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[0:03] And we're having fun on the pirate broadcasts. Thank you so much for being here. Debbie I I know that it's a Friday.
It's getting into the holiday season.
I know that you're busy so thank you all the gratitude in the world for you being here. So thank you so much. How are you today.

[0:22] I'm terrific. Thank you for having me. And now I'm back at you. I know you're just as busy as everybody else.

[0:29] You know busy is relative. When we all have to stay consistently moving forward and doing things that we love and enjoy.
And one of the things that I love to do is highlight people doing great work.
And I know that you've been out there you've done a lot of board work. You've done a lot of volunteer work.
You've you've helped out in women's organizations and in your local community and you're in the Florida region you're down in Palm Beach Palm Beach West Palm Beach.

[1:00] Yes. I spent a lot of time in West Palm Beach down that way and back in the late mid 90s and I loved the area I.
Love the community and.

[1:15] It's the first time I actually had experience with planned teen and it's Cuban food. It was black beans again.
Clinton is fantastic so I'm familiar with the neighborhood.
So tell us a little bit about what what's going on and what brought you here to this Lincoln community overall.

[1:34] That's a good story. Thanks for asking.
No I actually enjoy telling people how I got into this because we just celebrated our eighth year in business last summer.
And if I think back to 10 years ago almost to the month when I lost my job at 57 had to kind of reinvent myself and my whole background was the nonprofit world.
So it was back at the crash and no one was hiring.
It didn't matter how good you were or what your database looked like.
And I had been a fund raiser for the last seven years of that journey.
Still is still love and support. A lot of the nonprofits that I worked with but I had to do something else and I discovered Langton is a job seeker and back.
Back then it was still fighting the the nominee Clay showed that it was a job seekers Web site and it's growing a lot over the years.
And happily I don't think it has that stigma anymore but it is the darling of the H.R. industry for sure.
For all the obvious reasons there's so much detail that can be offered on profiles that they can't see on a 1 2 page resume.
So I I got into link them when somebody advised me oh you know you need to get connected to professionals and you know I've been a network since I was about free.

[3:04] And the idea of developing professional relationships online you know seemed pretty logical and pretty intriguing. And.
I really like that whole idea. So when I got on now this was back when they used to show you the actual size of your network on the home page.
It was really fun because it would grow so exponentially every time you add a new person.
It still does. But then now they don't show you the actual figure anymore.
But you know it's a it's a great way to build relationships and every single business needs that.
So I learned how to pay attention to the companies that I wanted to work for and get in front of the H.R. people or somebody in the company that could get me in front of the H.R.
Person you know cut down on those steps.
And it went on from there. So I started with in that instead of getting a job.

[4:05] You actually ended up creating a career for yourself right.

[4:09] Listen you know and things don't happen by accident. I'm a firm believer in things happening not only when they showed but exactly how they should.
So and I'll write about this someday. It's not going to be a book about length and God knows there's enough for those out there.
Bless all those authors because they helped me out in the beginning.
Now my story is going to be about how you keep hope going when you're 57 in a divorce as single parent two kids in college no other income.
And I thought you know I a little arrogant because I was a pretty good fund raiser and I have a laundry list of who's who and certain Tony areas of south Florida.
And I just thought you know I'll be working in a couple of months somebody is going to use my talent.
I was unemployed for two years.
I can laugh about it now you know. Boy I'll tell you.
You find out what your inner strengths are when you hit rock bottom.
So I started showing other other people how to use lengthen there were over 50 you know struggling to get interviews and they started to get interviews and I thought I kind of like this I think maybe I can make money at this.

[5:26] Yeah yeah well as being a member of the corporate orphanage,
I to you know took a dip in the employment category in 2010 and I had just I had just recently moved everything from Seattle to Houston.

[5:45] And I had two boys follow me down and they were you know older but still you know it's still trauma.

