Last week we started a month long focus on building your personal brand to accelerate your pipeline growth. 

Before I dive into the second "how to" tip in this series...allow me to continue to convince you WHY you should do this. 

• People buy from people. The more thought leadership you share, the more people get to know you, and the more approachable you become. 

• As long as you are adding value to your audience, you are serving your audience. This isn't about you, this is about you helping others feel seen, educated, entertained, understood and more. Reminding yourself you are in 'service' to your network, future customers, etc can help you get over the cringe feeling of putting yourself in the spotlight. 

• Your vibe attracts your tribe (as Jessica Zweig says). Your authenticity will help you attract customers and people you actually WANT to work with. 

Alright, back to the HOW. 

The same way we should stretch and 'warm up' before we exercise, it's good to warm up on LinkedIn for thought leadership too. So I am going to give you some tips to dip your toe in the water first to build your confidence and your voice.

Let's do this. 

Step #2: The warm up 

Start to comment

An easy way to start contributing on LinkedIn is to start commenting! 

1. Follow relevant thought leaders in your industry and prospective customers (Note: you can 'follow' someone on LinkedIn without 'connecting' with them) 

2. Time block 15-30 minutes a day for the next week to review your newsfeed and add relevant, valuable feedback through a comment on 2-3 posts by  people in #1 

Commenting on other people's posts helps you - 

• Get noticed by the author and their audience 

• Add value to the author's post and audience 

• Build your voice and confidence 

Now, to be clear...a comment like "Great post, very insightful' or 'Agreed, thanks Joe'.....boringgggg and zero value add. There is a time and place for these simple and short comments so I am not saying never do it, but they won't help you with the task at hand we're discussing. 

A good thought leadership oriented comment is kind, insightful, and adds relevant value to the topic of the post.

Let's look at a few good examples: 

Contribute to collaborative articles

Another way to find your voice is to contribute to collaborative articles. These articles are a relatively new feature on LinkedIn and they are perfect for a newbie. LinkedIn is serving up curated prompts for you to answer. 

Bonus, your responses will show up in the newsfeed of your followers and may spark engagement and dialog. 

Bonus bonus, you might even contribute enough value to earn a 'top voice' badge in your industry. 

Save posts you like for future inspiration

Finally, start paying attention to posts by others that resonate with YOU. Save those posts for future inspiration and reference. 

I still do this today so I have a constant bank of new ideas or new post formats to try.

Know someone who could benefit from being added to this distribution? Send them here to sign up. 

With love and gratitude,