In this week’s episode, we are joined by Judi Fox. She is listed as a Top 10 LinkedIn coach for 2021 in the Yahoo! Finance. She is featured in Inked Magazine, CEO magazine, VidSummit, Social Media Marketing World, where I just recently saw her and Top 100 podcasts. She has over 18 years of experience in business development and sales and she’s developed the LinkedIn Business Accelerator method.
It was an amazing conversation as we covered the following points:
1. Losing her first job and joining LinkedIn for the first time
2. Her favorite LinkedIn feature – Newsletters
3. LinkedIn’s new feature in 2022 called Creator Mode
4. Best features of Creator Mode
5. Setting up LinkedIn for sales opportunities
6. “LinkedIn people are going there to have conversations.”
So if you’re an entrepreneur who wants organic reach and engagements, tune in to this week’s episode and learn everything you need to know about connecting with your market (by creating real conversations) through LinkedIn.
Visit Judi’s website: https://www.judifox.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judiwfox/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/judiwfox
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Judi_Fox
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/judifoxrocks/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/JudiFox
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ph/judiwfox/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@judifoxrocks
Katie Brinkley 0:00
Hi, friends. I’m Katie Brinkley, and you’re listening to Rocky Mountain marketing, with nearly two decades helping business owners, consultants and coaches with their digital marketing. I know that social media can be an incredible tool to grow your business, when you know how to do it the right way. And that’s what we’re going to do today, I teach you how to navigate the world of entrepreneurship and digital marketing. And hopefully, you’ll grow your business with a few great tips you wouldn’t have known otherwise, and maybe even discover a great local business you love. Let’s dive into today’s episode. Welcome back to Rocky Mountain marketing. My guest today is Judy Fox. Now Judy and I met on clubhouse. But we have actually had the opportunity to meet each other IRL in real life a number of times. And I’m so excited that she is joining me today because she is listed as a top 10, LinkedIn coach for 2021. In the Yahoo Finance, she is featured in Ink Magazine, CEO magazine, Vid Summit, Social Media Marketing World where I just recently saw her and top 100 podcast, she has over 18 years of experience in business development and sales. And she’s developed the LinkedIn business accelerator method. So her clients are implementing this LinkedIn method to achieve more business and over 1 million content views in as little as 90 days. So folks, you are in for a treat today, Judy, welcome to the show.
Judi Fox 1:32
Excited to be here. I love the you’re the name of the show the vibe. Well, I’m always excited to be asked. Well, and Judy,
Katie Brinkley 1:42
I mean, like, like I said, we met on our social audio app. But we had the opportunity to meet each other at some in person events this year. And when I saw you, I mean, you had your little fox ears on. So I mean, very distinguishable. It’s like, there she is. And I asked you to join me. And you said, yeah, so thank you so much, because you are such an expert when it comes to LinkedIn. And I think that one of the things that I love about LinkedIn is that it feels like 2014, Facebook, you can still get good organic reach, people are going there to have conversations about business. Honestly, when I first started this podcast, that’s how I found a lot of my my guests was by networking on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is a great tool when you know how to use it the right way.
Judi Fox 2:34
I really love hearing that you’re getting guests because of LinkedIn, because the power of merging a podcast and LinkedIn together and doing both platforms. I’m just completely blown away by that, by the possibilities of that how much that can be leveraged for the future. And being visible for a very long time with your podcast and LinkedIn together. Yeah. Well,
Katie Brinkley 3:00
and I mean, like, I think that you know, you’ve been on I think you said like over 300 podcasts, which is awesome. And with, you know, the the power of voice, it does help you foster new relationships. Like I said, we met on clubhouse, you’ve been on a lot of podcasts. You’ve been doing LinkedIn audio rooms. So LinkedIn audio events, right. Which one is it?
Judi Fox 3:22
Yeah, it’s I mean, we can call them rooms.
