EE098 – Tony K. Silver

Tony Winyard 0:00
Exceeding expectations Episode 98. In this week’s episode, we speak with a man called Tony Silver, who is an expert on helping you get the best out of LinkedIn. And we hear some, some stories of how you can use LinkedIn in a way that really helps your business and people to find out much more about you and what you do and how you can help them. So that’s this week’s episode, which will be going to be here in just a few seconds. exceeding expectations is the podcast, where we give you ideas on how you can be better at your business, get better results, get better testimonials and referrals and enjoy what you do at the same time. If you do like this episode, why not share it with someone if you know anyone who struggles with LinkedIn, you could really do with some of the information it’s only shares. Please do share the episode with them and Why not leave a review for us and maybe Subscribe at the same time for this week’s episode.

exceeding expectations. And my guest today, I think for the first time ever, I’m speaking with another Tony. So Tony hello.

Tony K. Silver 1:17
Another Tony. Look of Tony, Tony, Tony, that we’ve come across before.

Tony Winyard 1:22
So, this is Tony silver, and you’re a LinkedIn expert.

Tony K. Silver 1:28
Yeah, it’s Tony K. Silver and I’m a LinkedIn profile. The “K” is quite important. The reason for that was that if you put Tony K. Silver into LinkedIn or into Google, guess who you find?

Tony Winyard 1:43
And what, if you just search Tony Silver. Who would I find?

Tony K. Silver 1:48
There’s a famous TV film director in America at one stage who was a porn star. So yeah, I kind of wanted to be sort of unique and not even particularly with that.

Tony Winyard 1:59
I can understand that. You mentioned that you specialise in LinkedIn? How long have you been doing that?

Tony K. Silver 2:09
I first joined LinkedIn in 2006. But I really started using in 2008, when I found myself made redundant, but as fee for actually a business, the business started about two and a half years ago. And I yeah, I just love it. There’s so much to be learned for the masses about LinkedIn that I have a continual supply of people to talk to that’s really really, really interesting.

Tony Winyard 2:34
And so how did it come about were you started helping people and so on to to use LinkedIn efficiently.

Tony K. Silver 2:43
It’s I was working with the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce, and I was meeting lots of people. I spent three and a half years running their events programme. So I was meeting people from Microsoft and Dell and otoo and other large companies based in Thames Valley. And I was making some great friends great. connections. My wife gets a, you’re not making any money out of all this and you’re giving a lease great LinkedIn tips away to them. Wouldn’t it be worthwhile? And I said, Yes. But you know, I’ve run a business before, I know that to run a business, you need certain things in place, and want to use money for a cash flow, you know, at least three to four months cash flow in the business. And so I basically made sure that when I started my company in April 2018, I had the money in the business, I actually had four or five people already within my team on a contract basis. So it wasn’t on my own from day one. And actually, you know, if I didn’t make any money in the first year, it wasn’t going to be an issue, which let me get on with what I do best.

Tony Winyard 3:45
And why is it that why do you think it is that people struggle with LinkedIn so much?

Tony K. Silver 3:51
I think it’s a lack of information. Now LinkedIn started 2003 uS 2004 in the UK, and really for For many, many years, it was just an online CV and a lot of people joined during that period of time uploaded their CV tinkered with it, I kind of left it didn’t really understand what was going on. It kind of changed 2011 and 2012 and became a proper bonafide business tool. But LinkedIn didn’t really promote it, they still to this day, you will hear adverts on the radio and see stuff on TV, which promotes their job side, the job recruitment side of it, and they invest a lot of money in some great tools in their flat, to actually promote yourself and get business out of LinkedIn. There’s nothing really that LinkedIn is actually showing you. So a lot of people just sitting there on LinkedIn, and really not too sure how they should use it.

Tony Winyard 4:48
And do you have any thoughts as to why LinkedIn don’t promote them?

Tony K. Silver 4:53
I don’t actually know but it’s to me a massive favour. So don’t Delve too deeply into that because if they started doing lots of things, programmes and other such things in trainers, like myself could find ourselves up against them, they kind of use us because there’s sort of a super user group. And we do get information from LinkedIn, through the grapevine ahead of the general public. And then we leave that to the general public. So it’s, it kind of works both ways. It’s quite useful that they don’t get involved in it, don’t know why they make their money out of the HR side of it. And the thing is that, if you know what you’re doing, you can actually use LinkedIn and the free version to do most of the things that my training is based upon the free version, I don’t get involved in LinkedIn premium, or Sales Navigator at all. So they don’t make money on that side. So they probably don’t invest too much into that side,

Tony Winyard 5:44
I know in the past the results that you’ve got for some people, which will probably really surprise some other people listening to this who may not be aware of how powerful LinkedIn can be. Like Anthony Stears

