Gud Bhandal [00:00:00]:
What you want to do is think that everything is content. If you are listening to this live podcast, this is content. Go write about it and say, oh, I did this today kind of thing. You go and have dinner later and you spill coffee on the floor or whatever, go write about it. That's a post. You know and it's all that kind of stuff, you know. And it's and it doesn't it doesn't have to be work related. It doesn't say, oh, I dropped coffee, and it told me that, actually, I should go get a marketing degree or whatever.

Gud Bhandal [00:00:25]:
You know? It doesn't make any sense. Right? So sometimes you just wanna tell stories because they are stories. And what it is, it gives people an insight into your

Fab Giovanetti [00:00:38]:
Hey, marketing rebels. Hello. It's Fab here, your marketing VFF and head teacher of marketing school, a modern school teaching you how to market to hearts. And together, each week, we share the freshest news, articles, insights that you simply can't miss. And today, we're bringing you insights From a wonderful human. I'm joined by the 1 and only, Gus, to talk about LinkedIn. Hello, Gus. How are we doodling?

Gud Bhandal [00:01:04]:
Hi, Fab. I'm all the best for seeing you. I'm really glad that I'm here. Thank you so much.

Fab Giovanetti [00:01:09]:
I have a question for you because I was thinking about colors today. I know everybody. I promise we'll talk about LinkedIn. But I was thinking about colors, and our color has slowly become yellow. So if you see yellow, I wanted to slowly start thinking about this school. I got my yellow blazer. I got my yellow leather jacket, which She's super cool. I was so chuffed when I found that.

Fab Giovanetti [00:01:30]:
I see Orange. And when I see Orange, I think of Gus. Can I ask you why is that? How did Orange become so much part of your brand.

Gud Bhandal [00:01:38]:
You know, it that's a great question. It's a very long story, but I'll keep it short. So, basically, many years ago when I had a, like, a proper marketing job, what I would do is I would teach people all about, marketing, etcetera. And I used to use Terry's chocolate oranges, and I used to teach people about segmentation, so different parts of the market, etcetera. Then when I started my business, I spoke to a branding specialist, and originally, we were supposed to choose purple and silver. And we eventually and when I saw my logo in purple and silver, I was like, that looks horrible. That was awful. So then he said, well, what are your favorite colors? And I said, oh, well, I love black, and I love orange, and, you know, etcetera.

Gud Bhandal [00:02:14]:
So we we went with that. As soon as I saw my logo, I was like, that's the one it's gotta be. And, obviously, being a marketer, over the years, you learn about the fact that have to stand out. You have to there's something that differentiates you as as opposed to kind of, like sorry. In addition to what you do, there's also, like, other things unlike yourself. Like you said, you know, the yellow blazer, the yellow leather jacket, or her shoes, the yellow lightning strike behind you, you know, all that kind of stuff. It really when we start thinking of things like that. And it's these bright, vibrant kind of colors rather than the blues or the the greens and the reds, you know, kind of thing.

Gud Bhandal [00:02:48]:
So, Yeah. I I I love it. So orange is because of chocolate. Basically, that's the short answer.

Fab Giovanetti [00:02:54]:
That is the best reason ever. First of all, Kerry Chocolate Orange. Big lover myself. But I love how you kind of go back to what I was thinking about today again, which was the power of association. And, it's interesting that, as you said, it's kind of in marketing as well. I just we wanted to feel right to us too. But, also, what I found is that, for example, I will find it a lot in, like, bigger brand perspective. But also one of the places where I've seen it stand out more when it comes to the association of the colors, like, Thank goodness for hearts of different colors because you send me your orange, I send you my yellow.

Fab Giovanetti [00:03:26]:
It's a nice little trade off. But I think LinkedIn has been one of the first places where I started to see these little elements of unique branding starting to pop out a bit more, and people, like, reiterating whether it's their emojis, whether it's their colors. I've really seen and I wanna hear your opinion on that before, I start with the most important and the first question on the pod. I I wanna hear your opinion about this, about, LinkedIn, really, how we started right thinking about the personal brand side of things in a way that maybe other platforms didn't until More recently. Have you seen that as well? Are people hauling that and trying to figure out what that looks like for them? Yeah.

Gud Bhandal [00:04:05]:
You know, it's almost by design and by default. Fault. You know? Like, LinkedIn chose to to, like, turn down brands. You know? The company pages are really difficult to get traction on. So you can have a company page on so you can be the old marketing school on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and TikTok, etcetera. But on LinkedIn, you have to be fab kind of thing. Has a name and nature, obviously. So that's where we come in.

Gud Bhandal [00:04:30]:
Yeah. And it's the personal brand where so LinkedIn, by default, have pushed that. So what's happened is, particularly, the pandemic has exasperated that. So, obviously, they were trying to build up brands. People are trying to build up their companies, etcetera. And then the we realized in the pandemic that actually we wanna see the face of the brand. So then we started talking to each other and being personable with each other telling each other stories, etcetera. And that's where I think LinkedIn are now it's the primary place to build a personal brand, in my opinion.

Fab Giovanetti [00:05:00]:
Your unbiased opinion, I should say. But that's why we're here today, everybody. Actually, I have a question on a follow-up on the back of that. And if you are here live with us, and I know you're gonna have questions at the end of the weekend that you can ask as well, you can let us know as well in the chat. Every so often, I will, like, see if there's anything that pops up. But I wanna ask you guys and then see if anybody else has their thoughts as well. What are some of the main blocks, obstacles, sabotages, we choose the name we want, that people might find and that you have heard from, you know, your events and talking to people when it comes to actually starting to show up as the people as the personal brands on LinkedIn.

