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​Transcript
[0:02] I did Lincoln live last night. So I went through the same kind of things well.

[0:09] Right now we are live and we are ready to rock and roll here on the pirate broadcast.

[0:15] Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. The pirate podcast is all about. Interesting people doing interesting things.

[0:23] And Randall has been a pirate. He is a pirate already. Yeah I'm already a pirate.
And we had a show with Calvin and I hope Carl is doing well and hanging out there and at home and doing good things.

[0:37] The thing that we wanted to do though is I had Samantha Glover on yesterday and we were talking about data analytics and some of the things like that.
And I know that Randall is very passionate about taking a look at,
analytics and the data around LinkedIn and what's going on and how the growth happens and what he's seen in the past and kind of.
I just wanted to talk about this because I think it's important for LinkedIn community to understand that you know it's what you think is happening you may not always be happening and then we can actually understand a little bit more and go a little deeper into this.
So Randall welcome to The Pirate broadcast.

[1:19] Number two number two how are you doing today my brother. I'm doing fine doing fine. Got it.
Well we got on the audio and the speakers the mikes and all work and so we're doing good.

[1:32] We had a few technical issues this morning but nothing that we couldn't handle and so we're back on board and we're making it making it happen this morning. So.

[1:42] One of the things that we you and I have been going back and forth in in chat and stuff like that is,
is that noticing trend you know noticing some things that are happening and taking place and you're getting a lot of traction from,
other companies that are sending new things because you're reporting on these things and I think that is fabulous.
Can you kind of walk us through what what's taking place in LA as you've grown your LinkedIn community out.

[2:12] Yeah. No no I'm getting a little long. I'm getting a little more attention from a few different manufacturers and they're.
Their figure and well I'm talking about and one on why don't they send me some product you know they're the product that I'm talking about.
And the one that was really cool this last week was they had a brand. OK.
Most of my background's in frozen. OK. And then this company out of out of Europe.
Came up with a brand that looked exactly like a football.

[2:42] Well I mean exactly like football. I couldn't get over it.

[2:45] I mean it was just so real it's not not like a real football but like a football I guess you can say what it was but it was pretty awesome in inside the brand.
It's got new inside saw it. That sounds good.

[3:01] I mean to be popular in.
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[3:06] No no no doubt. But the deal is that the company makes footballs American footballs and makes the soccer balls and they have patents on it. And anyway this just very very interesting.
So anyway that's being said over and over to me.
I spent time talking about this Boston company out of Fresno California. PR day pasta. I guess I said it right.
And it's Anthony Anthony Primavera.
Has this Foster company. And he's very active on LinkedIn.
And one thing about the food business there's there's not a whole bunch of people that have 10000 or more followers or you know connections right.
It's kind of rare in the food business.

[3:54] So so the deal is he's very well connected. So he's got some some ravioli with me coming my way I think.
I think that's right. So that's not too bad.

[4:05] And then then I have some you know those Wolfie pies.
Those will be pies I guess. Yeah. So certain parts of the company. But I've got some whoopie pies come.
So that's that's something a little different.

[4:20] So I had three different pies come in. And then on top of that I have you know how you have the kind bars that are. You eat the bars that are healthy.
Well there's another opening to go to said something similar to that. And so anyway that's four different things coming my way This way you know this week.

[4:36] Well I think it's I think it's phenomenal.
And I just makes me smile because that's the way things can work.
You know the whole you know and you've got this other side of the coin where you know Instagram there's a lot of Instagram famous people and you know they go out there and they promote products and things like that. And.

[4:57] You know I think Lincoln is also evolving and changing that landscape because there's a lot of influences on Lincoln that are doing great things and in sharing some great information,
and a lot of that is around you know marketing media in content creation.
However you're actually talking about the food industry and in actually engaging in some of these people at the top levels of industry and toned down.
And it's amazing what progress you've been able to make in the last. You know what. How long you've been really pushing on this.

