Breaking LinkedIn rules to build a business with Lea Turner

If you say tattooed LinkedIn queen, most people will know you’re talking about Lea Turner who made her mark on the platform by doing everything she “wasn’t supposed” to do. Defying LinkedIn’s “professional standards” afforded Lea a new house, high income, and the freedom to be with her son while doing work she loves. In this episode, she shares parts of her journey all the way from how spending time in chat rooms as a teenager refined her content skills to why one of her posts blew up to 2 million views. 

“There was no ulterior motive and I think people realised that - people don't go on LinkedIn to buy, they're there to market themselves and their own business. Most of the time, they're not thinking I want to buy from this person. So I was just building relationships” (08:08) 

What we discussed

(00:00) How did Lea Turner become so successful? 

(03:02) Lea before LinkedIn 

(04:25) Why LinkedIn?

(05:39) Content litmus test

(06:57) How chat rooms improved her content 

(07:53) Socialising vs. selling on LinkedIn

(09:49) Lea’s different social media channels 

(12:17) Unexpectedly controversial posts 

(19:33) Lea the brand vs. other Leas 

(22:13) Being an introvert vs. throwing epic parties 

(25:49) Managing her schedule 

(27:52) Private community and online courses 

(30:03) Getting a celebrity client

(30:59) Generating content ideas 

(32:44) WORST LinkedIn mistake 

(34:46) Time spent on marketing weekly 

3 tips to make networking fun:

1. Listen to your instincts when creating content: are you creating something you would have fun consuming?

2. As you are consuming content, find inspiration: have a curation system where you store content that inspires you or provokes you to come up with innovative thoughts and ideas. 

3. “if you are only ever going to consume you might be learning stuff, but the minute you start engaging with people - that's when the opportunities start to happen.” (33:41) 

Links

Connect with Lea Turner: LinkedIn | Website | Business Community (The HoLT)

Connect with Rosie on socials!

LinkedIn
Instagram
And if you're a woman in business who loves colour find out more about personal branding shoots on Rosie's photography website! 💕

Transcript

Rosie Parsons  0:00  
So in for chat today, we have the LinkedIn legend that is leotard. If you're on LinkedIn, I'm sure you will come across Leah with her raw realness and unapologetic stance on being herself. And not just another corporate, Colin, as she likes to put it. I've always admired her freedom of speech and how she's not afraid to be herself. So I thought it'd be great to get her on the show to talk to us about why being visible in our business is so important and how we can get some of that resilience for ourselves. It's lovely to have you here, Leah, how are you?

Lea Turner  0:28  
Thank you. I'm great. Thank you so much. It's lovely to be chatting again.

Rosie Parsons  0:31  
So I mean, I think most people listening will know who you are. But just in case there is anybody who doesn't. Can you give a little intro to yourself?

Lea Turner  0:39  
Yes. So I am a single parent. And I run two businesses, a business community, and also LinkedIn training business where I work with individuals and companies to improve how they're using social media to gain leads, and to increase their opportunities and to build a powerful professional network. And, yes, I started three years ago, and it's going really, really well. explosive growth areas. That has been being very visible and having a large following on LinkedIn, which has steadily grown since I started three years ago.

Rosie Parsons  1:16  
Yeah, it was good to say so there's loads of LinkedIn traders around but you specifically, you seem to have so much more followers and influence then like everybody else, like why do you think that is?

Lea Turner  1:27  
I think part of it is because I had a big following before I started LinkedIn training. So I I done the work I already had about 30,000 followers before I actually started, which happened very quickly. And not just followers. It was I was getting a lot of business for my the original business that I started that I had, when I started using LinkedIn. I had about 100 clients for that inbound on LinkedIn in the first few months, which was mad. And it was that that kind of gave me that credibility. People saw me growing that business and went, Wow, how'd you how's she doing that? Yeah. And so then I started sharing information on what I was doing and how I was doing it. And then I started charging for that information and creating resources for that information. But I think one of the key things has been that I have never faltered with my consistency. I don't have long periods away from a platform, I post almost every day. I do take a little bit of time off when I'm on holiday and things but or a schedule posts. But yeah, it's been ridiculous amount of consistency and supporting the people that I'm I'm working with and the community that I feel, I don't sort of just sit back and wait for all the likes and engagement to come to me, I still, even with the following I have now go out and engage consciously and purposefully with the people that on that I have in the community. So yeah, I guess that's probably the main difference, and also make it fun. So I think that that makes me stand out. Because LinkedIn training seems to be a bit of a dry industry on a lot. Yeah. It's perceived that way. And yeah, I don't do dry and boring.

