you went to?
[00:34:35] Rachel Kennedy: I think it was 18 between, Eastern and Western Europe and Scandinavia.
[00:34:40] Terri Hoffman: Which country was your favorite?
[00:34:42] Rachel Kennedy: Oh my gosh. The Czech Republic was surprisingly beautiful and historic and, just very cool to walk around the street and, just think about the history that had happened there.
[00:34:54] Terri Hoffman: That’s awesome. Okay, next question is, is there like a favorite book or a book that you find yourself recommending pretty frequently to people?
[00:35:05] Rachel Kennedy: I am a very avid reader and I find that I have to alternate between fiction, From fun, girly novels to heavy, heady business novels.
[00:35:16] Rachel Kennedy: I do like a one for three split of fun fiction and heavier, more serious book stuff sometimes. I’ve recently read “The Magnificent Life of Marjorie Post.” It was about ow the Post cereal company was started by a father and passed it down to his daughter.
[00:35:35] Rachel Kennedy: But she was a woman in the early 1900s when women didn’t have a lot of opportunity to lead companies. So just reading about her personal life and professional life, and ultimately kind of guiding the ship when it came to this massive, breakfast food conglomerate was really fascinating. I really enjoyed that one.
[00:35:57] Terri Hoffman: Wow. That sounds really interesting. I’ll have to check that one out. The last question is what is your favorite job that you’ve ever had?
[00:36:05] Rachel Kennedy: I really only worked for three people, myself being one of them.
[00:36:10] Rachel Kennedy: I am definitely the worst boss I’ve ever had. You know, I think one of the hardest jobs and the most rewarding was actually being an RA in my college dorm. My, sophomore year, I got a room to myself, which was great. I went to Austin College in Sherman, Texas, north of Dallas, in a small liberal arts school
[00:36:32] Rachel Kennedy: and I was responsible for this group of 18 freshman girls that came in and roomed together. You’re on call every other weekend and, kicking boys out of the dorm after curfew and also navigating girls who are homesick, girls who are literally sick, girls who are fighting or having issues with academics.
[00:36:53] Rachel Kennedy: I really loved being able to help people through those moments because there is a lot of change as you transition into college. So it was both really hard and really rewarding. When I started my company, I thought, If I can be a guiding light to anyone, that would be my goal. And so that’s where the name Southern Lighthouse came from, is just to help people kind of navigate those difficult times and help them get to the other side where they want to go.
[00:37:25] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, that’s cool. I like how you connected the way that your company was named to that and that’s always interesting to me. Well, I know that you are in the Goldman Sachs program right now. So maybe as we close, I would love to have you talk about a program that you’re creating.
[00:37:41] Terri Hoffman: And, I’m sure there are going to be listeners who are going to be interested in this. So could you give us some background on what you’re creating?
[00:37:48] Rachel Kennedy: Yes. So the Goldman Sachs 10, 000 small business program was, such a fascinating drinking through a fire hose, deep dive into how to run a business that I appreciated it, especially when they said, you know, what is your business growth opportunity?
[00:38:03] Rachel Kennedy: And I realized that I’ve been coaching people on LinkedIn one on one, but there was an opportunity to do that at scale. And so I am building a small group coaching cohort that’s launching January 21st of business leaders, particularly in the commercial construction space, to come together from or marketing or executive backgrounds and learn how to leverage LinkedIn for their personal brand and employer brand.
[00:38:31] Rachel Kennedy: So it’s a six-week class. We’ll meet every Tuesday remotely, for an hour and a half and really deep dive into what is that unique selling proposition for me? What do I offer? Who is my target customer? And then translating that into now here’s what my profile needs to look like to align with that positioning.
[00:38:51] Rachel Kennedy: Here’s what my customers need to hear when I talk and what my messaging looks like, what those three pillars are. here’s how to strategically engage with them and comment on their posts. So every week kind of builds on the next. By the end of the course they’ll really have a strong grasp of what is my brand and how do I put it out there on LinkedIn.
[00:39:12] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, I guess outside of that cohort, if somebody was interested in talking to you, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?
[00:39:22] Rachel Kennedy: I am on LinkedIn all the time. I know it’s so wild, yes. So I am Rachel Kennedy on LinkedIn with Southern Lighthouse and, definitely connect with me.
[00:39:33] Rachel Kennedy: I try to share valuable content every week on just tips to update your profile. and what’s going on, in terms of the LinkedIn algorithm and changes. So stay tuned for that, but connect with me on LinkedIn, Rachel Kennedy, or if you’re interested in the LinkedIn brand accelerator program launching in January, that’ll be on my website, southernlighthouse.com and we’ll run that, every quarter. So if we miss it in January. Come back and we’ll do it again in the spring.
[00:39:59] Terri Hoffman: I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on and doing a deep dive on LinkedIn with me today. appreciate your time. Appreciate you, all the insights you shared today.
[00:40:09]
[00:40:09] Rachel Kennedy: Loved being here, Terri. Thank you.
[00:40:11] Terri Hoffman: Thank you for listening to B2B marketing methods. Please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast channel and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you and connect. You can find me on LinkedIn or visit our company website at marketingrefresh.com.