[5:55] And it kind of impacts your ability to really think through it.
Then you have to do is exactly what you did is recreate yourself. You know you have to decide.
Well am I going to allow this to bring me down or am I going to build myself up and rise to the occasion.
And you know it took a while and I'm still doing exactly that. You know I'm still outside. Just like yourself.
It's like 10 years later and I'm still going so good for you.
Yeah. So I find that funny.
Well I applaud your tenacity as well because you know you're helping other people and that's what it's all about is if you add value especially linked in community.
I think if you add. Add value and continue to add value it's really it makes a difference and it makes an impact on people's lives.
And that's what I think at the base of all things in life is you know helping each other out. You know it's not going away.
And finally I agree. And I think you're cute on it really well is relationships.
I think that's the key phrase is build relationships.
And it seems to always work out so. So what did you What are you doing now.
Are you teaching training.
Tell people what what exciting things you're up to today.

[7:20] Pretty exciting going into 20 20 reps. I've managed to you know just drop a whole bunch of tips on this conversation.
But you need to surround yourself with people that are better than you in terms of whatever it is you are striving to excel at.
You know the universe brought it wrapped me around to connect again with genius.
And she's my vice president now. But we work together at one of the nonprofits that we were working at. And this was over 10 years ago.
And she called me up and you know do you know anybody that's hiring. And I said Sure I work with you know job seekers and H.R. people all the time. Who needs a job.
And she said I do. And I just about fell off my chair you know and I said Well honey I love you dearly but I can't even come close to the salary you're making.
And anyway we worked it out and she's been with me for three years. She left out.
She just developed an app and we are focusing on conference programmers.
We've already done this new model at two conferences and it's really taking off. Basically it's.

[8:34] Connecting ahead with some of the registrants for the for the conference and meeting them just 15 minute we call them rapid reviews.
I have to trademark this soon so we're we're doing my usual speaking on an on site I've been a paid speaker for a while now but we're adding value to the attendee experience by,
just real quick 15 minute reviews with them on their profile onsite.
In between you know their busy schedule of speakers and breakouts and all that and it's been terrific.
So we're building on that model and I have a couple of people working with me now admin.

[9:14] Wonderful wonderful. I am blessed with the people that are on my team and I've just started coaching or training another coach to get ready for what we're expecting to happen in 2020.
So you know I still have a relatively small staff but we we do four or five different things now.
And with and I will plug go to meeting it's my favorite platform I use it all over the world for speaking engagements onsite trainings,
with corporate teams and I started focusing on corporate teams a few years ago that has blossomed out you know if you're if you're adding value to people and you're giving them proper treatment and care,
you know customers are everything they're going to come back and they're going to refer you.
And without exception I think ninety five percent of my business has grown through referrals and we practice we practice what we preach.
So we're always refining our coaching strategies.
You know I still do a lot of one to ones and I love that we get to know everyone's back story because we want to know you know what's your passion and why and that's important to express and in your linked in,
about I don't know why they changed it you know they called it the summary for 15 years and now they call it the about section.

[10:40] But you have to tell people the why.
You know we're really strong on that. And and yeah the experience section does end up looking like your resume may a little bit because people want to know your journey and how you got to where you are.
And it's particularly fun to work with people that are.
Making that switch you know like after a 20 or 30 year career they're like OK I'm burned out. I want to do this.
And that's really fun because you know they don't see it.
Sometimes when we do we thought coming back five years ago in their career that they might want to do something different.

[11:18] Well it's funny how you you bring that out because a lot of people are in transition right.
I mean even in the corporate environment there's a lot of people that would prefer to be coaches or,
speakers authors and they've got enough experience in their corporate world that they've accumulated this experience and they're feeling like this might be valuable to someone else if I could share this.
And that's really one of the things that you know there's not a real I mean it's not a solid roadmap there's not a rulebook for it.
Everybody has to do their own journey and it's nice to have people like yourself that can actually assist them through that journey and guide them on their on their next steps so to speak.
And I was also interested in hearing a little bit more about what a corporate engagement looks like.
Are you helping multiple people in the organization align their LinkedIn profile.
Because I've often thought that you you know a sales team organized organized LinkedIn effort would be very valuable.
And I still believe that that would be incredibly valuable. So sure I'd like to get your thoughts on that.

[12:36] Oh thanks. Yeah. We we started doing corporate coaching a few years back and essentially it usually starts with the H.R.
Department and then it goes to the sales manager and I get passed along to whoever's in charge of scheduling the training and development on the inside of the company.
I oftentimes they'll start me with a team on on their sales end because it makes sense.
I mean LinkedIn is the large now the largest professional online network.
Hello. And are you need to build those relationships and and and the challenging part still remains.
Once we show these salespeople who they know their stuff and they know their target.
And once we show them how to get right in front of their target then we know the fun starts because we got to kind of hold them back. It's like you know.
And you know how it is you connect with somebody on LinkedIn.

