Confidently Position Yourself for Success on LinkedIn with Sandra Clark

Ep: 182

Do you have a LinkedIn profile but don’t feel comfortable putting yourself “out there”? 

Up to 75% of available jobs are never even posted online, and around 80% are landed through networking.

Social media has enabled us to vastly expand our career opportunities, so shying away from the most effective online resource isn’t doing you, or your future, any favors.

Knowing how to optimize your social media presence and make your LinkedIn profile attractive to recruiters has never been more important. 

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment, Blake welcomes Sandra Clark, a LinkedIn trainer and career coach specializing in helping busy professionals create powerful LinkedIn profiles and get results.

Combining her communications, social media, and educational background, Sandra has reinvented herself through numerous careers including Director of Communications at UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley. It has led her to a successful individualized coaching business that focuses on helping clients become social media confident and build an effective LinkedIn presence.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to build your confidence and increase your chances of career success by optimizing your LinkedIn profile. You’ll learn the most effective LinkedIn hacks, the best keywords to use, and the most appealing way to create your profile so that potential employers can find you and reach out with ease.

If uncertainty about how to market yourself and your skills on LinkedIn has you feeling hesitant or reluctant, then it’s time to take charge of your online presence. 

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • Finding opportunity in unexpected career changes (5:20)
  • The many reasons for staying active on LinkedIn (10:50)
  • Best practices for setting up your LinkedIn profile (16:06)
  • Utilizing the right keywords to make your profile stand out (23:16)
  • How the job search has changed and why networking through LinkedIn is so useful (29:50)

 

Favorite Quotes:

  1. “A thought peaked out the window of what it would look like to work somewhere else during those 25 years, but I always sort of scurried back into safety. Because I knew I had the benefits for my family. My husband was a small business owner, so I didn’t feel that I could take risks. I had always been too fearful to try.” –Sandra
  2. “They pushed me out of this comfortable nest, and who knew, but I learned I could fly.” –Sandra
  3. “We spend the vast majority of our life working, and I see a lot of people with ‘comfortable paychecks,’ but they’re really unhappy. They’re stuck. And I want them to know that there’s so much more out there when you enable yourself to take that step into something new.” –Blake
  4. “We have to realize that somebody has three seconds or six seconds to look at your resume or your profile. And it’s like garbage in garbage out. It needs to be impactful and unique” –Sandra
  5. “Taking the step forward is really important. And then as you start to gain confidence in it, what you begin to realize is this gives me more control over my life.” –Blake

 


Connect with Sandra Clark:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandraaclark/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Linkedinmentoring
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LinkedInMentoring/

 


Additional Resources: 

Rather than hoping the grass will be greener, identify what the RIGHT next step is. 

We can help you do just that. 

Get clarity on where you are on your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optional paths to get there, and the right next step to take.

Start your complimentary, Personalized Career Fulfillment Plan by going to www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan

Want free resources to set your job search up for success? You can get them by going to: https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/mistakes

Transcript

Sandra Clark 0:03 I like to think of LinkedIn as a giant village where you can kind of connect with people build a relationship. And after that you might earn the privilege of doing business with them. If you ever do want to look for a job, all those people you’ve known over the years that remember you and love you now it’s easy to find them again and reconnect, start conversations and see what’s going on in their companies, their industry. If you’re thinking about starting your own business, all those people you connect with are likely to be potential clients, or no potential clients for you. And even if you just want to be seen as a thought leader or manager of choice in your company, you want to be the person that people look at your profile like, oh, I want to work for her. You know what an amazing person her job history is exactly like mine, or it’s what I want mine to be and they see you as someone that they want to emulate.

Blake Schofield 1:01 Hi, I’m Blake Schofield, founder, and CEO of the Bridge to Fulfillment, mom to three, USA Today top 10 professional coach, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to expand women’s perspectives and empower them to achieve greater impact at home and work without sacrifice. This is the Bridge to Fulfillment. Welcome to today’s episode of the Bridge to Fulfillment. I’m really excited to share with you a guest experts Sandra Clark. She is a trainer and coach that specializes in helping busy professionals create powerful LinkedIn profiles and then teaching them how to use those profiles for results. She’s known for what she refers to as social media for the socially reluctant trained in communications, social media. And with an educational background. Sandra has reinvented herself through numerous careers, she held numerous roles at UCSD extension in Silicon Valley, including Director of Communications and now leads a successful business helping clients create and manage their LinkedIn presence through individual coaching. Sandra shares her personal career journey of twists and turns that ultimately led to her dream role enabling her to build all the pieces of what she’s done in her career together in this business, and she also shares some really great insights about how to start to make small steps on LinkedIn, how to gain more confidence in doing so. And what are some of the most important things you need to know about creating a basic profile that really makes sure to set you up for success on LinkedIn. So without further ado, I introduce you to Sandra and our interview together. All right, Miss Sandra, I am so excited to have you today on The Bridge to Fulfillment. Welcome.