Rosie Parsons  3:02  
So what was this business that you did before that you had, like 30,000 followers coming into the LinkedIn training with like, what were you doing? And how did you manage to get that many followers for that business?

Lea Turner  3:12  
So I was doing transcription, which I started doing in 2011, as a side hustle from an office manager job just to make some extra money. Yeah. And it wasn't really my business that people were following. It was me because I was talking. Originally, I was just trying to be corporate like everybody else and thinking, Oh, my God, I don't belong here. Like what have I got to add to these professional conversations. And then I just sort of shrugged and went, this is boring, I'm going to do it. And I started having fun with it. And people started following me for the real life stories about being a single mum and running business and the fact that the business was growing, and I was getting leads, and I was bringing humour into my content. And you know, obviously, if you're videoing this, like I don't look corporate, I'm head to toe in tattoos, strep ears, facial piercings, like, I'm not the kind of person that you associate with corporate or professional traditionally, yeah, that's me out from the crowd a bit. And so the following the following came, because I think I just wasn't doing LinkedIn, like the vast majority. And people resonated with it. And it gave them confidence, I think, as well to be different or to be themselves and that's different.

Rosie Parsons  4:25  
So what made you want to focus on LinkedIn, rather than any other social media platform?

Lea Turner  4:30  
I knew my clients were on LinkedIn. So I had an Instagram I already had an Instagram back in the day, that's like a personal one with with a decent sized following. I think it's about 15 or 18,000. But I didn't get business from it. And I didn't talk about business on it. And Facebook really wasn't my vibe, but my clients were building surveyors and medical professionals and lawyers. And I thought, Well, I'm not finding them on Instagram. They're gonna be on LinkedIn. Yeah. So really, it was just one of those emails that dropped into my inbox one Dan said, someone's been looking at your profiles like LinkedIn, not really thought about that before, when I had a sore load of corporate posts, and when not really for me, and then I kind of was tempted back, I got a few more of those emails on when actually probably could be useful if I if I use it properly. Or maybe I can just get a few clients from it. So I wanted to grow the business a bit more. I had, I was busy, but I wanted more clients, higher paying clients, easier clients. So yeah, that was that was what drew me to LinkedIn was more knowing that that's where the people I wanted to do business with what probably hanging out

Rosie Parsons  5:39  
and do quite enjoy sort of the trial and error of seeing how things work and testing things because you've got all this insider kind of information and knowledge about how to get to well known on LinkedIn. But obviously you must have like, how did you find all that stuff out?

Lea Turner  5:53  
I don't think it was more. I mean, I've just put things out and gone. I don't care if it gets engagement or not. The purpose for me initially was like writing, hoping that a few of the right people would see but it never was like go viral, or get tonnes and tonnes of followers. It was I just wanted to have a few more clients for my small business. But I think one of the keys for me was that I wasn't focused on those metrics, I was focused on creating content, I knew I'd have fun consuming, and the people would join in the conversations on and then comments, obviously, increase the reach of your posts. So the posts that I was putting out that that got a lot of comments on them. And created created a lot of visibility for me. And my profile was nailed. So people were seeing what I do, and then going Oh, actually, we might need someone like that. It a lot of it was instinctive. And then I went back. And when I started training people I started analysing what it was that I did that worked and putting a plan together that would work for other people. So yeah, it was a lot of it was just focusing on following my instincts. But having said that, I spent a lot of time online networking as a teenager, as I continue to chat rooms. Yeah, I have insomnia as a teenager, which was really quite severe and showing my age. But when I was a teenager, there wasn't Netflix and TV finished at 11pm. And it was all on dial up or downloading a movie would take three hours, and you'd be doing it illegally and hoping not to get a virus. So for me, the only thing to keep me entertained really late at night when I was quite honestly very lonely, was chat rooms. So I used to chat to other teenagers all around the world, in these chat rooms, which gave me very fast typing skills, but also made me completely comfortable with networking with new people online. And so weirdly enough, that's probably where a lot of my comfort with interacting with strangers online in the same way I would in person. That that's where it all originated and kind of think that yeah, that's

Rosie Parsons  7:55  
it sounds like you're kind of going on LinkedIn and trying just to make like friends really and just having a chat and Robert so you're not really going on. Like I'm hoping to get this many signups you're just like going to try and have a chat.