Katie Brinkley 3:26
But I mean, there’s something powerful about voice and the way that it can move relationships along because I, I did say this, I think that I wasn’t maybe we were in the same room because I was talking about LinkedIn. So of course, I had to be in your room on clubhouse. But, you know, we were talking in there. And as I feel like, if any social media platform, this was back before, all of these social media platforms had their own, you know, audio option, or kind of like, oh, who would be a good option to buy clubhouse? And I really thought that LinkedIn made the most sense because it’s it’s clubhouse was like networking on steroids, you know, and and it really made sense that clubhouse could be purchased by it. But that didn’t happen. And now we can control all those
Judi Fox 4:13
things, right? Yeah. But the one thing I’ll say about the power of audio and the power of club house, and then of course now live with LinkedIn, launching an audio event feature. LinkedIn is like that solid moving ship, that it is sturdy, it is stable. And the power of that is investing in a long term strategy to create a show or an audience on there. There’s really so much power in that converting and doing it for a long amount of time versus worrying about the idea that you can lose a platform or that a platform can disappear overnight. Like we’ve lost other platforms overnight. And and then of course that idea that You could always lose your account, the feeling on LinkedIn is different. It’s, we’re here for your whole career on LinkedIn. So we’re gonna last beyond that one post you make on any other platform, the platform on LinkedIn will literally move with you throughout your whole entire career, you want to pivot to a podcast, you want to launch a book, you want to create course content, you now want to launch an E commerce business, the world moves with you, because they’re following your career journey, not because you are a specific niche, or a specific topic. And I think that’s why I’m absolutely in love with LinkedIn. And I also just don’t see that platform going anywhere. But if it did, that platform lives on in a way that says, I’ve made these certain relationships, and I’ll go connect with them on the next platform, whereas I don’t necessarily always feel the same way of other platforms.
Katie Brinkley 5:55
So let’s backtrack just a little bit. Why why LinkedIn for you, because I know that, you know, we’re around the same age. And I feel like a lot of people, you know, in the the millennial phase, you know, kind of were like air for LinkedIn for a long time, like, oh, that’s just a place for to post my resume. I mean, I’m still trying to get my husband on LinkedIn, he’s like, I don’t know, I’m not looking for a new job. And I think that that is one of the biggest misconceptions about LinkedIn. So what drew you to LinkedIn?
Judi Fox 6:30
Well, first, I’ll start, I was looking at college. And so I attended college in the 90s. I graduated college in 1999. So I don’t know if that gives you any range. But I’m 46. So I looked at LinkedIn when I lost my job in the first economic crisis. So I was already 10 years into my career. And that’s when I joined LinkedIn. So the power to me that LinkedIn held was in that same space that your husband said, which is you network on there when you need a job, right. And since spending time on there, the biggest thing that happened to me was my kind of next, I don’t know what we call it Rock the Boat moment in your life, where I ended up as a single mother almost overnight, like literally in one week, I found myself having to drive 1000 miles, move back in with my parents, and run a business that I had already started. During that time, I was running my own business, I was running an engineering consulting business. And I was using LinkedIn to network to those opportunities. But I needed to take it to the next level, I no longer could count on having two incomes, I had to literally say how am I going to make this work, be sustainable, and have a two year old and be on my own and do all the things I wanted to do buy a home, have a car like have steady income. And I looked at LinkedIn and I decided I was going to do no other social media platform, except for LinkedIn. And that was the power of that. Because number one, you can post content on LinkedIn, you could at that time start uploading videos on LinkedIn. That was right when LinkedIn launched native video uploading, which is a huge change for how the platform operated. And I don’t think people understood that those initial videos would go so viral, like 80,000 100,000 200,000 views on some of my videos and the power of that for business. If you can get that level of visibility, your business is going to work. Like if you have something on the back end to sell. And you make a video that reaches 200,000 views. I bet your ideal clients somewhere in those 200,000 views,
Katie Brinkley 8:53
for sure. And I like to that you were like I’m just gonna go all in on one. And then you know, grow my business from that because I think that that is one of the biggest misconceptions with social media. That’s from my job. Like when I’m coaching someone, I’m like, okay, so you’re on like every single social media platform known to mankind you’re on Reddit, you’re on Pinterest or on Tik Tok, you’re on mute. I mean, like, the list goes on. Like, let’s let’s scale it back and get really good at one or two and then we can start adding in some more, because it’s hard to show up the right way on all these platforms if you’re if you’re just copying and pasting and and it’s not a copy and paste format for showing up. I mean, like the way you post on LinkedIn is different than you post on Instagram. And I mean like one of the things that you talk about pretty regularly is LinkedIn newsletters and articles and, and it’s one of those features that you really can’t utilize on Facebook or Tik Tok. It’s something that’s only on LinkedIn and it’s a great feature for for For your profile page, and it’s a great way to be seen and become a thought leader. So talk to us just a little bit about LinkedIn newsletters and articles.
Judi Fox 10:08
Yeah, so LinkedIn newsletters because LinkedIn launched something called Creator mode, it literally in 2022, LinkedIn launched creator mode. And what that means is, they’re now going to give you access to tools that they were only giving people who were considered LinkedIn influencers with the LinkedIn, like Richard Branson, or I don’t even know who has the blue button now, because now I don’t think it
Katie Brinkley 10:33
was just like Richard Branson, because I follow him. And I’m like, while I follow Richard Branson, I
Judi Fox 10:38
don’t remember when Oprah Winfrey has. I’m trying to think of some other names. But you know, the big names were the only ones that can post newsletters. And so they gave access to just a very small group of people to this tool called newsletters, everyone had access to articles. But not everyone had access to what’s called newsletters. So with creator mode, if you turn that on, you immediately get access to newsletters. And why is that powerful? Because LinkedIn is giving you a delivery engine? And I think we all talk about I want to be seen, or how can I kind of break through the algorithm? Or how we’re kind of always navigating that on tick tock or on Instagram? And how can I make sure I’m showing up in somebody’s newsfeed, the newsletter feature has three ways that it pushes your content out. So it’s seen. LinkedIn is literally saying, Let us give you an engine, so you can be seen no issues with the algorithm, you’re not, you literally have an audience. So number one, LinkedIn, sends it out to your entire audience to subscribe, and gives them a notification saying, hey, Judy launched this newsletter, you’re gonna want to subscribe. So that immediately converted about 20 to 30% of my audience.
Katie Brinkley 11:57
Wow. That’s huge. I mean, 23% of your audience. I mean, like, think about that, in terms of how many followers you have. And it’s like, yeah, I get excited when I when I have an Instagram post that gets like 150 likes, I’m like, how many of my percentage of actual followers even saw this post? You know, that’s a big number.
Judi Fox 12:18
Yes. And then the next thing LinkedIn does is they send out an email to all of your subscribers with the whole newsletter right there. So if you have a link to book a call with you, if you have a link to your course, if you have a link to your YouTube channel, if you have an embedded podcast to play right there, it will show up in someone’s email. Yeah, that you’re getting access to email coming out underneath the umbrella of LinkedIn delivering it, therefore it doesn’t look like you’re trying to deliver it. LinkedIn is trying to deliver it.
Katie Brinkley 12:55
So with that, before we dive into some more questions that I have on creator mode, do you still send out a regular email to an email list? Or do you just send it out to your LinkedIn subscribers? I mean, like, what if someone’s on both lists?
Judi Fox 13:11
i Right now, I’m just taking advantage of the LinkedIn power of that.
Katie Brinkley 13:17
Well, you do have 40 I guess like to eat data that what you
Judi Fox 13:23
know, at this point, I have 12,500 people receiving my email, getting a notification and it’s delivering it to them in the newsfeed. So yes, when I launched a newsletter, I’ve been able to get anywhere from about 12,000 views because all 12,000 people are receiving it. And then my last newsletter went out to over 30,000 people that read it. That’s 30,000 people opening up this newsletter. And the power of that newsletter is like I said, you don’t just get to say some facts or put a full newsletter. But at the bottom of the newsletter, you can close with a pitch just like a brochure you can have a bit of add subscribers have a pitch to close to say, Hey, do you want to work together? Here’s a webinar or here’s a path to grab my recent course that I just launched so you have a way to move the traffic. If they liked this newsletter, there’s gonna be a number of people who will convert to do the next thing.
Katie Brinkley 14:27
Yeah. Oh man, I love that. So this is only available in creator mode. I have creator mode turned on on my profile. I like creator mode. I know I’m not utilizing all the features like I should, like newsletters, I don’t have the voice thing. And there are some stuffs that i The Creator mode gives you. But so if someone’s listening right now, and they’re like, all right, creative mode. Sounds pretty cool. But am I a good candidate for it? Who do you think is a good candidate to turn on that creative mode?
Judi Fox 14:58
Basically I would say, everyone, but that’s me. I would say if you’re a job seeker or you’re somebody who is trying to get back into the corporate space, maybe you don’t need creator mode turned on, maybe you truly want to have your Connect button and be very connect driven. Whereas creator mode does turn you more into a follow platform, it turns you into the primary button will be the Follow button. And that I think that to me, to me, that is the number one thing I hear is, my connect button is gone. I now have a primary Follow button, you still have a connect button, but it’s harder to get to.
Katie Brinkley 15:41
Yeah, you have to hit those three little dots. And then yeah, choose it to connect. And it definitely makes it harder to to go to the you know, one to one kind of connection. If you have creator mode turned on where like, I think my co host on my NFL podcast follows me. And I’m like, James just connect with me. And I don’t think he understands how so I mean, like, I do think they’re there.
Judi Fox 16:06
Yeah. And I told, so I do have a corporate client that is Senior Vice President, a major company, they are not trying to, you know, be a small business or be an influencer. But they want to have creator mode turned on because they want the newsletter. So it’s a balance between what I told them was, in some ways, change your mindset, people who follow you, you can have a task once a week for you or your team to check in on who followed you. And then you get to click the Connect button. Yeah, to if they were willing to follow you, I bet they’d be willing to connect with you. So just go down that list and connect with who makes sense for you to turn around and connect with you. So it kind of puts the power back in your hands, you just have to do an extra step to see who followed you.
Katie Brinkley 16:56
So Judy, if someone’s listening right now, I am gonna go ahead and turn this on, what are some of the other features that creator mode gives somebody other than the newsletters. And I mentioned a couple other things there when I was saying things that I need to turn on. But what are some of the other features that creator mode offers that just like the regular professional mode does not?
Judi Fox 17:18
I think one of the new things that I like is the profile picture, I think we the power of your profile picture goes with you everywhere we recognize each other because of our profile picture. What the Creator mode turns on is it gives you a 32nd video in that spot. And it auto plays so it kind of catches your eye where your your go to someone’s profile, and the moment you land on my profile that is going to autoplay a video. And you get a chance to say a lot in 30 seconds. So you can introduce yourself, you could, for example, showcase your product or skills or give people hey, here’s how to get started our connection. That’s how we can get to know each other. The other powerful thing is you don’t just see that video on your profile, it moves with you, everywhere you go. And it’s like a little purple circle that goes around your head. So in the news feed that will go with you. And in the news, feed your Follow button, we’ll go with you. So as people see your posts, they don’t even have to click to your profile anymore, they can follow you directly from the news feed. Whereas if you leave the connect button up and you don’t turn on creative mode, when you create content, you don’t get an automatic like here follow Judy, if you liked this post LinkedIn is pitching people to follow you.
Katie Brinkley 18:41
Yeah. Well, that’s why I kind of like to think of LinkedIn as 2014. Facebook, like it’s trying to help people, more people be aware of who you are without having to pay for it. So
Judi Fox 18:55
yeah, I haven’t paid for any advertising. I haven’t boosted a post I. I mean, yeah, I mean, I’ve thought about it, because I’m like, Well, I want even more views. But then when I look at how many views I’m getting, I’m like, do I need to worry that, you know, I have a 40,000 person audience and I can get content to go to 40,000 plus people.
Katie Brinkley 19:17
So with that, Judy, I think that, you know, it’s definitely incentivized me to, you know, do a couple of those things that I had been putting off. The video is huge, because it does make you stand out, you stand out from the crowd. For those of us that maybe don’t have 40,000 followers, and maybe we have like 40 Because we’re new to LinkedIn. We’re just getting off of you know, the Facebook bandwagon and we were like, Let’s give this LinkedIn thing a shot. What would be some, maybe two tips that you’d give to somebody that’s brand new to LinkedIn so that they can start to grow, not just their follower count, but grow their business.
Judi Fox 19:55
I tell people to create a list of favorites I always say A when you think of who you want to engage with, go out and collect about 10 to 20 people who you would list as your favorites. However, you have to connect with people and go like and comment on people
Katie Brinkley 20:16
we meet saying I have to be social on social media.
Judi Fox 20:22
But I’m not telling you to do it for everyone, but the 10 to 20 people you pick, they cannot be ridiculously huge. They have to be people that would naturally also turn around and like and comment back on you. So maybe you pick people at 1000 followers or people who are a little bit ahead of you or people who already know you in real life. Like, if I see you commenting and me commenting back on you we know each other, so it’s not weird for you to think yeah, I’ll like and comment back on, Judy, I kind of know who she is. So people sometimes we’ll start with these, you know, I guess we’ll point out Richard Branson again, I would love it if Richard Branson knew who I was, but he’s probably not going to know, if I comment, he’s probably not going to be like, let me comment on Judy’s next post, that’d be awesome. So find those 10 to 20 people that will be reciprocal, they have to be active on LinkedIn, they don’t have to be crazy viral. But they have to be people that you would be willing to like and comment on them. And because of your energy and how you support them, they’re willing to be liking commenting back on you without forcing them. There’s no forced engagement, because then that just gets awkward.
Katie Brinkley 21:40
And you know, that’s a great tip. And it’s one of the tips that I give for for Instagram too, is like find people that are just a little bit ahead of you, that you’re like I’m in alignment with the way that this person presents their business or the way that they teach things. And, you know, a lot of times I’ll have people say, Well, wait a second, why would I want to be like supporting another competitor? It’s like, well, trust me, there is enough business for all of us to go around. But I mean, one of my friends, Carol, she i She commented on one of my posts, because she saw the a live that I did. And then I went through and checked out her out and like, oh, okay, she’s pretty. She says a lot of same things that I do. So I liked and commented something back, girl and I are like planning to have a meet up. And when she can have her come to Denver now. I mean, like, because our relationship has grown just from commenting on each other’s posts to moving into the DMS. She’s been on the podcast now. I mean, like, it’s amazing how those relationships can form. And I mean, like now, she has over 100,000 followers. And but the time when she and I started our connection, she was at, you know, like maybe 10,000 followers. So I mean, you never know how relationships can grow. And it’s great to have somebody that’s just a couple steps ahead of you that’s in your corner.
Judi Fox 22:55
Yeah, my I had a boss one time say, look for the bees, they have brains energy and enthusiasm. And I like what you also said, we are more than the current follower count. And we are more than the current title that we have. So you’re either you’re we don’t know who you know, from the past and who you’ve ever worked with. And so when you try to just judge somebody really quickly and be like, No, or, Oh, they’re my competition, you have no idea if they’re in the middle of pivoting, or if they have some other take on the platform that you have. So I’ve collaborated with a lot of other LinkedIn experts. And I absolutely love that because I don’t have the pulse of every part of everything. Like I love focusing on people who have a podcast or who have a small business and I don’t necessarily work with these major Fortune 500 or fortune 100 companies that other clients are hiring for LinkedIn, and I have my space and they have theirs and then we can collaborate really well together. But it’s okay to know your space like Yeah, I mean, if they wanted to hire me, but I don’t market to them. No, no, I’m not gonna turn
Katie Brinkley 24:10
it away by any means. But no, you definitely have like a client’s typical clients that you work with. And so I think that that’s one of the the best tips is to reach out look at other people out there start engaging with their posts, and with anyone that’s new to LinkedIn, with their profiles, I think this is one of the biggest mistakes is people kind of just talk just toss it up. Toss up a bio or a profile and they’re like, Alright, where are the leads that so talk to us just a little bit about how you can set your LinkedIn profile up so that you are open to those those sales opportunities.