[5:35] Well I've been. I started when I started writing about a lot of different food products that were produced in the U.S..
Let's say like six years ago. OK. But the last two years ago I really kicked it off.
Yeah. You know I my my my dad had Alzheimer's and I spent time with him.
I was caught up you know taking care of him and taking care of Calvin and the deal is I figured well you know why I'm going to see if I spent a lot of time working with Calvin so I started bringing him to the stores with me,
more often and spending time with him.
And you know my my wife would take care of my father and that's how I just saw it sorry and he.
That's right around the time that the Linked In video started.
If you remember linked in video started in I think it's August of 2017. Yep.
And then later you know I got started in January and so I was like looking at all these things that are going on on video and like what what's going on there also.
So in January I jumped into it and I loved it because it was right around Super Bowl time right around that same time. So you know it's January.
Yeah. You know Calvin and I've been doing videos for the last two years or whatever you know.
And we we started to lives.
We got to get the invitation in August and we started doing LinkedIn lives in January.

[6:59] Oh you were really early in that equation. Yeah.

[7:03] Remember everybody that was on the video. That's all people coming from Facebook and Twitter and you know they were already doing video on other platforms so.
So as far as people starting with video that I've never done it on any other platform that was kind of rare very rare.

[7:21] So it's made a difference in your business then ask.

[7:24] Yeah I definitely got some attention. There's no doubt about that. We'll see where and where it goes down the road and definitely definitely got attention.
The one thing I want to tell you is that this week I did a post I did a post on two things and two things that I saw that kind of make it make a difference.
Gary V did a video I was going to ask you about that video.

[7:45] You made a comment on it you shared it. Then I wanted to talk a little bit about that at first that what I wanted to do though Randall was that I wanted to thank everybody for being here.
Angie Gabriel Frank good morning. Lewis.
Thank you for being here. Hi Randall he says.
FIONA Oh you're awesome. Thank you so much for being here.
Always a pleasure. And. Debbie Debbie good morning. How are you doing. I love that.
Yeah. And tell genius he says through Harvey just Nick Norman a great way to start the morning. Jessica Jill.
Thank you so much for everyone being here we're talking to Randall constant and we're talking about data and some of the things that are going on and linked in and why it's important for you to,
pay attention to the landscape and you know we all can make a difference.
We all have a voice we all have a message we all have something that we can contribute to the community and more and more going through what you what triggered you to post that.
That link to the post that Gary V did where he's talking about LinkedIn and going in on LinkedIn is it saying that it's like Facebook in 2012.

[9:08] Though.

[9:09] Yeah.

[9:10] The thing is he did he did a video maybe that was 30 minutes or 40 minutes and then it just kind of showed you how you how you repurposed it heats up the four minute cut out of the deal.

[9:24] OK. So I actually paid attention to two minutes of it by but but he actually made a clip that was four minutes long and it basically tells you that hey,
you remember Facebook in 2012 when it was getting going when it was really getting hot.
That's where LinkedIn is right now. Yeah. OK. So that's one thing. And then just a couple days later which was yesterday.
Shay robot I'm in Grant Cardone. We're talking about.
How can grant do better on LinkedIn.

[10:00] So here you go. Great car don't ask and share. Hey what can I do to get it get going. You know Grant is asking that right now.
That tells you that that LinkedIn is really good really starting to you know.

[10:15] Gone.

[10:16] It's kind of interesting too because you know you you and I and a lot of people that we know in the circles we run into. I mean we're already active.
You know there's a lot of people that we're connected with that are very active in LinkedIn and they're they're here every day making comments and going back and forth and everything else.
So we may not be the best one to see what is actually happening on LinkedIn at least you know it's like when you're in you're in the forest it's hard to see the trees kind of thing.
And it's just it's just amazing to start here in like we've been doing this for a while and the data the data is what is interesting because you know you and I've been going back on on some of the things that the data is telling us,
and you know it's like OK how many times do you post today and when's the best time to post during the day and how to how to make comments and get the algorithm working and all of those things.
I wanted to talk a little bit about that because being on LinkedIn is is I think to me is really where it's at in and you can make a huge impact in your business and. The community.

[11:26] However it's still important for us to understand that we have to utilize the best use of our time and make sure that the efforts that we're putting in place.
Are making as much progress as we can.
And so data like we were talking with Samantha yesterday that's kind of important to understand is like what is the data telling us.

[11:47] And what you see. So talk a little bit about what you've noticed in the past because I know that you're you enjoy working with data and watching the data and seeing what the progress is and how it's impacting the outcome.
Well the one thing I can tell you on YouTube there is a ton of data.