Lea Turner  8:08  
There was no ulterior motive. And I think people realise that and that, you know, people got don't go on LinkedIn to buy. They're there to market themselves and their own business. And they're not thinking I want to buy from this person most of the time. So I was just building relationships. And if I'm, if I'm being completely honest, working on my own from home as a single parent, when, when my son came along seven years ago, I was working on my own at home, typing all day long with headphones on, and it was lonely. I didn't go out and meet people. I wasn't in an office with other people because I've been running that business for it was yes, I started full time transcribing in 2012. So I've been working from home on my own long before COVID. And I was sick and tired of being on my own. So being on LinkedIn was like suddenly having a load of colleagues that I could have a little chat with here and there during the day. All right isn't great. Like, I'm socialising, and I'm interacting with other adults and I'm learning from them. So for me, I think a big part of it was I wasn't trying to get things from people I wasn't out there to sell to cold pitch to people to you know, I wasn't trying really hard. I was just enjoying socialising and building those relationships, supporting other people. And in return, they returned that support and they would recommend people to me they would work with me. And and you know, I used to get people say, I don't really need your service, but I really just want to find a way to work with you because I like you or you. And I was like that that's that's amazing. Like they don't need me but they've recommended me to their friends. So once I was seeing that success, I was spurred on do it more do it better. My confidence grew and my following grew. And so I just kept going.

Rosie Parsons  9:48  
It's great. Do you have let's see, you're on quite a lot of different platforms now. I mean, obviously LinkedIn is the main one, but you've got you've got Tik Tok and you've got Instagram. Do you share different content on each one of those And if so, why? Especially because you're saying it's important to be like just kind of more chatty and stuff. So yeah. What do you think about that?

Lea Turner  10:08  
I definitely do different kinds of content. So I've got my LinkedIn pages. Why am I sort of comfort zone is, I also have a company page where I put a lot of the same content that I put on Instagram, which is more like tips and advice. My Instagram is very much focused on like LinkedIn and business tips. But I have to be more visual. And I'm not someone you know, other than the beautiful photos you took of me, I'm not someone that has like, millions of selfies. I don't take lots of lots of pictures of me. Mine are more like graphics that I've created carousels, real sometimes I'll record as well, when I get around to it. Yeah, but that's much more of a visual with Instagram. Whereas LinkedIn, I do bring in visual stuff, because I like to diversify. But writing is my main thing on LinkedIn, and I am a writer at heart, Twitter, there's no strategy on Twitter whatsoever. Literally any thought that pops into my head during the day, sometimes it's LinkedIn related. Mostly, it's not Twitter. It's kind of like a, an outlet for my ADHD brain, which has increased my followers, but isn't really getting me business too often. But that's not it's just like random thoughts that I put out into the world. So don't follow my strategy with that one is a mountain I'm yet to climb. I am sporadic with posting things. And generally, it's just reels that I've created for Instagram that I put on to Tiktok. Instead, I do repurpose reels and tiktoks onto LinkedIn as well. Because because you can do that. So there's a lot of crossover. Yeah, there. You know, I don't swear on LinkedIn. And I swear a lot more on Instagram and Twitter, because I won't get banned there for that.

Rosie Parsons  11:51  
Also, is that is that something we're like? Yeah, if you can be yourself, but there's certain lines you cannot cross on LinkedIn, you get in trouble.

Lea Turner  11:58  
Just have to find different ways of being myself for it, LinkedIn. So I just come up with more creative use of language. Which is a nice challenge. And it's still me being me. It's just, you know, not not with those particular words.