Sandra Clark 2:53 Thank you for having me. I’m excited.

Blake Schofield 2:55 We were just talking about how we connected in early 2020. With the pandemic, I think we had a wonderful conversation. And since then I’ve enjoyed being a colleague with you on LinkedIn, seeing how you’re showing up and serving people, especially in helping people understand how to navigate a platform when maybe they have not really used it other than just connecting with people. And so I’m really excited to be able to have you come on and share your expertise. But before you do that, I always want to make sure that my audience knows a little bit about the person that they’re learning from. So can you share a little bit about who you are, what your background is, and how you ended up coming to do the work you did today?

Sandra Clark 3:34 Well, it was an interesting journey. I don’t think most people start out their careers, knowing where they’re going to end up. And certainly my career started long enough ago that social media wasn’t even a twinkle in somebody’s eyes. And so I could never have dreamed where I would end up in my dream job. So I started off in a kind of traditional way of like, I was going to be a teacher, you know, there weren’t that many professional opportunities for women at the time. So teachers seemed right. I liked teaching. And so started on that path. I also I did I learned to do the kind of secretarial things so that I could get jobs during the summer to help support myself. And that ended up being incredibly useful. Then I traveled the world and grew up in Canada mostly. And my family was English. We went back to England, I could not wait to get out. So as soon as I graduated, I went off to Thailand and became a teacher there. And then the more you’re a teacher, the more you realize you don’t know anything and that you better go back and learn. So I decided I was going to go back to school and I thought about going back to England I thought no, I began to feel it was growing mold and mildew and my joints after living in England to rainy to damp so I decided to go to America. I sound American now nobody ever guessed this. I’m from England, so I just fit right in. But I came here went to school and married an American was not planning on staying here but married and so stayed and if you’ve got to get stuck someplace, this is not a bad place to get stuck and I took a job right really, you know, young married, needed to be in a stable career, my career history didn’t look very stable, moving all over the place. So I took a stable job so I could get a mortgage. And I worked for the University of California. So I kind of had that mix of education, I wasn’t teaching, I was an administrator, thought, well, I could do that for a few years just to kind of get things stable. Well, 25 years later, I was let go. And it was wonderful. It was scary as hell. But it was wonderful, because I sort of thought, picked up the window of what it would look like to work somewhere else during those 25 years, but always sort of scurried back in safely, because I knew I had the benefits for my family. My husband was a small business owner, so didn’t feel they could take risks I had always been too fearful to try. So they pushed me out this comfortable nest, and who know, but I learned I could fly. So I went to those classes that they have for you, when you’re laid off, resume writing, LinkedIn, interviewing, that kind of thing. And when I was in the classes for LinkedIn, people would come up to me afterwards, well, could you just kind of sit with me and help me, because you seem to get it that I’m lost. So I sat with them. And after about 20, people were saying, you know, you should be charging for this, you really understand it, and you teach it well, so I kid and out of that a business was born. 12 years later, I’m still doing this. I used to, amongst other things, I was a theater director. And once I set that I made people look good on the stage. And now I make them look good on the stage of LinkedIn. And I was a teacher. Of course, once a teacher, always a teacher, so I teach people how to use LinkedIn. So who knew that all those crazy parts of my life and career would lead me to my dream job, and I will do this until I dropped at this point, I don’t see myself getting burned out at all, because I just love working with people and making social media a little more comfortable and accessible for them. Because it’s weird. And it’s scary, putting ourselves out there online and wondering what kids are gonna think. So the journey was a little more devious than that. But that’s kind of a simplified version.

