Read The Transcript

Introduction 0:00
Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:00
It's a beautiful day for the #piratebroadcast. We are here to assist you, introduce you and inform you on some of the things that are going around the world with #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. As you know, we're on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Periscope, all of the places you can actually join and enjoy content. So I would love the opportunity for you to join me, have a conversation, comment, let us know where you are, where you're coming from. Also sign up, share, make comments, subscribe, all the social things that need to go on in the world to make things go around. Today we have Kevin Turner, Kevin is in the room. He's already a pirate.We're gonna bring him back because we had a great time. Last time, however, we had some technical challenges. So welcome back, Kevin, how are you doing, my friend?

Kevin Turner 1:23
Russ, fantastic. I do really appreciate being back on. It was sad to fall behind a technology problem that just kind of kept us from communicating. It's talking about the community, so I was very impressed after that.

Russ Johns 1:39
We are very impressed to have you here. We're excited to have this conversation. Tell us what's going on in your world. What are you doing right now that's exciting you?

Kevin Turner 1:51
Today is Unity Day. Anti bullying, anti harassment, something I believe in. I'm just excited that it's there. That's why I'm wearing my orange, can't really see it too well, but got my orange shirt on to promote the day. Just really excited. It's out there. I've posted on LinkedIn about it. LinkedIn has come up with a couple of new tools to help this process. One of them actually is content warning reports. So now messaging, your messaging. That is the if the AI detects the key wording and phrases for bullying or harassment, it identifies it says content warning, right? This could be harassing and it allows you to report it with one click. So that was a great thing because it came out just the other day. It's perfect timing for Unity Day, which I think we all should celebrate.

Russ Johns 2:50
Absolutely and I think Shelley has something going on. Shelley Elsliger has some things going on today. From nine o'clock last night till nine o'clock tonight, I believe is the schedule.

Kevin Turner 3:04
Absolutely and I think it's fantastic. She's incredible. I'm part of the decide to be kind club. There you go. I think I've got mine in my pocket. Let me see, I had it on the other day. It's been terrible this year, it has been a crazy, crazy year with so many things happening. I've promised Shelly to get my picture with my wife, since we're TNT and send this and post it and I haven't done it yet. I know she's not very happy with that. But it's coming.

Russ Johns 3:42
It's coming. So there's so many things. It's been a crazy year. I know that you're a brand strategist and you stay in tune with what's going on around the world in terms of what's happening, what's trending and some of the things. You stay in touch fairly well, from what I can tell. So what's new, fun and exciting now that we got the that change in LinkedIn? I know there's some other changes in LinkedIn that have been popping up as well, I know that the stories are still evolving and creeping out, events have been evolving. I'm kind of excited to see how that rolls out and changes. I've tested the streaming to an event. I evaluated that to varying degrees of success. I think that's going to be an exciting opportunity for some people to really, actually get people involved and promote an event where they can actually get people to attend at a certain time and and get notifications at the same time.

Kevin Turner 4:53
That's key, yeah. And the fact that you can push it out to them. Into notice that it's a an opportunity that they may be interested. I think LinkedIn is doing some great leaps and bounds in those kind of community building tools like that. I think they're fantastic and to me, used to travel a lot, I used to travel 80% of my month. I've done business in 140 countries, I was on the airplane so often that I would get on the plane and it was like Norm (from Cheers) right there. Like Kevin!! The engine started, I knew what I like to eat, I knew my favorite drink. It was so familiar. It was crazy. I was raising a famil and I said, I've got to stop this, I've got to get off the road. I decided to step away from that. This was after I built offices in Hong Kong, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Puerto Rico to service outside of the United States. I took a trade global, so much traveling my career. Everything was really dependent on people right on the ground on networking, on knowing people, in building communities and building kind of your tribe, as you were doing this, because you had to leave, right? You had to go back one day, to the office, to the home and you had to trust that those things were rolling? Well, the beauty to me of LinkedIn is it is a digital community, right? You no longer have to hop on a plane, it's a click, you can connect with everybody in the world that you want to connect with. The opportunities are there and people are very open to building digital relationships if you do it the right way. Of course, there's a lot of the wrong ways...

Russ Johns 6:33
I was gonna say, the key word in that is the "right way." Because I know so many and I'm sure that you're like this, you get people that are a little aggressive about how they pursue the conversation. They don't really understand the nuances of how to build a relationship and create some dynamics that go back and forth and give and take before they ask for the favors.

Kevin Turner 7:03
And they're all not New Yorkers. I can say that since I lived in New York, in New Jersey for a while, so I can say that. I'm giving permission for that. To me, that is part of learning how to build community, right? The way LinkedIn works is very much like real life. If you go out into your community today, and you walk around, and you try to sell everybody on what you're selling, before you even say hello, know anything about them, you just start hammering them, right? What happens? They run away.

Russ Johns 7:41
They run away. They see it coming. They see ya coming.

Kevin Turner 7:46
Yeah, not only do they run away, they say hey, Bob, Russ is coming. He's gonna tell you something. And that becomes your new reputation. You're the bomber. You're the one...

Russ Johns 7:57
That's not the reputation you want to have?

Kevin Turner 8:00
No, one of my favorite authors, Bob Burg, wrote the Go Giver. I mean, the simple concept that we buy from people that we know and trust. That's the way it should be. So what you've got to do before that is they've got to know you and they've got to trust you. They've got to know that you are a good human being. You've added value to their life, you've supported them in their process, you've built a relationship. You can't do that by automating emails and slamming people immediately after you connect or any of those kind of things. They don't work. People don't respond to it. It's worse than that 1% return that spam used to get, right? I think anybody who responds to anything on LinkedIn like that, especially the invite me and then bait and switch to a sales pitch.

Russ Johns 9:02
It doesn't work, it doesn't work. Hey, want to give a shout out to some of the people in the room we got here. Kevin, we got some folks in the room now. Martin Morrison. Hello, pirates enjoying the show. We got Fred Costa. Fred. Good morning. How the heck are you my friend? Doing well. Jeff young, I'm sure you know Jeff. Okay, I rearranged my schedule to catch you two guys. Decide to be kind, #RussJohns and Kevin D Turner. Fantastic. Okay. Here's another LinkedIn. Amazing individual pirate. Hey, Russ. Good pirate morning. Andy. How the heck are ya? I haven't seen you for a while. Catch up. Jeff Young and Kevin D Turner. Great to see you both. Nice way to start my day in New Jersey. Then Jeff goes, howdy, Kevin. How are you? How are you, my pirate friend. So it's really good. The comments keep coming. Kevin, that's what community is about. It's about the idea and the opportunity that we can carry on a conversation without asking for anything. What I've discovered along my journey has always been that if you get to know people, and if they need your service, you're the first person they come to. You just have to build your network and be the person that people reach out to. Say, hey, if you need live streaming, content creation kind of thing, talk to us. You have to have a reputation around something. So I think that falls in line with the brand strategist is the brand has to be what people tell people about you. That's kind of what the essence of branding is.

Kevin Turner 10:56
Absolutely.

Russ Johns 10:57
How do other people talk about you?

Kevin Turner 11:00
They say when you're not in the room.

Russ Johns 11:03
Exactly. What do they say when you're not in the room? Yeah, what do they say when you're not in the room.

Kevin Turner 11:10
What most people don't understand is that they do have control of that message, they can build that message. They can act in a way that is responsible and supports that brand message. Then it does become the message, you can focus it, and people pick up on it. Then when you're not in the room, people are talking in the terms that you want to be known for. Yeah, well, you don't leave it up to chance. You really can fine tune that, hone it in, deliver upon it; therefore, it becomes truth in that sense. That becomes your reputation. That is your personal brand.

Russ Johns 11:51
Consistency as well. I think doing it consistently in the same way, being who you are. It's like I tell people, I've lived long enough that I don't necessarily need to be anyone else. I don't need to be anyone else. I'm gonna stay who I am for the rest of my life.

Kevin Turner 12:12
Comfort in who you are. Right? And building that into part of your presentation. Right? That's really critical. Because people believe it. It's got transparency to it. You won't attract everybody in business, but you'll attract the people who want to do business with you. Yeah, and you know, to me, that's critical. What I go crazy about is often you see people who try not to be anybody, right? Try to be as basic as they can and the coin, the bar or something from Lauren, I agreed to be beige, right? Or what I call personal blanding. Right, as a pitcher or you don't use a background, or you don't have a statement that you try to keep all the details out of your profile. You want somebody to trust you. If you don't go blanding, they will never trust you.

Russ Johns 13:09
I have been guilty of that I, I used to run networks in Houston and built up a network of a community of around 1000 people. There are still people to this day that have no idea what I do. Because I was always the person introducing them to someone else. And/or organizing a speaker to come to the meeting and things like that. I was always a nerd, always in technology and had solved problems. But it really had no idea how to deal with me and that was a mistake I made in not producing a brand and an outcome and putting a stake in the ground and saying, this is what I stand for. This is what I intend to do. This is how I help and this is how I help you.

Kevin Turner 13:58
And at that point, you can leave it alone until they ask again, right?

Russ Johns 14:03
Exactly.

Kevin Turner 14:04
Open this area. When you do that, that's when they do come to you. Almost like you've teased them. Right? You told them what you did, then you went on to doing other good things for them that helped them in many other ways. Now they're going, wait a minute, Russ, can we get back to what you do? I want that.

Russ Johns 14:23
Yeah, my buddy, Ronald in Houston used to say, attract and engage, don't chase and convince

Kevin Turner 14:31
I like that. I like that a lot.

Russ Johns 14:33
It's a great simple statement that really has meaning around it. As a brand, you have to be able to attract people to your brand in certain ways. It's not necessarily shouting to the rafters or broadcasting, hey, I'm great. It's just doing good work consistently over time. So I want to talk a little bit more about some other things that are going on in LinkedIn, but I also want to shout out to a few more people we got. Jeff Young says Kevin D Turner. That's another thing that we have in common. I used to travel and be on the road 85% of my week. One time I was on a top 10 American Airlines flyer. I don't know if that's good or bad, Jeff.

Kevin Turner 15:20
I have executive Platinum for life and I haven't flown in 10 years. And I like it that way.

Russ Johns 15:26
Sheri Lally says, good morning, pirates. Target avatar will circle back in the future. So thank you, Sheri, love you. Kenneth says, Jeff Young doing well, it's my first time hearing Kevin speak. I didn't want to miss this. So you got some fans out there, Kevin. So Hi, Kenyatta. What do you think? Good morning, YouTube Kenyatta. This is the thing that I love about him. Cathi Spooner, she was on yesterday. So good morning by YouTube today. And then Loren says, Love that, Ross, attracted engage. So I want to talk a little bit about some of the other things that you have enjoyed around LinkedIn, and how it's helped you develop a brand strategy for yourself? Because obviously, there's some people in the room that know, like, and trust you, Kevin. So obviously, you've done something right. What do you feel that you can attribute that to?

Kevin Turner 16:29
You know, I, I think it's the way I've always been as an individual, the way I grew up, what my parents taught me, what my community taught me, and really kind of translating that into business. How to do business, and do it in a way that really creates win opportunities all the way around, and even to embrace competitors in this kind of co-op, co-optician, I guess is one of the words, right? Because there's a lot out there, we don't have to have it all, we just have to have enough for ourselves to help those that we can and then help our competition sometimes as well. To me, that's the way I grew up. I did presentations, many, many years back at the Sony national convention on consultative selling, and really how to get your services or products out there in a way that, again, is based on this relationship based on trust, based on helping them accomplish what they need to accomplish as well. It gets you to where you need to be. That to me has always been, I guess, my background and it translates into LinkedIn. Just like I said earlier, LinkedIn is like the real world, right? In that sense, the same principles that work in the real world, work digitally. That's what people don't get. They think all the time, I've got to do this algorithm, or I've got to fit this mold, or I've got to present myself this way. If that's not the way that works for you, in the real world, it's not going to work digitally, either. Find out what that truth is, and take the truth forward. Because that is the the essence of building trust, the essence of building relationships, if you're in it for the long run, which we all should be right, we don't have it, we don't have that much of...I guess a time limit on our selves right now. Hopefully, we don't. So focus on that. Again, take those principles that we were raised with, that we know work, that we've experienced work, take those things that we did wrong throughout our lives that we've said, wow, I now know what that did to me, to others and take that in and learn from that, and then apply it digitally. That's, I think, the most incredible value that LinkedIn has to its members. is just the fact that you can now basically span the world, find people that are like you that want to do things with you, that want to collaborate with you, build with you. And they could be anywhere.

Russ Johns 19:19
Well look what Shelly's been doing with the Unity Day and decide to be kind and everything with #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree. There's a reason for that and it's been consistent since I occasionally get posts from Facebook, here's an old post from Facebook, seven years ago and it's the same message, same law, same intent, and I think back and I'm thinking that wasn't necessarily a marketing ploy. That was just who I am and so that's been good for me, and it's just who I am. So being consistent like that online is not a stretch for me at all. I think that's the real message. Be yourself. Just be open and honest and allow yourself the opportunity to meet and engage with people. The difference is, it's not necessarily at your local community center, a networking event, it's global. There are a lot of different people, a lot of fascinating individuals. I have friends now around the world, much like yourself, Kevin. We have friends and people that if we went to their city in their town, their country, we'd go out to dinner and everything else.

Kevin Turner 20:49
You get to that point, that is the beauty of this is you can actually, I guess, digitally suss out people just like you can sometimes. Sometimes I think it's even easier because with digital, there is a trail, right? You tell me one thing, but I find out through Googling you or through looking at other things, you're actually doing something else. Right? You say you're kind, but you're bullying people. I can find that out? In some ways, it's its own background check. Right?

Russ Johns 21:25
Exactly.

Kevin Turner 21:26
One of the fascinating things that I find, and most people are unaware of this, is companies now are tracking everything we do on the internet, not just what we look at and see to predict where we're going to be. Looking at everything we write and comment. They're creating that to be packaged and sold as a reference point of view.

Russ Johns 21:56
That an interesting thing, too, Kevin, which brings up a great point, which I think we probably need to touch on before we wrap up today. The fact that a lot more people, rather than going down to the mall and searching, looking for that thing they're doing at home, on their computer searching for things. People and products are becoming more the same in terms of what kind of research we can do with with our engagement, our time and our time is becoming the the most valuable asset we have. So we don't want to necessarily spend a lot of time working with people that aren't going to help us in moving in the right direction. So we really have to be cautious about what we put out there and how we put it out there. Because that digital footprint does follow you the rest of your life. I'm so thankful that I grew up at a time before the internet, with all of my shenanigans.

Kevin Turner 23:01
Or phone video, right? What would we be living down now? We won't say but it would be out there, wouldn't it?

Russ Johns 23:11
Yes, absolutely. So what are your thoughts on that as far as people searching and evaluating? Is that is that a good thing?

Kevin Turner 23:22
It is it is kind of reality, right? So we need to know and understand that. If we are who we say we are, we should be functioning and working in that same method, there shouldn't be anything out there that contradicts who we say we are, otherwise we're not being truthful to ourselves or to anybody else. And that does deteriorate the personal brand. So you have to know what that is, and be careful of it. What is amazing now is there are companies...let's say if you go into an interview, right in between you and Jane and Bob, they're actually doing predictives on you based on what you write on the internet, based on what you go see on the internet and they are giving you a risk score. So the companies don't tell what they saw, a detailed item, but they give you a risk score. So you might actually show up to an interview and they look at you and you're at 95% risk, based on what the company said to look for is factors like fitting into culture. Things like honesty, those kind of things, you're going to get a rating. Based on that, you could end up with the job or not with the job or let's say with the business or not with the business right. So if you were selling not just yourself but your services or products, all that now is being offered and people don't understand that that they need to go back, they need to look at what they've said, what they've done, make amends, clean it up. Start new, really focus. If this is who you are, focus on it, make sure that that is the message you're taking out into the internet. Because now with the ability to basically track and see and predict a lot of things, people don't realize it is now impacting their future. We've got to respect it, because we can't stop it.

Russ Johns 25:19
Yeah, we can't stop it.The genie's out of the bottle now.

Kevin Turner 25:24
Very true.

Russ Johns 25:25
So Loren says Kenneth Lange and Jeff Young, thanks for inviting me to join my two faves. Awesome. Thank you.

Kevin Turner 25:32
I guess I'm not one of Lauren's faves, so... (laughs)

Russ Johns 25:39
Kenneth says, are you here now? I just met recovering addict. He's a friend out of the stream yard community, global connection is awesome. Loren says yes, coffee, dinner and would love to host a LinkedIn connections barbecue in Chicago, on the roof deck. The connections are real and so supportive. Absolutely, positively. Kenneth says, Kenyatta Turner, nice to" meet" you here.

Kevin Turner 26:11
Hey, Kenyatta.

Russ Johns 26:13
Loren says, yes and make sure it's granny proofed so if you don't want your granny to see it, remove it!

Kevin Turner 26:23
That is one of the best test equations, right? if you won't say it in front of your grandma. Don't say it. That's always a good kind of rule.

Russ Johns 26:33
There's a book out there called the Mom Test is for developing software. If your mom doesn't get it, you probably don't explain it well, enough.

Kevin Turner 26:42
There you go. There you go.

Russ Johns 26:45
So what's your favorite new function or feature on LinkedIn right now, Kevin?

Kevin Turner 26:52
I think my my favorite, because I move a little too fast sometimes and I've got fat fingers, right? So one of my favorites is now in messaging, you can edit. So if you sent something and as soon as you send it, you see it and you're like, that wasn't supposed to be that way. You can actually go back within one hour, you can go back, and you can edit that message or even delete that message and do it again. But it has to be within one hour. The person on the other side might not see the original message. But they will see that it has been edited. The reason for the one hour window is, LinkedIn is still in debates with this so it's kind of following this up, is if you made it too long, you sent somebody some information, they made a decision on it and then the next day you change the information, it kind of leaves them hanging. So there's that hour window for just goofy mistakes, which I think is fantastic. Because no matter what, it always happens, it always happens on the most important thing you sent, right? All of a sudden , when it's important, I want perfect. You sent stuff to your mom, that all went great. Then that really big deal. That's where you put the big typo in there or you didn't come across right when you reread it. So that I think is fantastic. I think people have been waiting for that for a long time. The fact that you can now give an away from office message, right? So if you are doing a lot of business on LinkedIn, your first level connections might be sending you messages and they're like, well, why is Russ not responding? Russ might have taken that first vacation in 10 years. I bugged out, I'll be back on, you know, the 30th, whatever it is, you should be able to do that. Now LinkedIn is allowing you to do that. I think that's fantastic. Be careful, all your first level connections can see this. So if you don't trust all your first level connections, you might not want to let them know you're out of town.

Russ Johns 29:05
Yeah. The other side of that.

What do you think? What do you think for people that are starting out with COVID and everything going on? A snapshot, kind of a legacy piece of knowledge here. A lot of people are starting in entrepreneurship for the first time, starting a side hustle, whatever it happens to be to make sure that things take place, as far as just a brand practice or something that people need to think about when they're going forward. In your experience and understanding of what today's market looks like, what would you suggest people focus on to get the party started just to level things up a little bit more for them?

Kevin Turner 29:47
You know, I think first of all, you should know exactly what you want to deliver, what you're passionate about, what you're knowledgeable about, and what resonates in the market, because you can be passionate about it and knowledgeable about it, but if nobody wants to buy it, it's not gonna go anywhere. You kind of have to do that research ahead, get a concept behind your brand and start with it. Don't try to get six months down the road and then change it all up unless you discover something new. But begin at least half baked in the sense of know these things and what you're going to offer, what the market wants to pay for it. Those kind of things, get your brand together and start unifying that presentation, and then go out build your community on LinkedIn, with trust and sharing and all those good things that you do to build good strong social currency.

Russ Johns 30:49
Always add value. That's a simple rule. You can always follow that works, always add value. Wherever you turn.

Kevin Turner 30:57
Absolutely, that is my definition of strong social currency is based in the gold standards right of sharing, caring and reciprocity.

Russ Johns 31:06
Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin Turner 31:07
You pull all those together, you're good to go.

Russ Johns 31:09
Awesome. Hey, Kevin. It's been a pleasure. I love the fact that we got together and I look forward to future conversations, and making sure we stay in touch and contacting the pirate community. If you're not connected with or follow Kevin, reach out. Tell him your a pirate, tell him you're part of the pirate community. Make sure that you have an opportunity to have a conversation at some point in time. As always, thank you so much. I appreciate you. I appreciate the fact that you're here, Kevin. Thank you, again for being here, sharing your knowledge and sharing your wisdom with us. As always, everyone, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree, and you #enjoytheday. Till next time. See ya.

Exit 32:01
Thank you for joining the #PirateBroadcast. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The #PirateSyndicate is a platform where you show up, we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join the #PirateSyndicate today.

Join the next #PirateBroadcast on your favorite social media channel.