Rosie Parsons  12:16  
Yeah. Okay. And sometimes I've seen like, you've had a few, you do just say what comes into your head sometimes. And then you have some posts that have been a little bit controversial in the past. Can you think of any like that you could talk about and sort of how you felt about those at the time,

Lea Turner  12:29  
weirdly enough, it tends to be the things that I'm not really expecting that that become very controversial. I posted something about stopping taking antidepressants. And I also posted one about starting taking antidepressants because LinkedIn actually, they I've got a creative manager on LinkedIn. So they'll keep in touch with like topics that they want to push. And sometimes I'll go in or actually, I've got something to say on that topic. But it's very rare that I join in their topics because I've got like my own things to talk about. But on this one occasion, it was for Mental Health Awareness week or month. I thought, You know what, this is actually weirdly good timing, because I have just taken my last antidepressant today. So I took a photo of myself holding my empty packet of antidepressants saying this is the last one I'm taking. And I'm so glad that I've got to this point. And it blew up. It was like 2 million views on it or something like that amount of controversy in the comment section. And it wasn't just controversy directed at me it was each other people saying you shouldn't take them, they're bad for you saying that I should just rub all like essential oils on my head and listened to ABA or cry for a few days. And then all these people getting up in arms against each other saying that's really a response. We shouldn't say that. This is really just like, it was so much infighting I thought. It's just talking about. It's like, I'm just trying to like, do my best to open that conversation up. So yeah, that I mean, I'm considering how many followers I have. There's very little controversy this these days. I'm a little bit more sensitive to knowing what is and isn't going to do to create it. I've learned

Rosie Parsons  14:11  
what kind of things would would create it then what should we avoid talking about?

Lea Turner  14:15  
I don't, I'm not saying you should avoid it. It's just if it were to blow up, you have to be kind of prepared to mute the mute the notifications and just like go in the comments. Anytime I tend to touch on feminism, if I post talking about the way you look in the workplace, not needing to be so important that has in the past created a lot of controversy when I've posted saying, you know, I'm really good at my job and you shouldn't care what my time was in response to somebody else's posts. I think that I'd written one like that. When you're talking about like, I get contrastive I talk about being a single mum, I get home and go Well, where's Dad? Was his dad not involved in what? Why You Shouldn't you shouldn't keep him from his father. I'm like, are you really good Really all you know is that you don't like you literally. Right? So you get that kind of controversy. I've also had, like creepy DMS that I posted. And that's created a lot of controversy. And it's usually the men who are guilty of doing those things that again, I grew up. I'm tends to avoid religion and politics just, you know, have broached them in the past. I just don't have the bandwidth to deal with the different opinions and the algorithm.

Rosie Parsons  15:34  
Yeah, that's it. Yeah. That's a really interesting one. Because, yeah, like, church is a big part of my life. And it's difficult when you're trying to be yourself, but then people might have preconceived ideas. And obviously, yeah, religion is a huge thing, like people are gonna get angry. So

Lea Turner  15:52  
I don't think it's a problem to talk about your religion, I think it becomes a problem. When people are trying to force either side, that pushing an agenda, and I will never do that, because I'm not passionately anti religious, but I'm not passionately religious. I'm an atheist. I have no real affinity to any religion, I find it interesting. And I can actually respect people's choices to have their own faith. But I would never not engage with someone because of their religion unless their religion and oppresses others. So for me, it's, I don't broach it, because I don't have anything. I'm not religious, so I don't talk about it because it has no place in my life. Yeah, I have broached the subject when I said, I really find it quite offensive, when you come all over my post and tell me, God's going to smite me and you know, I'm never getting into having some single pet like, you're trying to insult me, but you're not insulting me because I don't believe in this person. You think he's going to smile. So it's more that pushing. And I go the same with vegans, though, like I'm a vegetarian, but I don't push my vegetarian beliefs onto others. And I still get annoyed if a vegan tries to push their agenda onto me. I'm like, back off. It's my choice. And I have to, you're not going to you're not going to ever change someone's mind by being aggressive with your opinions in your

Rosie Parsons  17:11  
that's interesting then. So we've been vegetarian. What reason? Are you vegetarian? And therefore like, is it something that you would like other people to sort of think about the for themselves? And, and if so, like, how come you don't share more about that?