Tony K. Silver 6:10
Anthony doesn’t answer these days as I know is great. The assassin. Yeah. I met Anthony a few years ago now. And we were he was always sort of resting for me to sort of sit down with him on his LinkedIn profile. I think it’s because it was one of those ones that hadn’t moved on at all. And when waiting for a seminar to start, we both got early and we’re having coffee, which I’m well known for doing, getting early and having coffee. And give me give me your laptop, you know, I won’t have to go. I said, Well, you can do I said, well, would kissing you up for the search engines and getting you near the top of the tree be of use to you so what do you mean? I said, Well, you know, let’s let’s put searching for what again? Well, what do you call yourself? You know, you’re a professional speaker. Okay. So We put that into LinkedIn search engine, push a button. And you know, there’s millions. And we looked at the list and we got to the first 50. And it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I said, leave me alone for five minutes, went away to his laptop. Did when I do come back, I said, push that button now. He was at number one in the world. And yes, that actually, I believe got him some business on the back of it. It certainly got him some attention that he never had before. And yeah, he thought, yeah, it’s really, really powerful when you know what you’re doing.

Tony Winyard 7:36
Obviously that’s completely changed his perception of what LinkedIn could be as well, I guess?

Tony K. Silver 7:41
Yeah. In another case, a gentleman we both know really well, and we work with which is Warren Cass, also in the speaking world. And he’s well known all over the world. He’s been on LinkedIn for a while and let me loose on his profile and he proposed back that within days, he saw a 500% increase in activity and engagement, and also the offers of some work from people you’ve never heard of before. So yeah, I think people from being anonymous to being highly visible.

Tony Winyard 8:18
And so we could mean it as you were saying that it’s not most people just think of LinkedIn as a kind of glorified place to put your CV’s at. So what are some of the other benefits that he or what are some of the benefits that you can get from having a well optimised profile on LinkedIn?

Tony K. Silver 8:36
Yeah, I mean, the optimization very much. I call it SEO for LinkedIn, people push. And yeah, it is it is about ultimately, for me and my clients. It’s about being found when you’re not in the room. And what I mean by that is, it’s all about poor marketing, not push. My Muslim friends tell me that push marketing is dying, and it’s far better on the poor side. So I what I do is I set people’s profiles up that they get found regularly in searches. And then my vital, then could people find them in searches, and they will engage with them. I also show them actually, it’s probably one of the top five search engines in the world. And I show them how to actually do proper searches within the standard. LinkedIn. Again, you can pay LinkedIn for Sales Navigator. But in my particular instance, I can take a typical example of Mountain Time, which is one that is going to grow unfortunately, and people will say, Yeah, I kind of need to get in touch with HR directors and work out why we’re talking about that at that moment in time. And I think I did it yesterday for someone It was 1.8 3 million people. And if you say, Well, if anyone can actually sit and go through that list, and they’re a lot younger than me, because I’ll probably dive I get to the end of it. But by using a standard LinkedIn, I can turn that on. list to read about 50 names in less than 90 seconds. So I’m using it as a massively searchable database to give you good results in pretty quick time. So that really helps people as well. And I say, I didn’t say to him well, the one thing on LinkedIn, it is a database people will find you with they’ve been networking or they’ve been referred to you, etc. They’re gonna land on your profile, and they can make judgments. And they’ll judge me based around certain things on LinkedIn. But in today’s marketing parlance, it’s all about what’s in it for me, the viewer. And by the way, I’m only going to spend five or seven seconds looking at your profile before I decide whether to engage.

Tony Winyard 10:46
What do you think are the mistakes people make in on their profiles on LinkedIn? When I haven’t spoken to someone like yourself?