[13:33] And they start they start. They come back with a thank you note which is what we teach you know. Yes you have to acknowledge every new connection.
But then they go on to a laundry list that's like four paragraphs of you know all about their product or their service.
And then I got the click and then I got one today I got one today and I saved it.
It's a screenshot. I'm going to bring my phone because it's classic and it's just an example of people wanting to to jump ahead too fast.
And the worst thing now is the automated software that people are promoting and you know they're getting into violating the Linked In user agreement with scraping software.
We have we haven't seen a software package yet that does not incorporate that and they'll get you shut down. You know plain and simple.
And not only that it ends up being a case where like this guy this morning and he is from Greece and that's all I'm going to say,
but he invited me in that and and I'm just going to tell you what this invitation says.
So he's got let's see. I love it. You know he says.

[14:49] He says dammit. Let me bring it up. Sorry. OK. So it's personalized. That was the first plus when you personalize your invitation.
That's you know go to the person's profile and hit connect. That's the only way to add a note and you want to do that every time. Don't connect anywhere else.
He says hi Debbie. I specialize in LinkedIn lead gen and get especially great results working with medical and all other coaches who help with marketing.
Do you plan for 2020 by planning you can double your results.
I provide best year yet Master Plan reply to this message to explore things further. All right.
He doesn't know it but that's going into my 2020 training documents as what not to do.

[15:34] You know he hasn't looked at my profile that tells tells me he's probably using automated software. There's so many things wrong with that.
A great a great example. But no I'm not going to connect with them.
And it's just you know giving people the right guidance to develop a business relationship.
I'm old school. I'm sure you're old school.
You know face to face never goes out of style. And you also have to establish that know like and trust factor and you've got to be willing to take the time to do it.
That that's what we teach salespeople you know get engaged have an exchange of emails build into a phone call invite and my favorite tip.
This is a gem when you're inviting people to connect locally to you.
The fastest easiest way to bring them in front of you face to face is to invite that person to the next networking event. You're going to attend.
And make it all about them you know introduce them to as many people as you can. Just did that last night.

[16:37] Well I think you bring up an excellent point on building the relationship because it's really great.
The beauty of being online is that I use zoom in so I'll book a call in typically even if they're local and I meet them at a networking event or in person you know over a conversation or something like that,
typically they know what I look like they know what I act like they know the conversation and they're already halfway there.
You know you walk in and you already know each other. And that's a very incredibly powerful thing that people fail to realize is it's it's not just clicking and you know,
you'll find out that click click pitch.
It's really a matter of building a relationship and it all goes back to building relationships.
It's something that you and I have probably done for years. Normally even before LinkedIn and as a fundraiser you know you that's that's I think part of your DNA is understanding what people,
want and how they want to feel about what they're doing.
And that's a big part of it is helping them understand what they can do and what is possible and I think I think it's really important for others on LinkedIn to understand that.

[17:57] Yes. To have an impact in a positive way to get a positive result. Right. Right.

[18:03] So we call it adding value. And if you're if your post is not adding value in some way then reword it you know rework it.
Don't don't just advertise your business all the time you know. You know doing a once in a while is fine.
I'm going to give a shout out to Wayne Brady. Hello Wayne.
He's up in Milwaukee. And I to this day I usually mentioned him at least a couple of times a week.

[18:35] Because he's got a great formula for he calls it the 6 3 1 rule and it's really good at keeping you from getting to sales. Unlink them.
Yeah great resource.
Yes he is. And I love to to pass that tip of his along to just about everybody we work with,
because it at it's showing you know how to add value and spread out your your your ability to inform and educate. That's one of my favorite phrases.
And I try to do that with comments too on your posts or someone else's posts.
If you're going to comment don't just say Great post you know or I agree.
You know make it useful and add value with a sentence. Why do you think it's great. You know why do you why do you want to share it.
And in that way people are gaining a little bit of value from you and they will start jumping on your profile to see who you are.
You know it's all about attracting people to your profile.