Lea Turner  17:24  
As I started, I haven't eaten meat for 20 years. I started just because I saw a TV show. And I was never a big meat eater. Like I was never someone who sat and chowing down on a steak. I just never really interested me. But I'd have bacon, I have chicken. And then yeah, I watched a TV show that was something about like how things go from your Farm to Plate. And they have these little yellow chickens. And it was Hugh Fern witnessed. I was in this like big thing of chickens. And he picked up this little yellow chicken. And he put it on the electric bar. And then went over his shoulder, throw it back over a shoulder into a basket. I was like, That was no use for me. And I was like, like these tiny little cute fluffy yellow ribbons. And I went, I can't do that. I can't, I can't. And I never even made sense. Yeah. And it was not it wasn't a difficult decision. I just went, I don't need to be me. It was not hard to be vegetarian. 20 years ago as well. It wasn't like amazing ranges in the supermarket. But my son has never eaten meat either. I don't talk about it. Because it's no one else's business. It's my business. It's Michael's what I put into my body, I'm making an informed choice of what I do with my body. And if my son grows up and decides to be a meat eater, that's up to him. He's currently make the choice not to eat meat. He doesn't want to eat meat. He understands where it comes from has made that choice. But if it changes that's up to him. I don't I don't really talk about it. Because I don't find it as something that defines me. I think a lot of people have these characteristics in their life, whether they're a crossfitter or a vegan or they're a climate change activist or they're religious. And they they kind of live in that

Rosie Parsons  19:05  
label. Yeah, they get their identity. Yeah, yeah. And it is. So

Lea Turner  19:09  
I get it because it'd be like the people that they mingle with, and socialise, like the places that they visit and the things that they do with their time revolve around that. So they become quite immersed in it. But for me, my life isn't immersed in being a vegetarian. You won't find it listed on my social media or anywhere. I've never put it on a dating profile, because I'm like, I'm not going to stop anyone else eating meat. So yeah, I just love what I do. Yeah, that's it, really.

Rosie Parsons  19:33  
So what are the topics that you find you're kind of more passionate about that you do want to share more about

Lea Turner  19:38  
empowering one another and bringing confidence up? I think that's a huge one for me. I always want to see people succeed. I don't want to ever feel and I to be honest, I don't ever really feel envy or jealousy. I'm not that kind of person. I'm, I'm a constant cheerleader for those around me. I want to see people have the confidence to talk about who they are what they do. And how could they aren't it and see that grow their business? Women?

Rosie Parsons  20:05  
That's a really nice things. I suppose, as you're coming on, you're thinking you're coming on LinkedIn, you're thinking about how you can improve the lives of people that you're sort of reading your posts, you're not thinking about what they can do for you. So I suppose that's obviously going to attract people to you, isn't it?

Lea Turner  20:20  
Yeah, yeah, I think it's difficult because people will see a version of me online, which is me. But it's also me being a marketer and marketing the product, which is also me. So there's a distinct difference between Leah the mum, and the dog, Mama and the traveller and the introvert with ADHD, that, that gets quite overwhelmed with such a lot of attention. And then there's the product, the brand, that I'm there marketing. And so I will have to I talk openly about the money that I make and the success my clients have, and how good I am at my job. Now, I would never normally say those things like inside, I'm like, this. Comfortable. I also know that if I don't talk confidently about what I'm able to do for people, they're not going to buy into my brand. So it's like if I don't talk like that someone else will and they'll go and work with that person. And I will clients. So I need to forget that it makes me feel uncomfortable when it's not natural to me and just do it because you can't mark it. No one knows what you do. So yeah, there is there is a disconnect between who I am but I love and I always love in every area of my life. And I probably do it to my detriment in supporting others. I'm always the friend people turn to when they've they've got a problem. And I've become kind of the agony on on LinkedIn as well. And I I just like to see people feel good and feel confident, and especially women. You know, I'm I'm super passionate about. I've done a few speaking events with women to help them increase their confidence online and overcome that impostor syndrome that so many of us struggle with. Yeah, female empowerment is something that I I am passionate about, and I'm single parenting, you know, I don't think single parents get enough credit. It's really hard. Really. I talk openly about as well.

Rosie Parsons  22:13  
And like you were saying, like you're an introvert and stuff. And I do find it hard when some of your posts might be a bit controversial then and people might attack you and, and stuff. And how do you feel about when that happens? And how do you get over it?