[12:05] On YouTube. Tons of data. But when you get to LinkedIn not so much but in an hour I'll just say this is the beginning of the year in January January and February.
I don't know what the deal was but I was getting quite a bit of activity. In fact I was getting fired.
I was averaging five thousand views a day on my on what I was posting and that was you know that was pretty nuts. That's pretty good. It's helped me.
And here's the whole way. Now we're just talking about a year ago a year ago. This is how I did my calculations.
I posted you know I went ahead and wrote down OK on Monday I did a post and it had 500 views. OK.

[12:50] And then then then when you got to Thursday Friday Saturday you would come back to the Monday to see where it's at.
Now it's not 500 now it's 600 and then three weeks from now you come back to it and it's twenty five more.

[13:03] So I just kept on adding but. But the problem was was that.

[13:08] Although your your posts are growing it's starting to get harder and harder to go back to the original data that you posted to see where it was at.
So then what would happen. I don't know about you but on my iPhone my iPhone what it would do is once you got three or four weeks down the road you know back then your phone would,
kick out or have a heart attack and then then you would have to start all over again. And after.
Then you'd have to scroll back and scroll and scroll so the thing is you know that once something gets 30 days all 99 percent of your your views already.
There are times your views come around 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 days down the road you know.
So you always have to go back to see you know if it's continuing to add on the views.
So anyway that's what I did in January and February in and it took a lot of time to do that to see exactly what you're your which your posts were doing OK.
And then somewhere around somewhere around May I saw Zach's striven.
He did something about this app called child out and I said wow that's exactly what I'm looking for. Wow.

[14:23] Oh that's fantastic saw it. So all of a sudden here I had to I had to pay 10 dollars to this company in Copenhagen Denmark.

[14:32] And I'm thinking I don't know about this.
Oh OK. But I it sound. It sounds like it's you know it's the real deal.
So I I went ahead put the ten bucks in and and little by little the data that you were getting from the company.
In my case it went back a few weeks and I was hoping it would went to the beginning of the year but it didn't.
It gave me they gave me data for the whole month of May. And then then the deals that happened as as time went by the analytics got better and better and better as time went by.

[15:08] So it's like wow this is awesome. Fantastic.
So now I'm in a situation like OK so we're in January and I was able to get the data for May June July August September October November and December.
So now I know exactly what I accomplished during those eight months.
Yeah. And I think that's good because.

[15:28] I'm.

[15:29] Saying that you're active on LinkedIn and being active on LinkedIn is two different things.
And the data that the data verifies that people have seen whatever you've done. And that's what it's all about right.

[15:41] Yeah. Well I think I think there's two sides of that coin.
One is is being active in building your posts up for you know your authority in invisibility.
And also I think it's also really good.
And I don't think the data tape tells you this as much is your interaction engagement in other people's posts you know.

[16:08] I think there's a.

[16:09] Rattling scarring effect because if you're engaging in other people's posts and going out doing this it's really it's really going to impact eventually. Back to you.
However it's really hard to talk you know talk to the data. OK.

[16:27] If I post on Randall's post if I go on your post and make comments and engage,
there's no way to track that that time and but I think what I think here this is where this social selling index score comes into play right. Right.

[16:44] And that's the one thing that LinkedIn has right. Because it gives you a score.

[16:48] And I. And from what I can tell it's.

[16:51] It's I think it's pretty accurate. I think it's pretty good.
It pretty much gives you an idea of what what you're accomplishing there. Well it's just great work. Thank you.
So. So in my case what I say is that.

[17:04] Now I've done a lot of digging a lot of digging and looking and whatever and when it was all said and done this is probably still pretty accurate.

[17:13] The average person on the in the food and beverage industry has an average score of 19. That's the average score.
In the recruiting industry has the highest average score there up around 30.
So that. And so there you there you go. I mean you kind of have an idea of what the average is and as long as you're as long as your social selling index score is is advancing past.

[17:41] Whatever the basis and that's you know that's a good thing.

[17:44] So most of the people that get involved that share their score with me are doing and are trying their best to you know make things happen and what did,
and when they send me the score it's usually in the 60s 70s and 80s you know.
So that's good. That's really really good because that's two or three times their you know their average.
And I think Brenda Miller shared a story on that and how.

[18:13] You know a little bit more detail around the SSI and it's really important to you know it's like OK. Want to pay attention to.
You know like I don't share as many I think it's in my score it's it's the.

[18:30] I don't post enough of other people's posts in the recommendation of the stories and their stories that they published. Yeah. Linked and published.
And that's OK. I mean I'm OK with that. I still got it. I still got a high score I still got. I think I'm 85.
I have around eighty four eighty five which is pretty good.

[18:51] Yeah for me for the year I basically bounced around between 80 and 87. That's where I.
That's where I've basically landed.

[19:00] You know you tell when you're doing work and when you're taking a break right.

[19:03] Well you can you can. Yeah. Because once you saw. Well in my case once I started getting down to 80 then I got.
Then I gotta get working again. You know what it's supposed to look like it's just like eating you. It's like.
You you do a lot of a particular thing that you'd like to do.
And then you get points for other things that you don't really care to do. And if you don't take your time to do what you don't care to do you won't get a higher score. Yeah.
And what I find is that I'd rather have a lower score and do what I feel you know that I feel like I want to do.

[19:41] Yeah. It's like we're all here to do something that we love right.
It's like OK well you know and you know I think Lincoln is a huge opportunity for you know building relationships that actually turn into business.
All right. Oh my business right now is based on relationships and building you know highlighting people like yourself and highlighting people that are on the pyre broadcast brings me joy. I mean it starts my day off right.
I get to talk to interesting people and find out what they're doing. And you know it's and it's a great way to share in the community. So what we're doing. So you're not follow the higher broadcast hashtag our broadcast.

[20:20] You have to follow the broadcast when it comes down to it.
But the deal is hey you can. You can read a post and you can look at a picture.
But when you see it when you see two minutes of the bar broadcasts.

[20:36] You have a pretty good idea of.

[20:38] Hey I'd like to be connected with that particular person because that person speaks my language. Yeah.
Just like today. The one in the lady that you had yesterday. The man.
She was mad. She had the math skills are in and I was like wow that's somethin you know.
You know I like to X or Y and I you know I sent her requests and we connected.
You say so hard broadcast with her otherwise I mean may have never found. You know.

[21:07] Yeah yeah. That's the beauty is is we all have.
We all have a circle of influence that we may not cross paths unless we connect and actually join in.
So you know it's always good at this.

[21:22] Right.

[21:23] I talked with Brandon a day or two after you had your your video and then she's,
she's right up my alley because I think a lot of us are all talking to each other and watch watching what everything everybody's doing because we all want to know what what the opinions are or what what's making the view count go up.
What do what do you think. What does she think. What. You know what everybody thinks and then.
If everybody thinks the same thing then I must be right.
If you say well.

[21:54] We'll have the results of everybody's activity are in line and the results are consistent with that opinion.
Then we kind of can say OK it looks like this is what's happening right. Because we'll never know in the back office. No no we'll never know.
But like John Experian Vickie O'Neal and Ann Shelley and Brenda Ann and Jeff Young all of those individuals you know there's a lot of people out there that are really paying attention to this stuff.
And I love all of these individuals to to help out and grow and it's always awesome to connect with them and I wish I had I would love to have more time to actually spend on in.
I literally could spend spend all my time on LinkedIn.
However it's it's you know the activity brings us work so then we have clients that we have to do work for.

[22:52] Right. And once you're doing that and then it takes away your time. Yeah.
That's why you're on LinkedIn in the first place is to keep you busy right. Yeah. Yeah.
So if you don't have time then that's fine. But but but I do feel that you know.
When I when I used it when I used to go to a food show the first thing I would always ask and I asked this question a long time ago.

[23:17] Are you on LinkedIn. Yeah. Oh man I don't need to be on LinkedIn you know I heard the story all the time and then I went.
I was all into being on LinkedIn and I don't know I took a little heat. You know like.

[23:32] You're wasting your time. That's death for resume or you know what I heard.
But I mean you actually you know you actually get things you actually get things done because you're just for instance. I'm just saying.
Yeah I read that looks like a football.

[23:50] Well the thing that's going to happen though they're gonna send me the samples and I'm going to be eating this bread that nobody ever saw.
Right. Are you people I've seen.
And they're going to say wow that's interesting and that's where that's.

[24:02] That that's going to change. Change what's going to happen with that brand is going to be more well known and,
you know the guy is gone and it's Jeffrey Landsman is the guiding star work in the deal and he'll do some more business just by me talking about it because I think it's it's just a unique item that doesn't come around too often. You know.
And this is innovation.

[24:25] Yeah. It's total innovation. And I just love it because.
You have an opportunity to move the needle into other people's business and that's really what it's about is is OK.
Once you have a platform and you're on video and you broadcast and you share these things.
There is no way that people can't unsee that stuff.
You know it's it's planted their brain and it didn't cost the company anything.
No not be nice to be nice to have at least said YOLO.

[24:57] You know so you can experience it. Hey it's just like just like I did during Thanksgiving.
I had a kid the pop ice Cajun fried turkey right.
Yeah. And I've been in the turkey business I sold Turkey and in my career.
You know there's a lot of people around the country that I don't know too much about Popeyes and they haven't seen the turkey.
I decided to put the turkey up there and the other reason was all the crazy stuff about the chicken sandwich.

[25:31] In fact. The last thing we were talking about right you were telling me your argument that.

[25:37] OK it's all right It's all here. I'm looking at all the craziness that happened with the chicken sandwich on the on the social side.
Right. So I figured Well let me go ahead and put the cage in Turkey so that people would have an idea what the was all about. And and I remember one of the posts got over two thousand views and that's pretty good for a turkey.
Back right back. Right.
That's the most exciting thing that's happened for a frozen turkey and I don't know how long you know so. So when when when Christmas came along I had this this.
This Smithfield.
Spiral sliced ham that was getting ready to go in the oven and update your well what's good for the turkey is good for the ham.
Let me show you a photo of the salmon. But the deal is the ham and even crazier. I ended up getting two posts that did over five thousand views.
Hold on now everybody. I don't know about you but everybody is lives in a part of the country that can get a spiral slice. You're right it's not.

[26:39] It's not something you can't get anymore right. It's not like the old days when you ordered a six pack to cause and you couldn't get it because it was in Colorado you know. Right.

[26:49] So the deal is this Smithfield ham is something that everybody should get a hold of. Yeah. But I'm gonna tell you how it happened.

[26:58] What I did what I did was when I posted it I went to I was connected to I don't know like twelve guys from Smithfield you know various people you know there might be a regional manager or they might be in marketing might be an advertiser or you know different people from Smithfield.
So I said I sent the article to those 12 people now on LinkedIn.

[27:20] The thing that you run into you can be connected to somebody but that person may checked or they're linked in what's a month right.

[27:28] You might have other guys that check it once a week.

[27:30] You may have other guys check in once a day and you might have other guys in check it all day long.

[27:35] Well apparently I maybe three of them.

[27:39] Went ahead and liked it or posted it and or shared it or whatever. Well long story short both.
Two of the posts that I did on one on Smithfield got over and got the attention of over 300 people from Smithfield.
So it was over 600 Smithfield views.
OK so what does that tell you that tells you that that day liked it and it went to their connection and then let's say you only have 50.
If you work for Smithfield and you only have 50 guys that you're connected to.
Well guess what. Those 50 that you're connected to probably might spiral sliced.
We do. And then that's where the Nats just took off.
So I mean I think that was one of the one of the most exciting things during the course of the year.

[28:25] And you can actually see it happening. That's the beautiful thing that I love about it,
is that you could actually watch this trend take place and take off and the beautiful thing about it is is that with data in digital and social selling and everything that goes along with it you have the data.
You can see where the post is going if it goes to 5000 and it also starts getting shared out over and over again. You know it's going places.

[28:55] The thing is they're on LinkedIn there's not much sharing right compared to the other platform.

[28:59] Not nearly enough not nearly enough. I've got a quick question Randall.
Coming back here.
I was gonna say.

[29:12] Somebody asked where the SSI Laurie Knutson haven't checked the SSI in a while.

[29:19] Where do we find the information that's that's you know a a sheet G.P.S.
Whatever linked in dot com forward slash sales force or slash SSI.

[29:35] And then you click it and then you find out your score. Yeah.

[29:38] So I have a paid account. You can go into Sales Navigator and it's on the menu too so.