[19:38] I looked at I look at lengthen as a two way street in our year.
You can do outbound marketing with being proactively seeking your target connecting engaging and all that but you also want to be cognizant of how to attract your target audience to your profile.
Everybody's got competition and you need to learn how to stand out but you can do a lot just in a minute or two.
Scanning your home page feed and just looking for things that resonate with you enough to either like comment or share.
Right. Right. Found engagement adding value and being grateful. You know we're huge on gratitude.

[20:17] Well I have all the gratitude in the world and I have my phone.
I'm using my phone because I'm mobile.
I'm in the middle of nowhere right now. It's beautiful it's gorgeous.
However I'm using my phone as my connection here.
So all of the people that are in the feed that I would normally acknowledge I just I just want to express my gratitude for you being here and and let you know that I will make comments and I will get back to you and I will respond.
So if you have questions for Debbie or I or you want to reconnect or connect up please do so.
You know Debbie is an amazing talent and an individual that adds value at every turn.
So make sure that you're connecting with her and personalize your message.
We learned already personalize your message and also,
you know I just want to make sure that you understand that the pirate broadcast is also on YouTube and Facebook can you know anywhere you want to consume your social media.
So Debbie I know that you've been in the nonprofit space for a long time and I just want to make sure that you,
have an opportunity to talk about any of the nonprofits that you're passionate about and possibly want to highlight today because I I believe in,
paying it forward and you'll like.
You know what is. Who is it. Bob Byrd.

[21:47] Go get. Yes. Yeah. Well thank you. I love that opportunity.
And without a doubt I'm going to tell people to check out the Web site for a w e i n c dot org.

[22:04] You know spending 23 years in the nonprofit world. I learned a few things and then developing my own business.
The first couple of years you grow then you get into the mindset you want to give back.
You know I'm so happy now I'm at the position where my company can do that are.
It's called the Alliance of women executives is a fabulous fairly new nonprofit developed here in South Florida by Vicki Tate,
and she will happily connect but we raise money to help young women in this area.
Palm Beach County who intend to attend local college.
So it's kind of a multi purpose nonprofit.
We're helping these young senior women that are applying to.
Right now we work with two colleges maybe adding more later but we give them fifteen hundred dollars scholarships to help them attend college locally.
And a lot of them are entrepreneurial and they go on to open their businesses.
You know after graduating here so we're encouraging economic development locally.
We're helping young women who have aspirations to be business owners at 18.
And you know what. It's so rewarding. They have to write an essay to apply for the scholarship.
All the details are at Inc. Dot org and.

[23:28] You know you can't help but cry when you read some of these essays.
And last year was our second year of awarding scholarships the first year we raised enough money to give for fifteen hundred dollars scholarships.
The second year we gave out twelve three of them. Three of them went to foster kids for us. Can you imagine.
And this year we're going to award 20 20.
Fifteen hundred dollars scholarships. I am off the wall excited to be there. Director of Communications.
And thank you so much for giving me a second to talk about. Yeah.

[24:03] Yeah well I should connect you with a friend of mine out of Dallas who's doing this Cinderella the CEO and she helps a lot of women organizations.
She did a big event where she gave awards out to people doing great things.
So that might be a good connection to introduce you to throw that down.

[24:23] That's very clever. I like that phrase.

[24:26] Snow she's she's a wonderful individual that I've helped over the years and in that book to make that connection.
I mean I know that we have some of the very same friends and there's probably others that we haven't met yet and probably could.
And I know that I have a couple of people down in South Florida that are doing some amazing work that I'll I'll send you invitations to try and get some introductions going.
So what about 20 20 I know you're training you're doing the corporate thing you're doing you're helping young ladies go to college you're you're active in so.
So what's going to and what was it the 15 minutes.
Rapid review. Q I love that you're going to be at conferences in 2020 looking.
Q Yes. I hope I get to go to Omaha.

[25:26] I can't wait. I've never been to Nebraska at all but I get to go to Omaha in March.

[25:31] We're working out in Colorado Springs in April. I just put a proposal out for Washington D.C. in August and there's a couple of other things in the fire.
I love talking to audiences and just just to give them an idea of what they could do with link them.
And then if they want to hire us of course you know that's that's icing on the cake.
But I partner with area colleges to to go in and tell the freshmen I catch them when they're just starting,
how to develop a good profile and build the network over the next four years so that when they get ready to job hunt with their degree they'll have a great network already built.
So you know put me in front of pretty much anybody and I just thrive on opening their eyes to network to link them.
And I love where the site is going so right now we're focused on getting a few more conferences on on contract building.
You know a team of coaches.
Now I have a particular way of coaching that I'm kind of known for.
We do everything live in person. You know sometimes virtually live no templates not not Hey fill this out and I'll give you a summary.
Now we get to know our clients so it takes time to teach people you know how to be comfortable doing that with total strangers that's gonna keep us busy for a while I think.

[26:58] Russ Well so before we leave and wrap it up today and have a wonderful weekend,
I would love the opportunity to have you share what are your favorite tips or one of your favorite changes in LinkedIn that are taking place that you you really understand and appreciate it makes a difference.
And maybe if you could share something like that today it would be it would be valuable for the community today.

[27:25] Sure. Thank you. I do like some of the changes that they're making in terms of you can send a recorded message.
Now most people I think have that ability.
It saves time on typing. That's one of the things I like. I.
I'm really hoping that they stop borrowing things from another site emoticons you know. Gotta love them.
It's no longer just like now it's a reaction. Yeah. All right. I can I can deal with it but you know don't get too far away from the core stuff about engaging.
I'm hoping to see a little bit more activity on maybe beefing up how you can interact and linked in groups.
I really think it's an overlooked advantage for people to get inside a whole community of either their target market or or their peers.
I just I just want them to keep the lines of communication open.
I. I wish there was a way to just put a bulletin in front of everybody about pitching you know.
Just don't do it right out of the gate. That's what we call it. I think that's the biggest thing that we're trying to coach people on right now is proper engagement and being patient with the process.

[28:49] You know you don't make a sale the minute you connect with somebody and sometimes it takes weeks or even months depending on what it is you're trying to promote.

[28:56] You have to get to know the person behind the dollar you know and really you know I know so many people that use LinkedIn like you know shooting in a fishbowl or whatever that phrase is.
I can't think of it right now and I know I wish them well but it's kind of a ding on the site. Yeah.
I'm so intent on maintaining the professionalism and integrity of LinkedIn.
I don't work for LinkedIn but I love what they're doing.

[29:26] I love what Microsoft is planning. You know they're doing some great things with the site and I just I would love to have people go along for the ride and kind of pay attention to the best practices.

[29:39] Yeah.

[29:40] Yeah I I loved what groups used to be and they before they changed it.
However I do see a little bit more improvement on the business pages as well.
So that's an area that I think will real see that thing is happening over the years.

[29:58] So we used to do a two hour workshop on what they called Company Pages and they've streamlined it so much which we love you know make it easier for the business owner to create that page.
You know we do a one hour hand on kind of an intensive training with whoever the admin is and we can I can show them in an hour or what to do very effectively on a LinkedIn page as it's called now.

[30:25] LinkedIn page. So thank you so much for being here Debbie. I truly appreciate it. And I know that.

[30:34] You know we all have things to do things to take care of people to see and people to meet.
And I just want to thank you so much for being here and sharing those nuggets of knowledge.
And if you're connecting with Debbie make sure that you understand that there's value that she's pushing forward hoping individuals go to college and do some great things that I think.
I think specially younger people right now need to understand what it takes to build relationships.
And so I I applaud you on the efforts in the colleges and look forward to hearing more from the activities of what's going on in your world.
And and look forward to to 2020.
Can't believe it's a new decade just right around I know.
Exciting. It's so exciting. So thank you everyone for joining.
You can find pirate broadcasts follow pirate broadcasts in linked in the hashtag and also you know go to rest John stock com and get connected to be notified for new releases.
Debbie's this interview will be also a podcast later today and the transcription of the show will be there so you can review it if you want to read it.
And also it's on YouTube and Facebook as well so wherever you happen you'd like to consume your content.
You go find it and track it down. So Debbie thank you so much for being here and I I look forward to a long and productive relationship.

[32:02] Absolutely. Thank you ref. Take care. Kindness is cool.

[32:06] Smiles are free and you enjoy the day love it.

[32:12] Thank you. But.