Lea Turner  22:25  
It hasn't happened in a while. To be honest, back back in the few occasions that it has, I think one of my main coping mechanisms is I just mute the notifications. And I don't go back to the post. And I don't read the comments. In all honesty, that's the best way to cope. Because if I don't know what they're saying, I can't be hurt by it. I mean, there's this entire Reddit channels dedicated to hammering people on LinkedIn and criticising them. And they all just laugh at them and criticise them and say horrible things. The same on Twitter, they've got a few Twitter pages that do that with LinkedIn people. And I'm like, I don't care. And people want every now and then there's someone who send me a screenshot be like, have you seen this? I'm like, I don't care. And I just don't. Because I don't want what other people say people who will never be my clients. Yeah, I don't want what they say to influence how I behave, because what I'm doing is working exceptionally well. And some troll in a basement, saying nasty things because we've lives miserable, is not going to change or impact how I do do my business. And again, it's providing that, you know, they're criticising Lea the brand, but I know who I am. And I know that the people that I care about care about me, and I know that I'm a good person with good intentions. So if they don't like that, it doesn't matter. Like it really does not need to affect my life. So I think out of sight out of mind is a good yeah, that's a good one. And advice. Yeah, it's just protecting yourself ready?

Rosie Parsons  23:59  
Yeah. And also just thinking about you've like thrown some epic parties. I haven't been able to go yet because I'm all the way down and Exeter and stuff but I would really like to go to one of your Christmas parties. And I was thinking when you're saying like your introvert How would you like Like, I've seen a massive fight like that. How do you feel about doing that? And how do you feel afterwards?

Lea Turner  24:19  
So Louis comes with me, who I work with a lot. It's so one of my best friends. Okay. And we work together a lot as well. We work on projects together. He comes with me and is an amazing support for me. He knows when I'm getting over anxious. I usually have a drink before I go in order to just to kind of calm the nerves. I try and take breaks throughout the night because I do find it quite overwhelming when you're in a room with like 120 people and you're the main person all of those people have in common. And you need to get around and talk to everyone and I'm like it's weird because I never considered myself an introvert. Uh, ever like throughout my 20s I never would have described myself as an introvert. But then I realised that that I have been all along. I just used to get smashed before I went out. And so that's how I was like, oh, actually no, now I'm now I don't live that lifestyle and after COVID and working on my own for so long, I've realised that actually, I am an introvert. It's not that I don't like to socialise, but I need quite a lot of time to recover from those those events, but I can't do them all the time. When I'm doing like, if I'm doing impersonal speaking events, or I'm doing, like group coaching and stuff, it's like, I can do it for the few hours that I'm there. But then I go home and I'm like, I need to talk to no one. I need to just completely isolate have quiet dark, and slightly, like recharge my batteries. Yeah,

Rosie Parsons  25:48  
yeah. And in terms of like being a single parent, and you're, you're amazingly like your online loads. And then you've got the Hult community, which like, you're always replying to people's questions in there. And then you're doing training. You're so busy, like how on earth do you manage your schedule around the sun as well and make it all work.

Lea Turner  26:07  
So I'm quite often sat in bed, like replying to messages on Slack, late in the evening, or I'm sat on the sofa with a TV on under a blanket like replying to a few messages to catch up with things. I have absolutely zero balance at all. Terrible, but like my son's at school from like, eight o'clock in the morning till 330. Sometimes he does late clubs. And I try and squish in as much as I can, in those periods. But there's a lot of multitasking going on. Like I'm waiting for his dinner to cook, and I'm replying to a few messages. I've got a VA that does help me and his team, Luke. So he helps me to keep on top of my LinkedIn messages, and inquiries and podcast requests. And like, he does a lot of the booking for me. And I am moving towards having a new lady coming in to help support me with the hopes. And I've got a business ops team that are currently changing things and how my business works to improve my quality of life. And my work life balance. Yeah. Just because I want to move the business forward. And yeah, I'm, I've got to constantly keep innovating and moving forward, and I've got business plans. But what you've said there that lack of balance, that's one of the reasons I'm stopping doing one to one training, because I just can't balance everything. It's too much. And I've got quite close to burnout this last week. I'm like, It's only the second week of January. I can't already. And I hope to Moldova next week, so to help the charity, I'm an ambassador for so. Yeah, it's Oh, wow. Very busy. Yeah.

Rosie Parsons  27:49  
Oh, that sounds great, though. So is your plans for the future to sort of do more online courses and stuff that can be sold to a wider number of people then rather than the one to one training? Or what's your plans?