[29:44] Right right. But the thing is anybody anybody can do this. Anybody can do that. Just click on it and what I. You know what I recommend is look it's the beginning of the year.
You know check your SSI today and document it and write it down somewhere and see where you are in January of next year.

[30:01] Set your intention. Yeah. Pay attention to what is going on and engage in engaging the audience engage in the community and grow you you grow your community and see where you got where you could take it.

[30:16] And once they actually tell you it doesn't take much to get past the average you you can be on LinkedIn share three articles write two of them and you're already past average.

[30:27] Yeah don't be average. I didn't get a major outbreak.
No this has been very helpful.
This has been very awesome Randall. And it's always a pleasure to connect with you and I just considering the fact that we're talking about data this week and I knew that you and I had given go back and forth and looking at some stuff on on The Shield app and in.
If you want to look at that I'll probably post something about that or Randall's posted something about the shield app as well in the past.
It's an awesome technology that allows you to kind of give more visibility in your platform and what's going on in LinkedIn in your lengthened platform.
So ask anyone anybody that follows me.
What I do is I talk about food all the time. Food food food food food food. You know that's what I'm talking about all the time.
But I'm also talking about the things that you can do.
If if you're trying to build your your you know I'm I'm I'm kind of passing along now I'll just say this law if you've got a small company and you're doing one hundred thousand dollars a year which is not much.
And you have a husband and wife team right.
Hey I'm the husband right. Suppose you don't take a picture of the three things you sell.

[31:44] The wife likes it and shares it. And then the wife gets three friends.
You know that want them to succeed in their business of selling candy bars or cupcakes or chocolate chips or whatever the deal is.
And it is. It's all about getting the people that work with you to help share the information. That's what it all comes down to.

[32:06] And it's all about the. It's all about the community. You don't know where your community is going to land. So pay attention to it.
Yeah you know Smithfield is a huge gigantic company right. I mean they're huge.

[32:19] But you can do fine.

[32:20] You can get five thousand views on a particular post and you can have just 10 sales reps after 10 sales reps share information on the making of a gumbo or that are the Marling.
You know shrimp. Yeah. And that's what you do for a living you're in the seafood business and you're.

[32:39] And you talk all about how to prepare sugar boiled shrimp for the Super Bowl whatever. That's right.
And everybody shares all the information.

[32:48] I mean you get some money you can get traction and you know one of your sales reps may have two thousand connections.

[32:55] Yeah. And it could. You don't know where it's going to go. And you know if you don't share it it's going nowhere.
Right. Exactly. Exactly. You're not only kidding it's going nowhere.

[33:08] You know we live in and we live in 20 20 and we have some high rez you know photo capabilities in our cell phones and it is so easy.
It wasn't like this you know 40 years ago.

[33:24] No not even the one that even we weren't even doing this ten years ago.
So yeah. Well I remember we were we were happy that we can print a sign that says a car for sale on the computer.

[33:37] When an IBM whatever we were looking at sign that For Sale sign it's in high rez you can read the print.
You know that's what we were pretty amazed with that right. But today it's unbelievable.

[33:51] It is unbelievable. RANDALL This has been an awesome show I appreciate you and tell Calvin Calvin I said hello and thank you for being a pirate and sharing this information with with the community and linked in it also.
Now I'm now streaming this to a periscope.

[34:12] And Facebook and YouTube. So then this episode will be back on Russ Johns dot com at the end by the end of the day with the podcast as well so we'll get this out. And get this.
Get this broadcast. Get this news out to the world. Share it out so everybody on the show. Fill up.
Rafi Gabriel Cheri Laurie Angie shares mantle matter a lot. Share this if you like this comment and you were encouraged by it or influenced by it or you want to.
You want to share with somebody that needs this information.
Go ahead and share it. I would appreciate that I know I know Randall you wouldn't mind if somebody should mention it all.

[35:00] OK. So Kenyatta you're awesome. I love you. Thank you so much here. Wendy,
thank you everyone that's been here. Jerry I just appreciate you Julie. You know.
Nick.

[35:19] Bikie all of the individuals that joined us today thank you all.
All the appreciation and gratitude in the world. I love that you're here. And as you know kindness is cool.

[35:31] Smiles are free and you enjoy the day.

[35:39] Now if we go there you go.