Blake Schofield 7:05 No, I love it. You know, one of the things I find so fascinating when you really well, first of all, I just love people’s stories, I find people infinitely interesting. This is why I knew at 10, I would go become a psychology major. But I love hearing the connection between all of the experiences that you had. And ultimately, what you’re doing today is a mix of all of those things that you love best. And to me, that’s always where the sweet spot is, right is pulling together all of those things that you’re energized and passionate and excited to do. So that you do say, I envisioned myself doing this until I don’t do anything anymore. Because I believe we all should love what we do, we spend the vast majority of our life working. And I see a lot of people, quote, unquote, you know, with comfortable paychecks, but they’re really unhappy. And they’re stuck. And I want them to know that there’s so much more so much better out there when you enable yourself to take that step into something new. So I’m really excited to talk with you today. Because it’s funny, my I never really thought about this. My brother in law is an entrepreneur, and I can’t even remember how early he got me on LinkedIn super early. Like, maybe it was I don’t remember when it came when LinkedIn started, you might know. But I feel like it was around like 2005 or 2006. It was very early, early. So early, in fact that I remember getting an email once from LinkedIn saying like you’re in the top 1% of people or something. And I really didn’t understand what the tool was. I was like, What the heck is this thing? Alright, I’ll join. And it wasn’t actually until about 2010. When I started, I had moved to target Corp to start having recruiters reach out to me. And I started to realize, like, hey, this tool is actually pretty cool. There’s actually some great benefit from this. And since then, the last, what 12 years, I’ve really grown to appreciate LinkedIn, its opportunity to connect people the continued evolution of the platform. But I talked to so many women who maybe they’ve been at that same company for 1015 20 years. And it can feel really overwhelming if you don’t really understand what it is. And I think a lot of people maybe just get on LinkedIn, because they know that’s where everybody is. And they make connections with people that they know. And then they’re not really using it beyond that. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on people like that. What are some things you would share with them or tell them to help them begin to feel more comfortable or even understand how could I benefit from LinkedIn or use it in a meaningful way?

Sandra Clark 9:28 I love that. And you talked about the early days of LinkedIn, they have evolved themselves when it first started, it was really like an online address book. And there were a number of competitors when they first started, even though they’re just down the street from me. I didn’t bother joining because it’s like, oh, no, another one. How many profiles do I need to set up? So I thought, well, let me just see which of these survives, and then it looked like they were going to keep going so online address book was kind of the initial thing because people updated their own information. So it made it easy to reach and then it became this incredible tool for are a job seekers and recruiters. And that mindset is still there for a lot of people, especially people who’ve been at a company for a while, they think, Well, gee, I don’t want my company to think I’m looking for a job, I’ve got to be careful what I put out there on LinkedIn. And it’s become so much more than that, of course, you’ve probably received all the solicitations to sell you something. So it’s used for marketing and sales. Absolutely. It’s also used for thought leadership, and relationship building. And that’s my favorite way of using it. I like to think LinkedIn is a giant village where you can kind of connect with people build a relationship, and after that you might earn the privilege of doing business with them. But it makes it so much interesting if you think of all the ways that can be used. And if you are a user of it, what do I put out there? I don’t, you know, I don’t want people to sit and look for a job. I don’t want to sell anything. Why am I on there, so you’re on there for so many reasons. One, if you ever do want to look for a job, all those people you’ve known over the years, that remember you and love you now it’s easy to find them again and reconnect, start conversations and see what’s going on in their companies, their industry, if you’re thinking about starting your own business, all those people you connect with are likely to be potential clients, or no potential clients for you. And even if you just want to be seen as a thought leader or manager of choice in your company, you want to be the person that people look at your profile, oh, I want to work for her, you know what an amazing person, her job history is exactly like mine, or it’s what I want mine to be, and they see you as someone that they want to emulate. So it’s nice to help the next generation of women do that. And that can be often a way to find that you’re more comfortable with social media. Because if you say, I hate bragging on LinkedIn, I don’t want to brag, I don’t want to talk about myself. No, that’s not nice, you don’t have to what you want is to share information that helps other people and to lead the way. So if you’re a manager, are hoping to set an example, what are things you can share that would help someone else in the workplace? You know, what was it like breaking into your industry as one of the few women? What was it like going in and asking for a raise? What was it like when you got laid off, all of those things are very personal. And if you’re willing to share that you’ll find you’ve got an audience. And also people just are so touched by your story. And if you’re thinking oh my god, I’m never going to share anything. So personal like that only good, it’s still okay, relax, there are still things you can do, you can have a good looking professional profile. And I’ll talk a little bit more in a minute about what those parts are. And then if you don’t ever want to post on LinkedIn, that’s okay, you don’t need to, you can simply be working behind the scenes sending messages to people connecting with people, nobody will see what you’re doing. I work also with what I call a lot of stealth job seekers, they’re looking for jobs that they don’t want people to know. So one of the ways that I teach is that you promote the company that you’re currently working at. They love it, and they see you’re promoting them, other companies see you’re promoting them, and they go, Oh, we want to hire somebody like this that is such an enthusiastic supporter of their company. So there are lots of things you can do to be sure that you’re looking appropriate to you. And this whole social media for the socially reluctant thing that I use is, you know, I thought it was kind of just a quirky, funny thing that would amuse people. And I kind of had it in my marketing, but not overtly. And now I’ve kind of embraced it. And I have it right in my headline, because I’ve had so many people feel like this is just like, put myself out there public, and they feel awkward and afraid. Well, if I put something and I make a mistake, or I do it wrong, or I don’t know if I’m sure you remember the old days, like where if you put a change on your profile, it sent out a notification to all your network that was that embarrassing, because he would get like three or four notifications, you changed your picture, you changed your headline, what are people want to think now LinkedIn actually doesn’t do that anymore. They haven’t for years. But that’s still the kind of paranoia that I hear from people. The only changes it sends out, if you have that turned on are new jobs, new education. And if you have what’s called a profile video, that you make a choice, you do a new one, and that’s about it. So it’s pretty safe, make a change, do something wrong, make a typo, anything, it’s okay, no notifications going out, you’ve got time to go in and fix it. And if you feel you’ve got a pretty good looking profile, which I would say is the basic for a professional, you want to look good to potential employers, but you want to look good to your employees to your co workers and you’re willing to start posting, then there are ways to just very gently do that, like and comment on other people’s stuff. And if that’s all you ever do, that’s okay. That’s like going to a party. I’m an introvert. I don’t really like networking events or large groups, small groups, you know, just a couple of people. So if I get talking with someone, I ask questions, and I listen, and I sometimes had it happen when people say, Oh, you’re the best conversationalist in the world. I never said anything. But it’s so true if you just listen support what other people are saying they love it. So you can do that on LinkedIn, and be seen as amazing. And if you want to share a little of your wisdom, there are definitely ways to do that to talk about that would help or be useful to your particular audience.

Blake Schofield 15:20 Sandra, first of all, that’s great. I love really how you’ve helped people understand maybe some of the myths that people believe about LinkedIn that aren’t true anymore, helps them kind of see some easy ways to be able to connect. And you know, LinkedIn is a huge part of what I do a significant part of what I help my clients understand as well. And I think the two biggest things I hear questions about all of the time, while I have questions about how to do one thing, and then maybe the emotional, how do we overcome some of the emotional barriers? So we’ll start with the biggest question that I get, which is, you know, what should be on my LinkedIn profile, like I just been in here, and it has my jobs. But what really matters about just setting up a basic profile so that I’m in good shape,

Sandra Clark 16:06 I’ll talk about some very basic things, which is you need a professional looking headshot. And as a professional looking, ideally, you know, with the kind of women you work with, it’s going to be a professional hot pitcher. But you can get great shots with the camera on your phone, just do it outside, make sure it’s well lit. And it should be no more than two to three years old, it needs to look like you would look if you were going into a meeting, it’s kind of embarrassing if you don’t let that happen. In fact, I went to a meeting to meet someone in person one time, and they didn’t recognize me was because I changed my hair color. You know, my picture was not that old. But you know, so I teach, you know, truth and marketing. So look like yourself. And then there are fancy things you can do that make it look pretty background, banners, all of that. Don’t worry about that. But think about the basic elements, you get your picture, your headline, at the top of your profile under your name, it’s called your headline, it’s not called your job title, you are so much more than your job title. Now, you might want to include your job title, to easily identify what it is you do. But there’s so much more there’s 220 characters that you have available to you doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. But you could have something you know your title, Vice President of commercial division at XYZ Corporation or something, and then you could have a few key words of areas that you specialize in. And then you could even have a tagline or something that you feel is special or meaningful to you making human resources a little more human, one person at a time. I don’t know if that’s too hokey, but communicating a little bit about yourself. If you always work for companies, or you love working for a company that does environmentally sustainable stuff, mentioning that part of your passion in your headline, and you can just put individual words, you don’t have to put sentences. So you’ve got the base success. The top you’ve got your about section that used to be called summary, LinkedIn, like to change their names of things I’ve done. Now it’s called about this is like your 32nd elevator speech. This is not the top of your resume the executive summary, this is you at a networking event. Hi, Blake, nice to meet you. Tell me about yourself. First person I know one of the changes in LinkedIn over the past few years is we only see the first few lines. So it’s a bit like you’ve got to think with a marketing brain all the time it used to be we could see the whole profile, people could send a scan at all. Now you’ve got to use that marketing brain say start with what’s client facing language client being potential client, but it could be co worker or employer and something intriguing that makes people want to open and read the rest. So 100%, 100%.

Blake Schofield 18:35 I helped my clients unlock and uncover their secret sauce skills. And we put together what we call their secret sauce pitch, which is exactly what you’re saying. It’s that 32nd elevator pitch that is really clear and concise about who you are and the value you bring and in what environment right that you really bring those results. And that’s exactly where I tell my clients to put it.

Sandra Clark 18:57 Perfect. So those are the kinds of people will often avoid that area because they’re scared of it. They don’t know what to put. So they leave it blank or they’ve got this little like the executive summary thing. Even if you take that executive summary and switch it around to first person instead of Sandra Clark is an experienced LinkedIn trainer and coach Yan, you know, I’m a trainer and coach and I love helping people don’t be afraid to use emotional language beware. And that also helps you I think avoid language. You know, when you see language like seasoned stuff was like What are you, you know, a state that drives me crazy.

Blake Schofield 19:30 Also, I feel the same way as a results oriented team player. I’m like, please don’t. Please just don’t put any of these, like jargony words and I think that used to be the standard 20 years ago, everyone would do that. But today we have to realize somebody has three seconds or six seconds to look at your resume or your profile. And it’s like garbage in garbage out. I’ve read that 100 times your point we need to be able to stand out it needs to be impactful and unique.

Sandra Clark 19:59 And even if you feel You have to use that words that kind of work, you can say, people refer to me as action oriented, results driven. Because when they give me a project, it’s done. And it’s done with excellence, you know, so tell me why people would say that about you not talking about yourself, that’s just weird. And then you’ve got your experience section, and you have some choices there. You don’t have to call yourself the title you have or had at the company when I worked university, my payroll title, my last 12 years was program promotions manager, one, program promotions manager two, I mean, do you have any doesn’t sound like a computer program or something. So I was allowed to call myself anything I wanted that made sense to the community songs, it wasn’t somebody else’s payroll title. So over that time, I was director of corporate training, Director, Communications Director of Outreach, and that makes so much more sense to the outside world. So you can do the same thing. If you’ve got this very unique your company title, you can call it like it is to the outside world. Maybe when you’re in the position, you feel you can’t do that. But in the description, you could say, as the regional project manager for when your title says something else, but your past jobs, you can do that you don’t want to include everything. And again, this depends a little bit on your goals. Whether you’re a job seeker though, or you have your own business, you want to have enough information a little bit likes gives the analogy but like Tinder, you want to have enough information to get potential employers potential clients swipe right and want to learn more, if you’ve got it all there, they see it there, they scrape the data, and they got not right. And they don’t give you the chance to tell your unique story. So don’t give away everything, just enough to intrigue, pull them in. And then there are many places on LinkedIn to add all kinds of stuff, certifications, your volunteer work your associations, if you don’t feel all of those in your, okay, it’s a nice place, if you’ve got them. A lot of people put them they don’t know where to put them. So they stick them in the wrong places. Just note there is a place for it if you want, there are ways to manipulate LinkedIn little to eat it a little if you like, for example, when you’re in a job and you get promoted, it’s now stacks it under one company logo. If you have your own business, and you have a several different services, you can make it so that it stacks under your company logo and makes it more visible. So there are little things like that you can do that showcase what you’re doing a little bit more, but get the basics in there. And just do it. Just what I say people just say to people, I say just get over yourself, just start. It’s a little bit like walking is just controlled, falling. You take a step, you start to fall, you catch yourself, you take a step. And how often do you fall now I occasionally trip, I admit, but for the most part, you keep going. So if you just think take little steps on LinkedIn, do something well, nothing terrible happens. It’s okay, get brave and do something again, but have those basic sections there. I mean, if you want to be found the for your expertise, or your business, you know, you want to think about keywords. Keywords are always a good thing to think about if someone was looking for you, what words would they use and make sure that they’re in your profile? Don’t be afraid to tell your story. And it’s conversation starters. I’ve recently added in a little section to my summary at the end, I just called icebreakers which is a kind of mishmash of some of my past experience. There’s a lot on my website about me, but I didn’t have a lot of it on LinkedIn. And I just kind of added that and people office now they feel I’ve got something, well, you travel, you live or to live overseas, you have this weird, convoluted career, and they feel they have something in common with me. And suddenly to talk something else that occurred to me is there yes, in your experience, you have to show the dates, you don’t have to go back to the beginning of time. If it’s not relevant, or you don’t feel it represents you well, with your education, you don’t have to include the dates. So it’s fun when I work with older people. So instant facelift, you know, remove the dates, you know, you got good university good degree. That’s all we need to know we don’t need to get distracted by saying well, that means she’s how old so there are things you can do to manipulate or use LinkedIn. So it shows what you want to show. Let’s just thinking through the things as I look through profile in preparation for talking with you what matters, just do it from that kind of thing. Connect with people, I will work with people, they’re 50 years old, they’ve got under 100 connections, and I say to people, they should have at least 30 connections for every year of their age. Now I should hasten to mention that does not mean I’m over 200 years old, just be clear about but you need at least 30 people professionally a year, why not connect with them?