Lea Turner  28:02  
Yeah, so I've got a digital course that has been selling for the past sort of 18 months, but I've decided to do a brand new one. And I've written it and I'm actually recording it partly tomorrow and hopefully on Monday, so I can hopefully get it edited and ready and out next month. So that's going to be Scott like 70 videos to go in. It's like well, videos, but everything that you need to know about using LinkedIn to grow your business and network is going to be included in that. So that obviously then can sell with adverts and won't need my time. Yeah, that's done very well for me over the last year having one but LinkedIn keeps upgrading things. I'm like, Look, we can start fresh, raising learn, I'm going to do about one now. The whole community is something that I'm growing. And that's an amazing resource for people, especially for like small business owners to have other people to support them and help them and all the maths classes been

Rosie Parsons  28:57  
really helpful. The your Slack channel in there is really good as well, because people will ask questions to you in there. And stuff I wouldn't have thought of but I'm like, oh, that's an interesting question. It's quite nice just to be able to pop in there and see what Yeah,

Lea Turner  29:10  
asking and the fact that we've got so many different professions in their means that pretty much any question you've got business related, there's somebody in there that can help you, or if at the very least connect you with somebody that can help you or has a resource that you can use, which is amazing to have that collaboration. But I'm moving my one to ones to group training. So I'm going to be doing a six week group programmes where I'll train people live once a week. And then they'll get tasks and then they'll have a community support like a Slack channel where they can egging each other on. And we'll have someone that manages that to keep them on task and gives them feedback over what they're producing. And we're going to do that over six weeks with tonnes and tonnes of resources included with it. And I'm hoping to launch that in the spring so that will then replace my one to ones I probably still will do one to ones every now and then but it will be on a case by case very special. Every premium right? Because it's not going to be a regular services. Yeah, it's

Rosie Parsons  30:03  
gonna say, didn't you? You just had a celebrity client, didn't you?

Lea Turner  30:07  
I did yesterday. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah. Yeah. Don't

Rosie Parsons  30:10  
be a celebrity was cool. Yeah. Brad Pitt. Yeah. Sometimes

Lea Turner  30:15  
they've got million Instagram followers, and I'm trying to grow my Instagram. But by no, it was really good actually. I've been working with some of the people I work with are just incredible. Like, I sit there with the ex CEO of Unilever or someone who's got like a nine figure, business portfolio and you're like, what on earth? Why are they here with me? But But yeah, it just makes you realise everybody's a normal person. Yeah. Including the celebrity.

Rosie Parsons  30:45  
Yeah. Oh, that's cool, though. That's great. Okay, so Oh, okay. So how do you hide the mask? Because we've covered that when I spoke. Yeah, I was gonna ask, how about your ecosystem of products and services. But I think we've kind of covered that. So you're constantly coming up with new content ideas, and you're sending out prompts as well to people that are part of the Hult, which always really good each month? How on earth do you manage to think of all these like new things to say, each month,

Lea Turner  31:12  
I've got a naturally very creative brain. But usually what happens is, while I'm scrolling through LinkedIn, looking at other people's content, I'll get inspired for an idea that would work well in the hopes or for the content prompts. And I note it down, and then I so I have like a Google Doc that I just add ideas to as they pop up. And it's usually it's not usually there's not often something actually, somebody's posted on LinkedIn. But I've got actually all that prompted another idea in my head. So if I create that as a prompt, hopefully, they'll that'll get them thinking. And the beautiful thing is, you'd never know that people are using my prompts, because they don't come out with the same kind of posts every time. And that's

Rosie Parsons  31:49  
amazing. Yeah, your the way you managed to phrase it is really good. How, you know, I think, like when I did a little while back was about share a recent piece of press you've had, and that obviously, like, no one's gonna realise that if somebody else does that, that we're like doing the same prompt, because it's, it is very different. And plus, they're timeless, aren't they? So you don't have like, no one's gonna, like, if I do it last month, and I could do it again, tomorrow, and it wants to be good. Yeah.

Lea Turner  32:15  
And that's, I do. So there's 20 of those that go out every month. I also give them away with my webinars. So there's like, over 200 of them, I think that you can download in the whole at the moment. But I'm planning to launch those as a standalone subscription as well. So people can just buy those, once they've bought my digital course. It'll be like an upsell. And people can just sign up and get 20 content prompts a month into their, into their inbox for a small fee. Right?

Rosie Parsons  32:41  
Yeah, that's really good. That's brilliant. And what are the biggest mistakes that you see other people making on LinkedIn? And it kind of like, we'll see something as you're scrolling down? Or cringe Oh, no.