Gud Bhandal [00:05:39]:
Two blocks that I see is the the first one is the most people don't know the LinkedIn of change. Like, they haven't come to LinkedIn for so long, and they still see it how it used to be, as in a place where you put CVs and try to find jobs, etcetera. Set. Once you've found a job, you don't need to use LinkedIn again. So I think that's one of the biggest blocker. The other blocker is because people have been on some people have been on LinkedIn for years. They have curated an audience over years of people that they work with or their family and their friends, etcetera. And then they get to a point where they say, I don't want to post because I'm scared of what those people will think.

Gud Bhandal [00:06:16]:
And I think that's that's probably the biggest blocker, and it's the easiest one to get rid of because you just say, well, just get rid of those people. We'll block them. We'll disconnect from them, etcetera. But also, my answer to that is if you like, think about who's gonna pay your bills. Think about who's gonna pay you. And if those people that you used to work for and used to be connected to and your next door neighbor's brothers, dogs, sister, you know, if they're not gonna ever give you money, it doesn't their opinion does not count. It's as simple as that. We have to grow our personal brands and tell stories that attracts our ideal clients and brings people to us so that we can get over the 2 biggest blockers in terms of LinkedIn has massively changed, and don't worry about your network.

Gud Bhandal [00:06:57]:
It's all about the future.

Fab Giovanetti [00:06:58]:
I think it probably resonated with a lot of people already. We're gonna talk about other things that came up, especially with some of the questions that I brought in and that came from some of our students as well that I think really reflect some of these blocks or misconceptions or really nonstarter that you don't feel like you know where to start. And as we're seeing, if anything else comes up, I have my core question, which is obviously part of the class in session because, indeed, we're here to learn. And this is a bit timed, If you may. As in I wanna know one thing. Gus, just one thing. One thing that you can teach our students And listeners in 1 minute or so about LinkedIn, if you were to teach them one thing, what would that one thing be?

Gud Bhandal [00:07:41]:
The one thing would be to have conversations, to use it to talk to other people. Now that one thing. There are a number of number of kind of, you know, spider legs, so we can say. What we have to do is optimize our profile so it tells the world who we are and what we do and what we good. And we kind of you know, I always say tell the world what we do, who we do it for, how we do it, and why people should work with us. What do we tell people? Like, what can you achieve by working with us? And then obviously, the one big thing from there is to have two way conversations. Connect with the right people, speak to people, etcetera. Unlike other channels.

Gud Bhandal [00:08:16]:
LinkedIn isn't really a broadcast channel. It's a place where we have two way conversations. And although we say that about all social media, social media is consumed. So TikTok is consumed. Instagram Reels are consumed, whereas on LinkedIn, we have conversations. We talk to one another, and that's where the real gold is. So I think if I can teach anybody anything, just make sure that you engage with your network, you talk to them, send them DMs, comment on their content, like their content, create content that asks questions and garners conversation, etcetera. So two way conversation is is the key to you know, in in my opinion.

Fab Giovanetti [00:08:51]:
That is so important. And, also, I think it goes back into one of the potential blockers that people might have, which are just starting to actually post themselves. And, actually, if you if we go back to what you just shared with us and I have more questions about the connection piece. But if, you know, we just start with the connection piece, Then it means that we're not necessarily thinking about what do I have to share as myself. You're thinking, who am I connecting with the first? Who are the first connections that maybe I am intentionally wanting to keep up with and and nurture, I'm gonna use the word, and then start commenting on their posts. And I generally believe that Creativity and ideas will also come from that by seeing the people that you wanna connect with. What do they talk about? What are they passionate about? What Stories are they sharing, and how do you feel about those stories? Does anything come back to you as well? I have 1 question for the busy peeps, because one of the big things that we both share I'm gonna do a little dance just for the video only because I'm happy. It's efficiency.

Fab Giovanetti [00:09:46]:
Just the efficiency dance. System and efficiency. One could argue that everybody could argue that when you look at Gus And you follow him and you connect with him on LinkedIn, it feels like he's always there ready to help. But, also, we have to be mindful of our time, and connection can actually feel, I think, Very time consuming, especially when we think about it, that idea of talking to people and commenting. So what would you say is The number 1 thing that we need to remember, if we do want to add the connection piece first on LinkedIn or we wanna get better at it, but we also wanna do it in a way that it doesn't feel like Our whole day has to be spent scrolling on the platform and commenting.

Gud Bhandal [00:10:26]:
Absolutely. There are there are people who spend all day on LinkedIn. I am one of them. But then it's my day job. I get paid for this kind of stuff. It's, you know, I have clients. It's what they do. It's what I do for them.

Gud Bhandal [00:10:36]:
Now for most people who have a proper job, you don't want to spend all your day on social media. So the the idea of LinkedIn is the you have to be efficient. Now need to be efficient is the you curated the perfect audience, so you get the people that you want to speak to. So you create a positive echo chamber. And then, literally, you spend 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening, just scrolling, just engaging with others. Even if you don't create your own content, it's very easy to create and curate an audience and then engage with that audience. Comment on their content, like their content, engage with them. Maybe send them a DM just like, hey, how are you? You know, that kind of stuff.

Gud Bhandal [00:11:14]:
But it's the the goal and because the gold is in the engagement, you don't have to spend all your day doing that. That's the thing. You don't have to kind of have fancy some of my best content takes me all of 10 seconds to write. I think of something, and then I write it down on LinkedIn, and I post it. And it's like it's so silly and inane, but people love it and, you know, etcetera. When I spend hours on content, it dies. It's just like nobody sees it. And it's like, man, it's really cool.

Gud Bhandal [00:11:38]:
So, you know, it's a great blog post. People don't have time. People are scrolling, and the gold is in the engagement. So what I would say is to be efficient, maybe spend a few minutes in the morning, a few minutes in the evening just engaging with others just, you know, if you haven't got time to create your own content and all that kind of stuff.