Blake Schofield 24:51 100% That was actually the question I was going to ask you because, you know this is like I said part of the work I do with my clients is helping them understand how to market and position themselves also how Helping them understand the art and science of authentic networking. And one of the biggest questions or things that I see come up for women is this fear or uncomfortableness with reaching out to someone they don’t know. It’s like, oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t know how I feel about that. I think five years ago, I felt the exact same way. So I would love to hear your thoughts, what are some things that you could share with the audience, if they’re struggling or feeling the same way?

Sandra Clark 25:25 Don’t be a lion, is what I would tell you. And a lion is what’s called a LinkedIn open networker. And that means to accept connection requests for anybody and everybody not good. There was a trend for that very, not a good practice. Now, there are many fake profiles on LinkedIn. And if you connect with those statements, you’re adding legitimacy to them. So I say connect to people, you know, people you’d like to know, and people who know people you’d like to know. And if you look at their profile, there is always an excuse to connect with them. Almost always, if there’s not, don’t connect. So are you a member of a st group, and LinkedIn was, so right at the top, you’re both members of professional women of America something and you sort of say, I see, we’re both members of this group. I’m looking to grow my network with professional women with love to connect. Oh, I see what both alumni have, I want to connect with other alumni Go ahead. You’ve always got a reason. Look at their profile, say I see we’re both connected to Blake, have you ever worked with her, I’d love to know more about your experience. So you’ve always got a conversation starter. And so I’m connected to an acrobat over 7000 followers is something which for someone in my world is actually relatively small. But I do actually want to know who the people in my network are. So it’s getting harder. But I sort of kind of mostly know who all of those people are on my network, or how I know them. We were members of a group, I do a lot of speaking engagements. Maybe they were in the audience and reached out to connect. And there are ways to kind of track that there used to be a wonderful way that was built into LinkedIn. And they took that away. So I did lose some of the history of my memory. But there still is a way to do that. So it doesn’t have to be so reach out to friends and family. Uncle Bobby’s going to accept you, regardless of the fact that you only see each other at Christmas, reach out to the people, your kids PTA Association, it’s okay, start where it’s safe. And then as you become more confident, you’ll be able to start finding other excuses to connect and people are generous, they often want to, especially if you look professional, and appropriate. And if they don’t, they’re rare, unless you start off with a sales pitch, they’re really going to write something rude back to you.

Blake Schofield 27:35 Yeah, 100%. That’s what I tell my clients all the time, there’s trepidation about doing this initially. And I think it’s a natural fear of rejection. What if I do this and people ghost me or say something bad. And what I often tell people is, right in my clients, it’s a process we use. And I say data, right? When we have the data, then it helps to alleviate some of the emotion. If you have a process, you know what to expect. And you can track against that data than it doesn’t feel like this emotional thing when someone doesn’t respond to you. But the reality is, everyone’s busy. So you have to be able to reach out in a way that’s compelling and interesting, and makes that person feel an emotional connection, and makes it easy for them to connect back with you. And once you start doing it, when I consistently hear from my clients, they move from saying, Oh, I don’t I don’t control this, I don’t like networking, like oh my god, this is one of my favorite things to do. And when I think is so wonderful about LinkedIn, and about some of the work you’re doing, and the work that we do here, the rest of the filament is what I often say is networking is like the key to never having to worry, it’s job security. If you understand how to network and build relationships with people, whether they’re in your crew, or they’re related to people that you know, or maybe you don’t have any connections to them, but you have an interest in getting to know them. If you understand this skill. In my opinion, you’ll always be able to find a job, because we know 70 to 75% of jobs are never even posted and 80% of jobs are gotten through networking. So learning and kind of to your point, just taking the step forward is really important. And then as you start to gain confidence in it, what you start to begin to realize is this gives me more control over my life. actually realize most people are really helpful and by the way, the people who aren’t helpful or grumpy or don’t want to talk and find out and respond to you anyway right? You just hear nothing. And so there’s not really anything negative there especially if you recognize and realize that you know a non response with somebody is not not hit on you personally, it may just be that they’re busy, or it may be that you are messaging wasn’t compelling enough to draw them to respond.

Sandra Clark 29:39 Or they’re not on LinkedIn much they might have a profile, but they’re just ignoring work with someone they’ve got like 100 and something connection requests they’ve just ignored. So that’s often the case and I was just thinking we used to get jobs through the people we knew number starting as a teenager you would get a babysitting job. A friend would tell you about a job that was open at a fast food place my daughter got it The job at Baskin Robbins is all through friends life doesn’t really change that much as you get older, it just extends to the people, you know, a little higher level. And it’s LinkedIn allows you to now Oh, my friend, that waste of time in college, they would never thought they would about anything. They’re now the VP and some other company that are hiring people. You don’t know the people from your past what they’re doing now. And just, it allows you to stay in touch with them. And nobody minds, if you just reach out and say, Oh, my gosh, you know, I haven’t seen you since we worked together. 15 years ago, we’d love to reconnect and learn more about what you’re doing now, who’s gonna hate that? Hopefully no one. But it’s fun. People can even if they’re really reluctant, they can get excited about reconnecting with people that they’ve known and liked in the past.

Blake Schofield 30:48 100%. Well, Miss Sandra, this has been such a pleasure. Well, we know our time is almost up, let me round out by asking you, is there anything that I didn’t ask you that I should have, or anything you feel like you’d like to share that you haven’t yet?

Sandra Clark 31:01 I think I’ve mentioned it, but I’ll mention it again, if you can find a way to be on LinkedIn that’s comfortable for you. Maybe your way as you’d like to lift people up, maybe your way is that you’re friendly and sociable and you want to connect with people, maybe I don’t know what it is. But if you can find your way of being comfortable on LinkedIn, the rest of it will come easily to you. So that was really something I just wanted to make people feel that it’s okay, just get started. Just do it. Get over yourself, and just start.

Blake Schofield 31:34 Wonderful. Well, if there is someone listening, who would love to learn more about you, or connect with you, how can they do that?

Sandra Clark 31:41
Several ways. Obviously, they can reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn, I’m pretty easy to find, because I’m active, Senator Clark, you can also email me, Sandra at LinkedIn mentoring.com. Or you can go to my website, LinkedIn mentoring.com. And I love connecting with people. And I’m happy to help even with people engaging me if I can answer a quick question. I’m always happy to do that. But I’d love to connect with you. And mentioned like, if you connect with me through the show, so I know, and can keep note of how I know you.

Blake Schofield 32:11 Wonderful. Thank you so much, Sandra, I really appreciate you coming and sharing your personal journey, and such great tips and tricks and a greater understanding of just how to step into LinkedIn and how to step into social media in a way that can feel safe, easy, and maybe start to figure out some of the ways that you could do it naturally to yourself versus feeling like I’m being pushed to be somebody that I’m not or do something in a way that feels really uncomfortable. So really appreciate you.

Sandra Clark 32:38 You’re very welcome. It’s been a pleasure, and I look forward to staying in touch.

Blake Schofield 32:42 So do I. And until next time, you guys have an awesome week.

Blake Schofield 32:52
Thanks for joining me today. Rather than hope the grass will be greener identify what the right next step is. We can help you do just that. Get clarity on where you are in your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optimal paths to get there, and the right next step to take. Start your complimentary, personalized career fulfillment plan at www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan . Again, you can get your personalized career fulfillment plan at www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan . Thanks again for joining and have a great week ahead.