Lea Turner  32:51  
Oh, God, there's so many. The big one that I always say about is people having no profile photo visible, because you're not going to grow and you're not going to build trust. If people can't see your Facebook, the majority of people don't realise their profile photo is set to private. So there's probably going to be at least one person listening to this podcast that will go Oh, actually, I'll go and check and go. Oh, my God, it's been on private all this time. Because every time I talk about it, it happens. Because that's a huge one. Because you just can't grow trust with your brand. If people don't know you are Yeah, another one is people just not posting. Right. That's a huge one. Because you can't get any benefit from LinkedIn. If you don't engage. You can't, if you don't post, if you're never commenting, and nobody knows you're there, you're basically just standing in the corner of a party with a bag. No one has a clue that you're more or what point in being there at all. If you're only ever going to consume, you might be learning stuff. But the minute you start engaging with people, or that's when the opportunity starts to happen. I think the biggest mistake people make is just their profile overall, they won't feel their profile improperly. So anything that they do, so everything we do on LinkedIn, whether we're commenting or posting content, we want people to go on our profile and find out what we do and contact us and potentially want to work with us. And if your profile isn't filled in, or it's filled in with a section from your CV 10 years ago, or you've got a headline, that's just your job title, but doesn't tell anybody actually what you do for people why I should want to work with you. There's just so many amazing things and resources you can use in your profile is so much better than any other social media for actually creating a profile and people don't use it to its full full potential. So yeah, everything they do is kind of like okay, cool. You do that, but I get your profile and it's rubbish. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's that overall is gonna be the biggest mistake. Just crappy profiles.

Rosie Parsons  34:44  
Yeah. Cool. And how much time would you say that you spend on marketing each week? Because I can imagine it sounds like it'd be a lot

Lea Turner  34:54  
too much to write. In fact, I've been banned this week as Probably not allowed posts, but I'm like, oh god posts. I'm launching a charity book today. So I can't not post today. I yeah, I do spend a lot of time. But, you know, to in my defence, I'm not that busy in the evenings because I have a child. So I'm sort of sat on the sofa, doing things creating Instagram content, because what else am I gonna do, I've got the TV on, I've got the dog on my lap, and I'm just sitting there and I enjoy it. Like, I enjoy the challenge. I enjoy being busy. I enjoy creating content. I love to write and you know, canvas like therapy for me, I just sit there with, with focus music on in my headphones on the sofa, just being all creative and creating graphics. And that's, that's part of the joy for me is is doing that stuff. It's actually if I can get if I could get paid 200 grand a year just to sit make Canva content all day long.

Rosie Parsons  35:56  
So how many times a day are you posting on LinkedIn or use? Like once a day, or

Lea Turner  36:01  
usually once a day, sometimes twice a day? Some days? Not at all. If I'm really really busy, I won't post at all. It just depends on how much time I have to actually engage because don't like posting when I can't engage with people. Yeah, sometimes I have to but but generally, I would say between four and seven times a week every week that I posted on Instagram is usually at least once a day Twitter's whenever I remember. Tik Tok taking one for fortnight. Right? And everything from Insta automatically posted to Facebook, but I don't really use Facebook. Yeah. It's not really my thing. So yeah, I do a lot of time marketing, but I don't do any paid marketing at the moment. But that's coming. And that might mean that I can reduce how much I'm posting.

Rosie Parsons  36:46  
Yeah.

Lea Turner  36:49  
Yeah, year to be to be less, posting less, because I need more time to grow. Another business that I've got an idea for that I'd like to start. It's just I don't have the capacity yet. Which is, again, part of why the one two ones are coming to an end. Yeah. Oh, that

Rosie Parsons  37:06  
sounds really exciting. And so just to finish up, if people are keen to learn more from you about LinkedIn, where should they stop?

Lea Turner  37:15  
If you're an Instagram person? I'm Lea does LinkedIn Lea without the H? If so I'm the same on Twitter and Tiktok as well. And I think YouTube or just put in Leah on LinkedIn and you're probably not the one with the rainbow or LEA Turner dot code at UK that's where you can get all my free resources pod all the other podcasts that I've been on giving away tips and tricks video. Yeah. tonnes of stuff.

Rosie Parsons  37:41  
Awesome. Well, that's pretty well. Thanks very much for joining us today. That's been really helpful

Unknown Speaker  37:45  
having me it's been a pleasure.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai