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Coach Mikki and Friends
The Most Courageous Thing You Can Do.. Is Be Yourself! - Coach Mikki
C'mon in and make yourself comfortable! Grab a cup of coffee and listen in as our Circle of Friends Guests share their stories! We hope to inspire you, make you laugh and maybe teach you something new.
Come as you are, no perfection is needed!
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Coach Mikki and Friends
Mastering Career Transitions and LinkedIn Strategies with Lynn Williams- S5E9
Curious about making a significant career change or enhancing your business presence? Lynn Williams, the Executive Director of Great Careers Group and an EDD candidate, shares her expert insights into the intricacies of career transitions. Learn the difference between a career pivot and a complete reinvention, and discover the crucial role of keywords and positioning on LinkedIn. Lynn also sheds light on the plethora of resources and services offered by Great Careers Group, from online career development and networking opportunities to specialized support for veterans. Plus, she shares invaluable tips for solopreneurs and entrepreneurs on leveraging LinkedIn effectively, drawing from her involvement with SCORE.
In this episode, we dive into the tailored support available for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Get a comprehensive understanding of how to craft compelling resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and company pages that meet each sector's unique needs. For nonprofits, Lynn offers additional guidance on maximizing LinkedIn to share board member recruitment, volunteer opportunities, and event information. Packed with actionable advice and essential resources, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone eager to advance their career or boost their business presence.
We look forward to seeing you succeed! - www.KeepOnSharing.com - Code - KOS
Hey, I'm Coach Mickey and I'm so glad that you've joined us today and if this is your first time joining us, come on in and make yourself comfortable. For those of you that join us on a regular basis, we are so glad that you do and we look forward to not only seeing you on our Keep On Sharing pages, but also that you reach out to a lot of people that we showcase, and you have collaborated with a lot of businesses and, if you haven't noticed recently, over on the right-hand side of our page, you can attend a lot of networking groups for free and, as you guys know, you can put your businesses, services and events for free. And today is going to be really fun because, with all of you out there that are doing businesses or you're trying to collaborate with a business or even looking to start a business, do a business or even change a business or change your job, I'm excited because today with me I have got KOS member Lynn Williams. She is an EDD candidate, is the Executive Director of Great Careers Group, which provides online career development and networking for career transitions, job seekers and career management, employed and self-employed. Lynn writes resumes, linked profiles, linked company pages, linkedin company pages.
Speaker 1:Excuse me and focus on keywords. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation on LinkedIn, so I am excited to have you. Welcome, lynn. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me. Well, I'm excited to have you because a lot of people that come on to not only our platforms but, I think, other platforms such as LinkedIn or any other ones that are looking for a job. You've got the. You sounds like you've got the plan, the expertise and the way to help people get through this and navigate to help this transition.
Speaker 2:We run about 18 to 25 events a month. Most everything we do is on Zoom, so we have people come from all over the country and some people come from all over the world to join us.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's pretty awesome. So it sounds like you work with an eclectic group of people from all walks of life.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We have speakers that even come visit us from all over the world, and they're subject matter experts who are willing to share their expertise on all kinds of career topics, whether it be on resumes, networking, linkedin, personal branding and topics along those lines.
Speaker 1:OK, so where would someone like if someone wants to start over and we'll just start from square one? Okay, so where would someone like if someone wants to start over and we'll just start from square one? So someone wants to change their career, or they're looking to do something different, or even start. You know, and I've been to your website and I see all the things that you offer, which is amazing, by the way, if you, if any of you, are looking for information or even just a way to enhance your business and listen to these speakers and, as you guys know, the links will all be embedded not only in the podcast, but also they'll be down below for ways for you can reach Lynn. But, Lynn, what would you say is the first thing people should do if they just want to start over?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a couple of different definitions we need to clarify. One thing is called a career pivot. So a career pivot is when somebody wants to stay in the same industry but change jobs. A reinvention is when somebody wants to do something completely different. So maybe they want to change from a W-2 job to go to entrepreneurship, or go from entrepreneurship to a W-2 job, or change from for-profit to non-profit or non-profit to for-profit, or from one industry like K-12 and go into the corporate world, or something like that. So it's possible. You can totally, completely reinvent yourself. It all is focused on keywords and positioning, so you can change the keywords on your LinkedIn profile. You can reposition yourself on your LinkedIn profile. You can reposition yourself to your future forward. You could be whatever you want to be. I have done it for many people, especially military veterans. They can go from the military and they can do something in their future forward in whatever interests them.
Speaker 1:I love that word future forward. I think that's awesome. That really kind of embodies what you're doing, and I love the fact that you're working with veterans. That's even better because that's a huge transition coming from oh absolutely yeah, I work with a lot of veterans.
Speaker 2:In fact, I volunteer for my local veteran group. It's called dvvcorg, which stands for Delaware Valley Veterans Organization or Delaware Valley Veterans Consortium, and it's a group that I help do some social media posting for.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. And so now, with these, these programs that you have, they offer quite a different variety of different steps that people can take and do, because I look again, I looked at your website and you've got an abundance of people you said speakers and other people that are out there to help, and all these links, and it seems like you've got, you know pretty much everything in one area that people can use to be able to help them move forward, like you said, whether it's making a future forward, using your words, or even just trying to embellish what they're working on and what they're doing to be a better business person. So give us a little bit of insight on what someone can do in regards to if they want to better their business what someone can do in regards to if they want to better their business.
Speaker 2:Yes, we not only cater to job seekers, but we have topics that would appeal to somebody who is employed or even self-employed. So I speak also for scoreorg, so I will post events where I'm speaking for scoreorg. So I will post events where I'm speaking for SCORE this year marks my 11th year on the Speakers Bureau for scoreorg and analyze headlines for LinkedIn, emails, blogs, etc. Blogs, et cetera. So these are tips that will help solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and help you build your business. So some people want to have a job and have a side gig or, you know, a small business. Sometimes they want to showcase their business on their LinkedIn profile and sometimes they want to build their business in stealth mode and they don't want their employer to know that it's an existing business, so they want to know how to do that by keeping it secretive, so to speak. So there are all kinds of ways to keep it in stealth mode if you wanted to do that. So we've got all kinds of tips that are available for anybody who is a career professional.
Speaker 1:Well, that's actually interesting. I didn't think about that for somebody who's working a career, you know, or working a job a nine to five and then wanting to build and do something else, because sometimes that does become tricky in regards to, you know, your employer not being okay with agent in the business world. That is pretty awesome. And now you hit on something that I wanted to go back to. You were saying about the branding and different words and different usage, and I don't think we realize especially whether we are business owners or creating a business, even doing our business, how important those keywords and elements are when it comes to our business, especially when it comes to social media. You know, I know we're familiar with hashtags, we're familiar with, you know, the at symbol, you know to drive people, but there are specific things that you need to do to drive traffic. So give us a little example or something that you would suggest to someone who might want to use that to enhance their business.
Speaker 2:Sure You'd be surprised. Linkedin is a database and you can't just take ideas and verbiage and words out of your head without checking to see what's in LinkedIn's database and what's being used. So, for example, there's a difference perhaps between budget budgets and budgeting and budget management. Project manager, project management, web design, web development, graphic design, graphic designer, graphic images. You know there's all different types of words being used and different words have different impact on LinkedIn. For example, there is Adobe Creative Suite and then there's all different kinds of subcategories of the software. You know Adobe Illustrator, adobe Photoshop, adobe, this, that and the other thing. So they all have different impacts on LinkedIn and you need to put all those different subcategories on. But maybe they don't go in the skills section. Maybe they have to go in a different section on LinkedIn so you cover all your bases. But up until a couple months ago, you could only use 50 keywords in the skills section on LinkedIn and now you can use up to 100 keywords. So that's a benefit and a bonus to folks that you can now have up to 100 keywords, but you still need to tell your story on LinkedIn as well.
Speaker 2:As you know, put the keywords in. You definitely have to optimize your profile and just note that when you build your profile, you can't have paragraphs on LinkedIn. Who's going to read the paragraphs? Just think about when you have a mobile phone. Probably you know most people are using their mobile phone to read LinkedIn profiles. According to one research study that I read, it was about 88%. So when you take that content that you put on the desktop and you squish it down for a responsive website and put it on a mobile phone, that whole paragraph is going to be taking up your whole mobile phone screen. Who's going to read that? Nobody. You have to make it skimmable and scannable and make it mobile, readable, friendly, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and honestly, the attention span is very short and you've got to have the impactful words. That's going to make it stand out, make you different right off the bat. It's no different. You're marketing. You're really marketing yourself is what you're doing, and we know with marketing, bullet points Exactly, yeah, exactly, so no, that really is. Now let me ask you, because I know LinkedIn is kind of a marketplace for people that are either looking to hire or looking for a job or a career, like you said, or you know their business. So where is the connection with LinkedIn or like Indeed or the other marketplaces that people are using to look for jobs? Is there a large crossover in that, where you can find that the two collaborate with each other?
Speaker 2:over in that where you can find that the two collaborate with each other. Well, you know, there are aggregators for jobs, you know, and job boards and job platforms and there are some legitimate and illegitimate job boards that exist. Um, uh, job boards that exist. Linkedin happens to be a legitimate uh job board platform and, believe it or not, every second uh, I believe 114 or 140 jobs are applied to every second on LinkedIn. It's super duper crazy. But it is a good platform for people to look for jobs. But they should not use the easy apply button. They need to go to people's websites. But it's a great place for employers to post jobs so that people have awareness that a company is looking for a job. But LinkedIn is not just about job seeking. It is also about client seeking. It's a great place for networking and building relationships. It is a career platform. Over a billion people are on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now I do, and I've heard this multiple times and I'm just trying to see where the benefit is and again, and how someone, if they're just starting out and using LinkedIn let's say they start their business, they're doing great, they've just launched how would one use that LinkedIn to help collaborate and create symbiotic relationships with those other businesses? And I guess my next quick follow-up question with that is is it free? Is this a free platform to be able to do this? You know where they can actually collaborate with these and build their business?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So you can start and build your own personal profile for free. So you're nobody unless you have 30 connections minimum on LinkedIn. But your goal is to get 501 plus minimum connections on LinkedIn and you should build a LinkedIn company page. So I present all the time how to gain customers on a LinkedIn company page and, if I'm not mistaken, on June 3rd, if you go to scoreorg slash Silicon Valley, I am doing a free workshop on that exact topic and that is free to set up a LinkedIn company page. So, just like you put money in a piggy bank, you have to contribute content to your LinkedIn company page and you have to create educational content, informational content, so that people will want to follow you, and you have to provide value, you. And if you do that, you know you're going to get followers and you know exposure out there. So it's like a free website. You can't beat it.
Speaker 2:Now, I know this is super duper crazy, but I don't have a personal website. I only have my nonprofit website because I believe in helping the masses. I mean, people seem to find me for my for profit business, but I do pay for LinkedIn because I like some of the paid features that I'm able to get, which helps my clients. But I don't have a personal website so I use the LinkedIn company page for free for my nonprofit website. So I do use, you know, that free feature. It's absolutely wonderful. We have over 4000 or so followers on the company page.
Speaker 1:OK. So in other words, you can do something where, whether it's for profit, nonprofit, you kind of cover all aspects, regardless of what business that there is. So tell me a little bit how you work. I know you've got a lot of things going on and you've got incredible resources and great ways to be able to help people. So how can you help someone who maybe has a nonprofit where they could benefit from your services? Is it the same way in regards to like a for profit business, or is it kind of Absolutely no.
Speaker 2:No, it's, it's the same thing. So, for profit, I write resumes, linkedin profiles and company pages for the nonprofit pages. For the nonprofit, we help people who are job seekers, client seekers or employed anything to do with career education. Now, as a nonprofit, it's whatever your jam is Like if you're looking for board members, if you're looking for volunteers, if you're having events, etc. You can post all that information and whatever it information that your organization posts on their company page. They can share that out. People that love your organization can share your information very easily if you post it on your company page. Or you could say your organization's page, but LinkedIn calls it your company page. So or you could say your organization's page, but LinkedIn calls it a company page. So it doesn't matter whether you're for-profit or nonprofit, it's easy to create a company page Right.
Speaker 1:Okay. So in other words, so you have, you have all you have your business. You know you want to look for people. So it sounds like you've got every aspect covered in regards to, you know, building your business, networking your business, looking for a new business and then also growing. You know whether it's for profit or nonprofit. So when people come to you and they go to your page, what would you say would be the best thing for them to do? Just to look, seek out the different things that's going to help them in regards to what you have to offer on your page. Or do you have a program that goes here, start here first, start there, where it's kind of a step by step type of program that they could actually look at to go?
Speaker 2:that would help them especially for somebody who's starting out, new, who has no idea what they're doing. Well, on LinkedIn, on your personal profile, you can put a link and I have chose to put a Linktree link. So Linktree is a link of links and when you build your link of links, you could link people to a lot of different things all your social media and whatnot. So on my personal LinkedIn page profile, you'll see I have more gobsmacking resources. Well, I make it a little bit different to you know, make it stand out. So on that link tree, I link people to my link tree for my nonprofit and then I have all my personal links. So it links, you know, to my speaking events, to my publications, to my other volunteer activities that I do. So, you know, take advantage of sharing all the different things you do and the resources that you offer. But you can do that from your LinkedIn profile and you can do it for free.
Speaker 1:So and I do like Linktree Actually I've used that. I know a lot of people that use it and it's a great way to send everybody to everything, whether it's your stores, all your websites, whether I know a lot of authors. They do speak engagements because they have books. So, having that and that's something free too, that you can use you can actually just go to Linktree and then they create one and then just put all your information in there, which is kind of nice, you know, to be able to bring it to all different aspects of what you're doing for your business.
Speaker 1:So now, a lot of the business, like I said, where they've been for profit or for whatever, and I guess I'm going to bring that up too I have a lot of authors that are on, keep on sharing, but they've also have, you know, worked with me and I know that I've worked with them or been on my podcast. So when you have somebody, like you said, a solopreneur, that wants to be able to, let's say, get a speaking engagement or go out there and connect with people, what avenue would you say is the best aspect? That's a little bit different than just posting your information. Would that go along with the algorithm, like you said, of the keywords that you want to be able to be seen or found when you're making your profile.
Speaker 2:I'm not quite sure I understand the question, but as a solopreneur or anybody, it's not just posting, but you have to have commenting as a strategy on LinkedIn. So in other words, you have to be commenting and engaging on other people's profiles. That is a really important part of LinkedIn. Linkedin wants you to be active on the platform so you can create newsletters, you can create posts, you can create carousels, but you also need to comment on other people's posts and carousels and newsletters, collaborative articles, etc. You know that's what they want. They want engagement.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so I'm going to go back to what you have to offer in regards to your services. So when someone wants to reach out to you and have you help them with their business, what is usually the first steps that you do to be able to help them?
Speaker 2:I always have a Zoom call. I need to talk to the person eyeball to eyeball, no matter where they are, and I need to find out what their needs are. It's a free discovery call. I have to know what they're looking for and I have a standard proposal that I send after we have a conversation and if they have any documents to send me. You know a lot of entrepreneurs that I deal with. You know I have to have their logo. I have to have, you know, verbiage. You know from their website, if they have one.
Speaker 2:Some people want to just build a company page and if they do, you know, do they have a designer already? Do they have their hex colors of their logo? If it's a job seeker, you know, give me their last or latest copy of their resume and what do they want to be when they grow up? You know they have to have a goal and I have a process. It's a journey To me.
Speaker 2:It's kind of icky to hear that somebody might talk to you for a half an hour, give you 10 questions to answer and they take a resume and turn it around and jam another resume down your throat. Mine is a journey and a process. I work with people on Zoom. It's a collaborative process and I give people homework. You know we meet several times on Zoom and you see transformation right before your eyes, so I like working with people collaboratively. It's it's a hands-on process, um, and if you don't have a budget to have a one-on-one coaching, we have lots of group workshops where you can learn tips and tricks and try and do things on your own, so there's something for everyone.
Speaker 1:So the workshops and stuff, what, what are some of these that people can attend? And, like I said, I was at your website and go ahead and tell people what your website are and how they can find you while we got you now.
Speaker 2:Sure, so it's great. Careersorg is the nonprofit and we do an awful lot for free, because we are a 501c3 nonprofit and we can't do everything for free, unfortunately, but we do have a lot for free. Otherwise it's a whopping $10 a month. Or if you are an annual member, it winds up being $5 a month. And if you think about it, if we run 18 to 25 events a month, if we did an average of 20 events a month, that winds up being about 25 cents an event. So it's just a little bit of a stipend to help us keep on running our business, because we do have expenses and we do all kinds of events you know like, as I said, you know, resumes, personal branding, linkedin topics tell me about yourself the hidden job market. You know all kinds of things with regards to job search and for entrepreneurs, you've got entrepreneurial type topics. So you know, come check out what we do. It's all on our events page. If you look at the very bottom of the events page, there's a list view of events.
Speaker 1:And, of course, absolutely Check out great careers groups on keeponsharingcom no-transcript to go and what steps to take to be able to do it. This is great, I love. I mean, I'm going to give you the last few minutes here to wrap this up, but is there anything else you want to share that we haven't had an opportunity to discuss?
Speaker 2:Sure, please feel free to reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn. It's LinkedIn and it's Lynn L-Y-N-N-E dash Williams. Of course it's Lid with an E because I'm all about E for education, and on my profile you will see that I have a LinkedIn newsletter called Career News Today. I put that out every week, so please feel free to subscribe to that. It's free and I usually put out lots and lots of LinkedIn tips so you will find out. You know great advice, whether you are a job seeker or a client seeker, or a veteran or a employed person. You know some weeks it may pertain to you and some weeks it may not. So you know, just ignore it if it doesn't pertain to you that particular week. But I do put out some great tips about LinkedIn every single week.
Speaker 1:Okay, and again I want you to let everybody know where they can I know they can reach you there and then also the information and your website will be down embedded into the, into the podcast, so you can go ahead and click straight into there, and it has been so much fun.
Speaker 1:Thank you, lynn, for being with us. I love what you're doing and what you have to offer, and I think any business, like you said, whether you're a big business or a solopreneur, we can always benefit, especially when it comes to building our businesses, and I love the fact that you've kind of collaborated, put it all in one spot where everybody can reach out to you and get those tools to be able to help them. So thank you so much for being with us today. I appreciate you and, yeah, I'm looking forward to going on to your website also, because I love some of the topics that you have and what you have to share, and even myself I've had an opportunity to benefit from some of the events that you have coming up in your speakers. So, all right, please reach out to Lynn. Again, all her information will be embedded in the podcast and until then, I look forward to seeing all of you again, keep thriving, keep striving and yeah we'll see you.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much.