Judi Fox 24:53
I want to first so yes, number one, we sometimes have to start messy and we have to start imperfect. So any When that’s done that there’s no shame go for it. I’m glad you did it. And realize that some of the things I want to connect the dots between Instagram and Tik Tok and in YouTube and the way that you are very intentional about reminding people to go to LinkedIn bio, or you’re, you’re moving traffic, right, I see that all the time, I’ll see people say, on tick tock like, reminder to follow or a quick, check out the link, that’s where my resources are the same thing on LinkedIn, go out and create your content. And don’t just leave them hanging with, you know, the question to get them to go to the likes and the comments, you get this one spot right there to also have a moment or in the video where you can say, reminder, check out the rest of my resources and give them something specific to go find in your profile at a minimum, if that’s all that you did was update your profile to give them one resource if you have an opt in, if you have a podcast episode, if you have something that’s living on your profile that gives them something to go do, you can connect that and create a circle. So your goal is evaluate me, please evaluate me, please. Because you’re not going to get any leads, if you don’t tell them to go, see what else you offer, see what your program is. Not everyone’s going to take that action, but there’s a percentage of people who will, they’ll see your content, and they’ll move over. So my top tip for doing that is a new feature that LinkedIn just gave us, which is now they give you a link at the top of your profile. So right below your headline, you get to say who you are. Hi, I’m Judy Fox, you get to write LinkedIn, LinkedIn business accelerator, you get to write you know, you know what I’m talking about with your headline, your title, right below that is now a link that you can drive traffic to an opt in your website, your calendar, your podcast, wherever, and I would tell people to go click on that link.
Katie Brinkley 27:08
That’s a great tip. And I think that it’s something that every everyone can start doing today. So whether you need to start engaging with those 10 people, you know, that are a couple steps ahead of you but still in alignment, you know, adding in that that link to your header tell people where to go, you know, how can they learn more from you what what is the action that you want them to take from visiting your page. And don’t discount the importance of newsletters, it sounds like a great way for you to really get good open rates and good click through rate. So using this LinkedIn newsletter, as opposed to, you know, maybe doing it the traditional way with with having people go to a landing page and sign up for your lead magnet, and then you send them their weekly email, you can have this newsletter, go out from LinkedIn, and hopefully more people will open it up instead of just skimming right on by it. Judy, I can’t thank you enough for coming onto the show today. You shared a ton of great tips, your all your speaking all over the world lady where but where can people find you if they want to connect further with you online?
Judi Fox 28:15
Best Places LinkedIn. So if you want to find all my socials, you can go to judifx.com. And that’s the easiest place to find me. And yeah, I have found that LinkedIn is the number one place because we can engage you we can follow each other. I do follow almost everybody back. If you’re a legit person, I immediately will follow you back on LinkedIn. I think it’s a great place to be reciprocal. I’m not trying to be I don’t know what to call it. But yes, you definitely want to use that platform and be there with each other. So
Katie Brinkley 28:53
100%. And that final thought on this, but I definitely agree like LinkedIn, people are going there to have conversations, they want to go there to network. It’s not just about the likes. It’s not just you know, I mean, people are going there because they want to talk with others. So, Judy, thank you again, so much for joining me on the show today.
Judi Fox 29:14
Thank you for having me.
Katie Brinkley 29:16
Thanks so much for listening to this week’s episode of Rocky Mountain marketing. Make sure to subscribe so that you can continue navigating the world of entrepreneurship. Man, I’d love to hear from you. Please leave the show or review and connect with me on social media. You can find me on Instagram @imkatiebrinkley, or connect with me on LinkedIn. And if you’re ready to start making some sales on social media, be sure to grab my free guide to selling in the DMS without being spammy. You can get that at Katie brinkley.com Let’s keep taking your marketing to all new heights.