Fab Giovanetti [00:11:55]:
There's 1 piece in that that is even more gold than all the gold. Just saying. Just all the gold, which I would do a lot of dance for, but I don't know how many dances I can do consecutively before We start feeling like there's something wrong. But, mentally, I'm dancing at the idea of the curation piece because I think that's actually something that people might hear it And you might think about it, but you don't really let it, like, sink in. LinkedIn is one of the few places where, actually, I think the curation of your own network is a lot stronger. Because let's be honest. Obviously, people follow you on any other platform. Doesn't mean you have to follow them back.

Fab Giovanetti [00:12:27]:
But still, they can enter into your world, You know, whether you like it or not, which means they can also engage with you. And it might be something that, you know, at first, you don't think makes a difference in the way that then you show up on the platform. But, actually, LinkedIn is the only place where, yes, people can follow you now, which is a bit different. But, obviously, when they connect with you for real, that's an easy and powerful gateway into, like, a one to 1 conversation if you know how to do it well. So I think that curation piece is something that maybe we don't think about enough, And, actually, like, the idea of, your housekeeping with that as well, which I think is really, really important. And it kinda leads me to Another point just on the connection piece as well, which is, do you have a process when it comes to going from public to private, I'm gonna call it. And that's the only other piece on the connecting element to the networking because the magic for me really happens when I get somebody in the DMs, and I'm like, hi. I promise I'm gonna be nice.

Fab Giovanetti [00:13:21]:
And, I think if we think, it might be easy. But for so many of us, it's hard to start the conversation with the people being like, oh my god. It's another random spam bot that was gonna go straight into my blocking system. So I don't know if you have any tips for that because I think it's very relevant for a lot of people.

Gud Bhandal [00:13:36]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Now a lot of LinkedIn trainers will kind of suggest that you should have massive audiences, and there's no point having a massive audience. If they're not interested, they're not engaged, or they're, like, they're not your ideal client avatar or ideal client persona, whatever you call it. So audience curation is one thing, and it's better to have a smaller audience that's interested rather than a large audience that's not. And then particularly when it comes to, kind of obviously it's about having the right audience and then creating content that those audience that audience wants to read. Now when it comes into the DMs, it's always about the nonselling. Selling.

Gud Bhandal [00:14:10]:
And we know this. Like, as marketers, we know. Look. You know, we have to sell because we have to make money, but at the same time, if we went in with a cold pitch, people aren't interested. So what I what I usually do is people engage with my content enough or if they comment on my content where they say, oh, I like this content or I agree with this, etcetera, I would just take it offline and just say kind of, you know oh, sorry. Not offline. Take it into DMs and just say, well, thanks for your comment or thanks for engaging today or would you like to elaborate on this, etcetera? What I find is that as humans, we love talking about ourselves. So one of the things is to engage people in a conversation is to ask about them.

Gud Bhandal [00:14:50]:
The biggest problem is that what people do is they talk about themselves. Hey. You know, thanks for commenting. Just so you know, I do LinkedIn training, and I'm a marketing strategist, etcetera. People switch off. They don't care because it's like, I've already seen your profile. I don't you know, if I need you, I'll call you. Whereas if you go if you ask about them, like, oh, so what are you up to nowadays? How are things or how's business or, you know, can you just elaborate on your headline or something like that, etcetera? People love talking about themselves, and that that engages in a conversation, which then demonstrates a bit of, you know, the know, like, trust.

Gud Bhandal [00:15:22]:
They get to know you. They get to like you. And hopefully, over time, they get to trust you because you're having those conversations.

Fab Giovanetti [00:15:28]:
On that. First of all, yes. Secondly, if you think about what I also kinda not just did, but what I did at the beginning where obviously Been talking to Gus for a while. I haven't met you in real life, which is not something that you can say for most people that you connect with, especially on this podcast because all over the world. And, obviously, I noticed something. I noticed the, yeah, and the orange as much as our yellow. So I was genuinely interested In knowing that. And I think that's the element of going back to you trying to connect with people in your feed.

Fab Giovanetti [00:15:57]:
Yeah. You will learn and pick up things. And sometimes for me, if I know that I wanna connect with somebody and it's been a while and I see that they're celebrating something or they've done something, That's actually a good time for me to ask them about that or to, you know, to let them know that I saw that or what I took out from that. It is an element of actually thinking about these relationship building, which you talked about within all I can trust. So I really love that you mentioned that. And it's not The easiest if it doesn't come natural. And even to me, it doesn't come natural by default. But I've learned it with the podcast and in general To make it more part of the process of me connecting with people.

Fab Giovanetti [00:16:31]:
I've seen personally that really has been paying off a lot. I don't know If it makes sense to you or something that you also do, like, let an investigator hat on and trying to learn more about people before I reach out even if I don't really what we're gonna get out of it. But if I know there's a potential to do anything together, I still wanna reach out in a way that is mindful and that is meaningful as well.

Gud Bhandal [00:16:52]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I think, you know, the thing is we live in an ironic world where we want to make money, but we don't want to buy from anybody else, like, without us getting to know them. So with all our suppliers, all our clients, everybody we work with are people that we do get to know, like, and trust. And so it's it's exactly what you said. It's basically investigating people, learning about people, learning what makes them tick. You look at their content. You look at their headline.

Gud Bhandal [00:17:16]:
You read their about section. You click on their company page, you visit their website, you learn about people so that when they talk about themselves, you can repeat something back to them, which shows that you've done your research, which also shows that you're actually interested rather than just trying to get to a pitch at the end, you know, kind of thing. I think that's the thing. When you've done your due diligence and you've done your research on somebody, it genuinely shows that, actually, you're just you're just interested in that person. You just actually genuinely want a conversation, and you can't fake that. There's no way of faking that. And, like, regardless of what any AI specialist tells you, you can't do it with AI. You can't fake being a good person and asking people questions about them and actually genuinely being interested in somebody else.

Fab Giovanetti [00:17:59]:
Which leads me to a great point, which is Making marketing more human means being a goddamn decent human being. Please and thank you. Literally, like, if you were to summarize one of our messages, that will Probably be it. Just be if you are more human and you treat this relationship building as a human, it will be a lot easier because you don't have and I love what you mentioned within that as well because I think it's so important. And actually makes me shift slightly into something that I wanted to ask you anyway, but I'm really gonna lead with the questions of our audience because it's already students are really on it today. Little Rebels, are giving us the goodness. So first of all, thank you, Rebels. I'm gonna do a little pulse Check if you're here live.

Fab Giovanetti [00:18:38]:
And if you're listening, just think about the answer for yourself. If you're live, you can give us hearts. If you Don't post a lot of content or don't post content at all on LinkedIn. Or there's a little guy with glasses in their reactions who I'm obsessed with if you are more active and you're posting more on LinkedIn. So let's see. We got some hearts. Let's see if we got guy with glasses is my fave, by the way. We got quite a few guy with glasses And just a couple of hearts as well.

Fab Giovanetti [00:19:03]:
So we have quite a few active people, but I think it's still good to come back to even the basics of just kind of starting out. So I'm actually gonna go with, Faisal's question first, which almost sets the tone as well before we get into kind of any industries, or does any specific industry, You know, which you operate that is better than others. I think this will help us really kinda go into the next stage as well.

Gud Bhandal [00:19:31]:
On LinkedIn, there are so in I I believe it was earlier this week. LinkedIn have announced that they have 1,000,000,000 members on LinkedIn. There are 1,000,000,000 people that have a LinkedIn account. You're bound to find somebody that does what you do, or you're bound to find, like, an ideal client or somebody that you want to work whereas before, previously, LinkedIn used to be very much a b to b platform. It's like, let's, you know, let's be accountants and HR and lawyers and stuff. Nowadays, it's like, we'll just sell anything. We'll sell or Coca Cola or whatever. You know? It's like you could sell anything to anyone.

Gud Bhandal [00:20:05]:
And I think the point is that it's not necessarily about you don't always have to find the end client. Sometimes it's about finding that referral network that does other things for you. So it's the what I call the first tentacles. You connect with somebody, and then they engage with your content, and then their network sees your content. So what you're doing is you're pulling you're sending out the tentacles and bringing people back, and you're sucking them in. And that's the thing, and I think that works in any industry. So connecting to the right people is very important, but also creating content that those people would want to read obviously tells people about you. No matter what you do, whether it's b to b, b to c, like, I know lots of marketers now you know, h to h, you know, human to human.

Gud Bhandal [00:20:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. I get that. However, the point is any business can thrive on on LinkedIn. To give you an example, there are 330 goat herders on LinkedIn. Don't ask me how I know that. That's just, you know but that I mean, if goat herders can be oh, and there's sheep dippers as well, and that's don't ask me what they are. We'll Google it.

Gud Bhandal [00:21:03]:
But there's generally people in almost any sector, any business that you can think of. What you have to do is find them and engage with them. Create content that they want to read. If you're not creating content, go and speak to them and make sure that you stay in their face so that they come back to you, basically. So that's, yeah. It's for it's for it's for everybody. That's mine.

Fab Giovanetti [00:21:23]:
First of all, now you are getting a little happy dance, everybody. And, again, if you're not watching YouTube, then just can imagine this is a different dance. The reason why I love that, and just to add 1 more piece of, like, my own advice to the answer to the question, Is that you talked about the octopus, and I think it's a great image actually of understanding how each platform, in this case, LinkedIn, works for you. For some of us, there are some platforms that I generally believe are talking to specific people within our ecosystem that might not be the end client. And I love that you mentioned that because we're not we don't talk about that enough. And just because maybe let's say a high percent client might not be on LinkedIn Well, on LinkedIn as your client. You know, maybe your clients are parents, but that person is not there as a parent, is there as a professional. One, it doesn't mean that they will need your support as a parent.

Fab Giovanetti [00:22:08]:
But, Choo, as you mentioned, it's good to kinda ask ourselves, who are the main people that I can reach out on LinkedIn? Are the potential partners? Are the potential investors? As you say, is a potential network amplifier or is my end client? And I think that, as you say, will really shape then the way that you show up, so thank you for mentioning that. That's also part of my advice linked to that. Just go back and ask yourself, who am I gonna reach on LinkedIn? And I think that's and we're gonna ask ourselves that enough And, you know, kind of make sure that we know that first. And there's another question. You talked about content. We're diving deep into that. I know that live, especially with quite a few people that already are active. But I love this question from our lovely member, Andrea.

Fab Giovanetti [00:22:48]:
Hello. One of our students from the community, I'd love to know your tips for beginners and assuming the profile is optimized and the audience is curated. So that's that's what we're looking at. How would you develop content based on the marketing funnel on LinkedIn? I think there's so many ways that we can go about it. What does come into your mind straight away with this question?

Gud Bhandal [00:23:11]:
So me so I I have what I call, the 70/30 split. I it's a long story. I call it the Daniel Craig content strategy. It's a long so I've got images that go with it. It's a post on LinkedIn. Basically, 70% of my content. I don't know if you've seen Daniel Craig in the Belvedere advert, the vodka, and he's like he's dancing. There's like it's of him dancing, basically.

Gud Bhandal [00:23:31]:
70% of my content is like Daniel Craig dancing. Right? 30% of my content is Daniel Craig like James Bond, the serious guy, the suit, you know, the, like, looking serious, etcetera. When it comes to creating content, don't forget like, the personality content, is where you're going to get engagement and get reach, etcetera. The the business content is we're going to tell people what you do for a living. So now for me, it's a very arbitrary figure. Like I said, it's 70:30. 70% of my content is very personable. Like, for example, oh, I met Fab, a networking event, or I went networking, or I'm on a podcast, or, you know, I'm I bought some orange trainers or I'm eating orange chocolate, you know, that kind of stuff.

Gud Bhandal [00:24:09]:
That's 70% of my content. 30% of my content is I do marketing. I do marketing strategy. I do LinkedIn training. This is what I do for a living. This is how you can give me some money. Please give me some money. That's kind of that's 30% of the content.

Gud Bhandal [00:24:22]:
Now my advice is, particularly for beginners, is start telling a story about who you are. You know, it's that kind of the because we can go to Google and you can go to Google now and just type in social media manager, and there's, like, 5,000,000 pages. And I'm not on page number 1, but you will choose me because you like Orange Taco or you like Orange Trainers or you like the networking event that I go to or you like Fab and she said something nice about me or something like that. That's what you want to do. You wanna your content should be tied to your clients by telling the world what makes you different from everybody else that does what you do. But don't forget, in between that, you still have to tell people, this is what I do. Please give me some money. So it's the for me, it's a select, basically.

Gud Bhandal [00:25:03]:
If you're going to do 3 posts a week, for example, 2 of them could be about your week, and then one of them specifically is a sales post, like, this is what I do for a living. The sales post will never do as well as the other posts, but that's okay because the engagement rolls over. You want people to get the big engagement pieces. So when you do post content about what you do for a living, they roll over, and they kind of see that. And it becomes a it becomes a reinforcement. Like, oh, he does marketing, but he also eats orange chocolate. I like orange chocolate. I should give him some money.

Gud Bhandal [00:25:31]:
You know, that kind of stuff.

Fab Giovanetti [00:25:32]:
But the the first thing that I when you mentioned this was actually You're redoing the ad at some point whenever budgets allow it or you just have the capacity, that that will be brilliant. I'll honestly make sure that everybody in the world sees that? Because I'm budgeting. Yeah. If you don't know the, go and check it out. You know what I'm talking about. 1 question that I would have is a follow-up question myself and then maybe dive in a bit deeper into the final piece. I'm gonna add a question to that too. But the first question I have is when it comes to the more relatable content, That's something that I know some people might be thinking, oh, might wanna ask themselves is, do you actually have some value for the audience that is specific to something they can take away, Or is it, you know, the with the idea of add value every single time you post? Or some of it is just generally you sharing that you bought some trainers, and that is awesome.

Fab Giovanetti [00:26:21]:
I think that's one of the things a lot of people think about when it comes to creating the content that they do.

Gud Bhandal [00:26:26]:
Yeah. So I call it the Adrian Mould strategy. So, obviously, you're not old enough to remember Adrian Moe. But, you know, 13 and, 3 quarters, you know, it was a diary. It was a book when we were kids and stuff. Basically, Adrian Moe used to journal his life, and it was a diary. I mean, we read his diary. It was a children's book.

Gud Bhandal [00:26:43]:
LinkedIn is very much the same. I believe it's like a journaling piece. Like, let's journal hour week. Monday, I did this. Tuesday, I did this. Wednesday, I did. What it does is, although it may seem very personal, it actually tells your audience what makes you tick and what you get up to and what your day to day if you spend all day every day saying, I'm working. I'm a social media today, I'm on Facebook.

Gud Bhandal [00:27:05]:
Today, I'm on Instagram. Today, I'm on TikTok. Nobody cares. It's like, yeah, that's your job, you know, kind of thing. When you talk about, well, I bought some orange trainers or I went networking or I met Fab or I did a live podcast and all that kind of stuff, it's that bit where people learn, oh, he does that as well, and he likes this or he does this. And then what happens is it's the reinforcement, so when people start thinking like you said, when you think of Orange, you think of Gus. You know hopefully, when you think of LinkedIn, you can also think of Gus. But, generally, you know, it's the it's the association of things.

Gud Bhandal [00:27:34]:
And I think, you know, sometimes I spoke to somebody today who was a chartered financial planner, and she says that she does, like, cold water swimming. And I said, that's great. I don't know any, to be honest, I don't know any chartered financial planners. But now I know a chartered financial planner that does lake swimming, like cold water swimming. And it's the is the association, the reinforcement. So you don't have to be too personal, but they just have to give people an insight into your life just so that because, again, it's part of the funnel. People buy from people. Otherwise, they can just go to Google and search for anybody they want, basically.

Gud Bhandal [00:28:06]:
So and you want to stop people going to Google so they come to you first, and they remember you because of other things.

Fab Giovanetti [00:28:12]:
That is so important. I see the only one, A challenge that some people might have, and I wanted to quickly explore that scenario because it's a complementary scenario, but slightly different, Where either you are mainly because you're part of a team or because you have a client to actually either LinkedIn has a company page or be on LinkedIn and handle the LinkedIn of somebody else within your team or one of your clients or help them do that. Do you think there's any difference when it comes to that? Like, there's anything that we need to think about instead, or does the same rule apply? I think If we put ourselves in those shoes, it can be harder to think about what am I gonna be talking about if I'm not talking about it as myself. So what would you say if somebody has to build that type of brand But for somebody else or for an entity, is it possible? Is it not? What are some of your thoughts?

Gud Bhandal [00:29:04]:
It's as a social media manager, I would say, oh, it's very easy for me to talk like somebody else, etcetera. But there there's a there's a certain thing. Now I'll give you a slightly longer answer here. In my LinkedIn headline, it says I'm the UK's number 1 LinkedIn trainer, and then at the end, it says according to my mom. Now the reason I do that, a, it's a joke, but also it's because people read that think, oh, this guy's funny. So I'm he will write good content for us. If you're a really professional, boring, kind of a like, you don't if that's the kind of business that you are, you're not gonna come to me. And I repel those companies because I tell jokes, and I have silly, personable content and all that kind of stuff.

Gud Bhandal [00:29:39]:
So when it comes to writing as somebody else, yes, you have to learn what you know, you can't you have to learn what makes them tick, what their tone of voice is, how do they swear, do they use particular words, etcetera. I used to have a client that said, I use the word awesome all the time, and so do I. So I was like, this is great, because you can I could just copy my content and give it to you? So, you know, and it's it's very difficult to write to somebody else. But then the whole point of LinkedIn is that if you are sharing a brand story, if it's if it's all developing into either the brand or the company brand, then you have a persona. You have to create a persona for yourself as in, like, your own obviously, don't not fake one. You have to be authentic, but it has to be you. And it and that would be easily shareable. Somebody to write as mean.

Gud Bhandal [00:30:25]:
They would always use the word awesome. They would always talk about orange stuff. They'd always tell jokes, you know, all that kind of stuff. It would be it would be pretty easy for somebody to do that. And I think that's the thing. It's if you are always yourself, it's very easy somebody else to pick that up kind of thing. So as soon as you try to be somebody else on LinkedIn, that's that's where it fails. So it's very easy to be yourself.

Gud Bhandal [00:30:44]:
It's very easy to sell. And if you're gonna write to somebody else, just be them, you know, because hopefully that person and themselves. I know that's a lot easier said than done, but it's it's a lot easier than trying to pretend like, be fake, if you know what I mean, or, like, create a persona for somebody else.

Fab Giovanetti [00:30:59]:
What I love within that is that if we take it as an action step as well for anybody who might be struggling with this is then go back actually to breaking down what is the persona that, I'm gonna say a brand, whether it's this is a personal brand, it is somebody else, or, like, a brand wants to be on LinkedIn. And it might be that it's the same persona that you have built all over your Marketing, it might be that you actually have to ask yourself, what am I sharing about my work or my experiences that makes me unique? So there is actually in that, there's an element of research and or Finding that for ourselves, and I think it kinda at least gives us a place to start because that's where it can get daunting, as you say, because it can be easy to say. You know, just be yourself or just, you know, embody that person. But we can actually do the research. It just takes an extra step, and I think it's important that we remember that, that at the end of the day, the investigative piece, though, we always talk about. Being curious as a marketer, I think, is such a great skill that we don't talk about and sometimes it's about ourselves. Sometimes it's about others as well. And I have 1 more question that is a follow-up that Ashley Andre asked earlier in the community, but I picked it up.

Fab Giovanetti [00:32:02]:
And is, and I love this question. And it were more about maybe defining things that you can talk about, content pillar, and the context of LinkedIn. I'm gonna go with this and maybe have 2 elements of it. So I'd love to know your method of defining content patterns in the context of LinkedIn and how to stay authentic and inspired. That is gonna be the twofold. We're gonna start with, would you suggest to do you have other Pillars or topics that you go back to, or you basically work on that 70, 30 kind of split, and that's kinda how you define what content you're gonna post. That's my first question.

Gud Bhandal [00:32:36]:
So to answer that question, so, particularly, even in the 70 30 split, there are content pillars. So, for example, you know, every 2 weeks I host a networking event, so I know at least once I'm gonna post about that. I'm running a LinkedIn conference, so at least once I gotta post about that. And these content pillars change over the years, like over the months because, obviously, when the LinkedIn conference is done, I'm not gonna post about it. It's not a content pillar anymore until the next one, obviously. So you have these kind of content pillars that are interchangeable, but there are some content pillars which will just remain forever, like recommendations, testimonials, the different services that you offer, the people that you speak to, the kind of clients you want to work with, etcetera. Those kind of content pillars will just be the same forever. But you should have regular content pillars that change depending on the season or depending on what you're doing and depending on what you're up to because it obviously keeps you not only does it keep your content fresh, it reminds people of the different kind of, like, the breadth of information that you can provide to them, in terms of what you do.

Gud Bhandal [00:33:34]:
So but, I mean, to to define content per se is never easy. It's it's different for everybody. But, ultimately, I would me, personally, so 3 posts a week. 2 posts are quite personable, but they're about things that I do. So networking or since trainers or in circle or whatever, speaking to fab, you know, all that going speaking gigs and all that podcast, you know, all that kind of stuff. They are personable content pillars. But one of my content pillars every week is I must talk about a service that I offer, whether it's marketing strategies, whether it's LinkedIn training, whether it's corporate team training, whatever it is. So I do that on a regular basis.

Gud Bhandal [00:34:08]:
So you have to define them, but don't don't be afraid to to kind of mix them and change them up because, ultimately, the audience always changes as well, and not 100% of your audience will see 100% of your content. So it's always good to mix it up on a regular basis.

Fab Giovanetti [00:34:24]:
That's actually a great reminder as well. Even on places like LinkedIn, I I think sometimes we forget that we talked about association repetition quite a lot today. So I think it goes back to that point when it comes to your content. And as you say, it kinda creates that balance and yeah. Even your service is done and what you do gets is about the staying authentic and inspired. I am almost on the other end of the spectrum, so I really have to think about Giving people suggestions because I always have ideas. It's it's good, but it's also bad. I always have ideas of content that I can talk about because I constantly ask myself questions.

Fab Giovanetti [00:35:07]:
That will be my practical dip on my side. What have I learned today? You know, what have I done this week? And within that then, I keep track. Again, system queen. I know that if you know this school, you will know my system's Gwen. And I keep track of all of these ideas, and then I will go through the process of editing and refining them to turn them into actual posts. But If it's there, I'll make sure that I can capture it as quickly as I can. So for me, it's hard to put myself into the shoes of somebody that is stuck and doesn't know what to share because I've been ingrained into the system. But what would you say for somebody who's not me, basically, who actually does struggle with that idea of inspiration because they're still trying to define Some of the pillars or some of the things they can get back to?

Gud Bhandal [00:35:46]:
Forget pillars. Particularly when you want to be authentic and inspired, forget the pillars. What you want to do is think that everything is content. If you are listening to this live podcast, this is content. Go write about it and say, oh, I did this today kind of thing. You go and have dinner later and you spill coffee on the floor or whatever. Go write about it. That's a post.

Gud Bhandal [00:36:07]:
You know? And it's all that kind of stuff, you know? And it's and it doesn't it doesn't have to be. Wasn't there, oh, I dropped coffee, and it told me that, actually, I should go get a marketing degree or whatever. You know, it doesn't make any sense. Right? So sometimes you just wanna tell stories because they are stories. And what it is, it gives people an insight into your life. So to be so the I mean, everything is content. That's the first But the second thing is there are we have, at our fingertips, a whole host of resources such as Google, Answer the Public, ChatGPT, you know, OpenAI, all this other kind of stuff. What I like to do is and particularly for for clients, I go to Google and I just type in a question.

Gud Bhandal [00:36:45]:
Like, for example, if I have a legal client, I'll just type in, why do I need a lawyer? And then all of a sudden, you've got loads of content that says this is why you need a lawyer, etcetera. At the bottom of page 1, there will it will say, people who ask also ask this question, and there are 8 other questions. So I can answer all 8 of those questions, and all of a sudden, I've got 8 pieces of content. And if I'm posting 3 times a week, that's, like, 2 weeks of content, right, more or less. Now then we have websites like answer the public.com. You go to answer the public. You literally just type in something. So I would go in there and just type in LinkedIn, and then it will give me a 1000000 questions.

Gud Bhandal [00:37:18]:
Why do I need LinkedIn? How do I use LinkedIn? Who is LinkedIn? Who works on LinkedIn? Whatever it may be. And it's like a 1,000,000 questions, then I go and answer those questions. Now, admittedly, they are work related questions, so that would be my work related content pillar. I would come back to everything in my day is my authentic and inspired content pillar in terms of I'm gonna tell people that I'm on this podcast, or I'm gonna tell people that I went nowhere. You know, I'm gonna tell people that I just had a cup of tea, or I'm gonna tell people that my phone battery died or, you know, whatever. And it's just these I mean, not that I'm gonna do that. That would be nonsensical. But it's the it's the day to day just start thinking of, can I write something related to this? Will people be interested in this? And 99 times out of a 100, yes.

Gud Bhandal [00:38:03]:
People will be interested in what you do because it it intersperses the work stuff. I can talk all day every day about LinkedIn. Most people will say, yeah, okay, I get it. You're a LinkedIn trainer. I get it. But when I say, oh, I do this and I do that and I've got networking and etcetera, and people are like, alright. That's that's cool. Like, that's what makes him tick.

Gud Bhandal [00:38:20]:
So just I I think everything around you can be content, and there will come a time where you just think, actually, that's that's an abundance of content. Now I've got much. I need to rein it in. So, yeah, just think everything around you is content.

Fab Giovanetti [00:38:32]:
That is literally one of the the most powerful, yet simple pieces of advice. When you see it that way and I love The example that you brought as well from, like, just a cup of coffee doesn't mean that you have to talk about why you should go and change your marketing strategy just because of I think that's that can be one of the challenges that we have as well that we don't talk about enough is actually finding understanding that sometimes the value that people wanna get is getting to understand you and know you and to see somehow how how you overcome other challenges that are not necessarily work related or whatever that might be instead of trying to almost force it in, which you mentioned a bit into a topic that doesn't fit in. I have 1 more tip on this note, and then I'm gonna have 1 more question from the audience, which is if you then are working with a client to be like us And or you're doing this on the behalf of somebody else. These questions, like, for example, the Google questions that you can get from from, obviously, searching, These are great questions. Either you can ask yourself on their behalf, or this can be a process where every month that's what I would do with with our clients. I actually ask ask them some questions, and then most of our clients because we don't have a lot on the agency side because this call takes enough time. Many clients, but still, all of them I say, just do me a voice note. Respond how you would with a voice note answering each question, and then this is invaluable because It helps us build up on their tone of voice, what they would actually say, and it kinda gives us that insights.

Fab Giovanetti [00:39:53]:
Just wanted to mention that, as a note, if you are doing something as somebody else, There are millions of things you can do that works really well for us. So something that maybe you wanna explore. Final question before we go into quick fire Is, once again, from Endurance on Fire. I'm obsessed with this. Thank you. Yes. I'm curious to know, how would you recommend others prevent From becoming irrelevant if you post lots of everyday stuff. Okay.

Fab Giovanetti [00:40:17]:
So it's basically about balance. Right? Balance in posting.

Gud Bhandal [00:40:21]:
Yeah. Now what I meant to my clients, particularly those that are beginners or particularly those that don't post too much content, I recommend that once a week. So for example, every Friday, write a post about your week. Monday, I did this. Tuesday, I did this. Wednesday, I did this, etcetera. Now, I don't know, live on an island. The, like, not England.

Gud Bhandal [00:40:41]:
I mean, like, a much smaller island. If you live on an island, it's likely that your week is gonna be different every week. Right? So no matter who you are or where you are, etcetera, your week is always gonna be different. 1 week you're gonna and I know I keep talking about this, but it's the content pillars that I'm thinking of. 1 week you might do networking. The following week week you might go shopping. The following week you'll make a lasagna or whatever, etcetera. And there's always different things that we can post.

Gud Bhandal [00:41:05]:
And you talk for so for example, Monday, I went networking. Tuesday, I met with a client. Wednesday, I went for a coffee. Thursday, I received a lovely testimony. Or Friday, we're all gonna have pizza in the office, you know, whatever it may be. And then the next week, it'll be something completely different. So but the way to stop it being the way to keep it fresh and make sure that your audience are interested in in that is because, a, your week is different every week, but, b, you're also sharing the work stuff. The work like, oh, well, this is a client testimonial I received.

Gud Bhandal [00:41:33]:
Here's a case study or here's what I do or here's a different service that I offer and all that kind of stuff. So making sure that your you remind your audience that, well, this is what I do for a living and this is how I make money. But then it's the weekly post that says, but this is what makes me tick. This is, you know, who I am and all that kind of stuff. And in theory, hopefully, it should be kind of different every week. It's very, apart you know, apart from all of that, the old idea is to to grow a band of brand followers, Bracidas, people that talk about you. So for example, Fab may never give me any money, but she will talk to other people about me that other people might give me money. You know? Like, she'll say, oh, you need a LinkedIn training.

Gud Bhandal [00:42:11]:
You should speak to Gus. You know, that kind of stuff. And, you know, sometimes it's about so I would say FAB is a brand ambassador of mine. I'm a brand ambassador of FABs, and that's, you know, and that's where the kind of the networks grow. So it's never gonna become stale because people either love you or they don't. And if they don't, then fine. Don't worry. We'll find there's a 1000000000 people on LinkedIn.

Gud Bhandal [00:42:28]:
We'll find somebody that does. Right? So why.

Fab Giovanetti [00:42:30]:
Somebody that as interested in sheep as you are, that still Yeah. That does still take from me. That's it.

Gud Bhandal [00:42:36]:
That's not neither. I'm not interested in sheeps or goats just a car away for the live podcast.

Fab Giovanetti [00:42:42]:
Oh, it says. Gus, thank you so much. First of all, can we give some hearts if we're here live, for Gus Before we get into quick fire, just, there we go. So we got lots of hearts from all the lovely students and rebels that joined us live. And now it's quick fire time just to put even more pressure on us because it wouldn't be a podcast app without Quickfire. Are we ready?

Gud Bhandal [00:43:02]:
I was born ready.

Fab Giovanetti [00:43:06]:
Spotify playlist or podcast?

Gud Bhandal [00:43:08]:
Spotify playlist.

Fab Giovanetti [00:43:09]:
Nice. Is there a go to Spotify playlist before I get to the next?

Gud Bhandal [00:43:14]:
I have my Spotify playlist, like, split into, rock music, chill out music, dance music, And, I've got 1 playlist of all the music I would have if I walked onto a big stage. So and I love you know? So yeah. Yeah. So

Fab Giovanetti [00:43:31]:
Doesn't have that too?

Gud Bhandal [00:43:32]:
Yeah. I know. We have to have it. Right? Yes. Yeah. So we have self

Fab Giovanetti [00:43:35]:
The power sound is

Gud Bhandal [00:43:36]:
Yeah. The exactly. Yeah. Yeah. My walk on music makes me wake up and think, yeah. I'm gonna seize the day. You know? That's the main thing. So

Fab Giovanetti [00:43:44]:
I'm obsessed. That's actually a great tip. The the little power songs. They're kinda walk on stage songs. Yeah. And voice notes or texts?

Gud Bhandal [00:43:51]:
1st time we meet, texts. After that, voice notes,

Fab Giovanetti [00:43:54]:
of course. Zoom people in. Love that. Carousels or reels?

Gud Bhandal [00:44:00]:
Carousels.

Fab Giovanetti [00:44:03]:
TikTok or YouTube?

Gud Bhandal [00:44:10]:
YouTube.

Fab Giovanetti [00:44:11]:
Of that? Yeah. And finally, the most important question, Memes or GIFs?

Gud Bhandal [00:44:18]:
Memes. Definitely memes. They can say so much more. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Fab Giovanetti [00:44:22]:
Mean can say a 1000 words unless it's a personalized gift. Mhmm.

Gud Bhandal [00:44:26]:
Yeah.

Fab Giovanetti [00:44:27]:
That might come into anybody's DMs if you're not careful with me. Just like a GIF of me. Yeah. Gus, thank you so much again. Before I let you remind people why they can find out more about you, I wanna ask you 1 final, final question. If you were to choose 1 party trick, what would that be? What would be your ultimate party trick? Do you have 1?

Gud Bhandal [00:44:49]:
Wow, party trick. The only thing I can think of, and it's because I do this with my son. So I've got a young son. He's 6 years old. So I do card tricks, but they're not very good cartridge. They're absolutely terrible cartridge. But for 6 year olds, they're the best. Like, I do things like in my hand, I say, oh, you got something in your ear.

Gud Bhandal [00:45:05]:
And, you know, and he's like, wow. This is amazing. And, obviously, you know, it's a so but, yeah, my party trick, as long as it's a kid's pie, is I can do really horrible really terrible card tricks. That's that's the thing I can do.

Fab Giovanetti [00:45:18]:
I love that. So we got the caveat of Kids parties. That's the best thing.

Gud Bhandal [00:45:21]:
Yeah. Okay.

Fab Giovanetti [00:45:22]:
I'll take it. I'll take it.

Gud Bhandal [00:45:23]:
Adults will not be impressed. Right? So, you know, that sucks.

Fab Giovanetti [00:45:26]:
Thank you so so much. You're getting some love in the chat as well. We're getting some waterfalls of love everywhere. Hearts.

Gud Bhandal [00:45:32]:
You so much.

Fab Giovanetti [00:45:33]:
Where can people find out more about you if they're ready to kick off their LinkedIn as Wow.

Gud Bhandal [00:45:38]:
So, you can find me on LinkedIn as, obviously, Gus Bandel, but also if you Google m guru k, that's my hashtag, that's my suffix, that's my handle, m guru UK. Go and Google that, and I'm on the first 10 pages. You'll see me. You'll see my my LinkedIn, my Facebook, my Instagram, my Twitter, my eReel, my Clubhouse, my Club, my Pinterest, my Discord, my Paula. Like, I'm on, like, you know, 50,000 different channels. And then you'll find my website, and you'll find, kind of my inside leg measurement and all that kind so, yeah, just everything's on Google, m guru u k.

Fab Giovanetti [00:46:14]:
All the good things that we need. Yeah.

Gud Bhandal [00:46:16]:
Exactly. But I do my but I do my best work on LinkedIn just, you know, just to be clear.

Fab Giovanetti [00:46:21]:
I love that. Gus, thank you so much again. I hope that you found the energy and inspiration that you need to show up on LinkedIn as your best selves as always. And just a reminder for me before we leave, be kind to yourself and others. And remember that true marketing speaks to hearts, not just to minds. And until next time, team. Class is dismissed.