Tony K. Silver 10:55
I think the classic ones and I say I it’s never anyone’s fault because I’ve never been told I would say your that you are where you are, because it’s you’ve never been told any difference. And you know, I’m just about to put that right for you. But as for important areas, when anyone lands on your profile, whatever device they’re using, they will see four key areas. And the biggest mistake is the LinkedIn banner, which is the pattern that goes across top your profile is to have the LinkedIn banner, which is the standard blue bar or white, white lines going across it. The reason I say that is that actually, when you are looking at someone’s profile, and we’re looking to engage, there’s a very massive area and people are very visually orientated. So in there that needs to be a message which says, Hi, looking at me, this is what I can do for you. The the profile picture which again is always a great area for debate, but you know, professionally looking not to say you have to pay professionals take the photographs of us suggest you do So looking one head and shoulders gets the playing background gets 14 times more engagement. So why wouldn’t you do it, then we move on to an area which has, so this is quite timely within the last 10 days, the headline has changed. Now this was what people had as their job titles. And now, for quite a few years, it hasn’t been that, but they increase the number of characters that you can use in there. That’s become quite useful. And what I do is I say to people, you know what, I’m looking at profile, it’s what can you do for me? So tell me, you’re the CEO of this company. So what it doesn’t actually mean a great deal to me. If you tell me, I should use mine as example, because honestly, that’s real. You know, would you like your LinkedIn profile to create leads and revenue with a big question mark. So as a LinkedIn profile, I can show you how literally in the last 10 days, the headline on LinkedIn has changed. There was a I think it was hundred and 20 140 characters. I can’t remember A lot of people still have their job titles. So CEO of this and director of that, unfortunately, that didn’t say a lot, because it doesn’t really matter what you eyes what you can do for me. So they’ve increased to 220 characters. And what I tell my clients is good way, getting people engaged. So when asked a question, for example, my question is, would you like LinkedIn to actually produce leads and revenue for you? big question mark. As a LinkedIn profile, I can show you how engaging people people like answering questions, but with this extra characters, you can embellish it a little bit more. There’s also one area that I spotted that actually on the mobile devices, and we’re not using them as much now to look at people’s profiles as we were before lock them for lockdown. It was about 80% of everyone looking at LinkedIn profile, did it on their phones, that this first 30 characters are what follows you around. So what I mean by that is if you are on LinkedIn, and you then go and making comments or in a group or a post or you go look at someone’s profile, etc. headshot follows you, and then your headline does. But on the app because it’s a cut down version, the first 30 characters only are visible. So you need to those first 30 characters actually make sense. Because otherwise you could be halfway through a word, or you know, it doesn’t actually make a full sentence. And that really is something that people need to be weighed aware of. So mine is demystifying people’s LinkedIn. That is the first 30 characters it makes sense as a little tip for people out there and it’s only just changed. And then the last bit is the much maligned about section. I can actually see the first three lines of your about section on the device before I have to push the See More button. And again, I’m still wanting to know what it is you can do for me. Once I push that see more button, then you can go straight into promotional mode. You know, tell me how good you are and what you can do for me and all the experiences you’ve got, etc. So that kind of is a key part of LinkedIn is that five or seven seconds? Those four areas? They’re not right. There are plenty of other people out there that are going to be in the same search as you. And that is there are no such things as USPS. You know, myself, I’m a LinkedIn profile. There’s about 1600 of us on LinkedIn. You know, there’s plenty of other people they could choose. Because of what I know and how I do I always appear in the top one or two in the world. What I’m looking for my clients isn’t teaching not to get them as high as that but to kill him up in the search rankings. And then when people find them, they are going yeah, that’s the sort of person I would engage with.

Tony Winyard 15:45
Hmm. So for a lot of people who maybe believe that well, people maybe are using Facebook now to do advert, advert someone ever for their business. And probably there’ll be some of those people aren’t aware of they could maybe get better results on LinkedIn. Is it a case that LinkedIn is only would be better for certain industries? Or is that not the case?

Tony K. Silver 16:10
It’s a question I get asked quite a bit. And the law a lot of b2c people that I meet who think that LinkedIn isn’t for them. And a something that probably are they are right and that Facebook is a better place for them. But actually look at your avatar, the person now this prime example is the IFA is in independent financial advisors, because they were going around people’s houses and giving them advice, etc. They sort of put themselves in the BC category. And actually think what are those people do to actually have the financial acumen and the money to actually spend on these sort of things. They’re probably a management level, and therefore, they’re likely to be on LinkedIn. There’s 28 million registered user accounts in the UK. And it’s only just over 30 million people employed In the UK, so yeah, majority of people in the UK, regardless of what sort of an issue in tend to be on LinkedIn, now, you know, some a suit some more than others. And certainly b2b is suits far better than b2c. But it’s not most of the b2c customers be really, really quite successful on there.

Tony Winyard 17:22
And what about the Chris? There’s groups on LinkedIn and it seems I would impression I haven’t you yet, correct me if I’m wrong, is that many people aren’t even aware to folks on LinkedIn.

Tony K. Silver 17:32
It depends how long they’ve been on there. Because for those that don’t know, in 2016, a little American company called Microsoft spent 26 point 2 billion, their chump change to buy LinkedIn. And they changed an awful lot of things. And you know, I have to say not all of them for the better. And one thing was groups and so prior to 2016 groups were extremely powerful. I ran a couple of myself, one of the groups that I We’ll add to the 30,000 pound contract by collaborating within the group. And it was really, really powerful, they shut it down almost, when they took over, they stuck it down in the bottom of the profile in the interest. And if you were to actually post within the group, no one was actually seeing it and this actually went to the group. So the communication cut off of his legs. It’s coming back slowly. But I certainly suggest people look at groups and there’s two ways that I Satan’s best. One is have a look at three or four groups where your avatar will live the person that’s your ideal clients and geographically groups they know where you’re where you do your trading. Look at industries that you do with going enjoying those groups and joining the discussions. And you know, it you’re here thing is that you start making yourself out to be an expert in your field, getting people to know you through the group settings, it is still a useful tool to have I actually run two or three groups still. And one of them is for my paying clients. And I put information in there for the clients. And for me, it is information I get from LinkedIn, put in there before general public here. So I’m giving value in there as well. And if I put messages in there, all my LinkedIn members do actually get a notification of it. It’s not like the old days where it used to go to the feed everything else and it was really, really good. But I still think it is a good way of getting your communications out there. It’s something that people really get, they don’t really understand what it’s all about. It’s something we’re covering and like it will only get more powerful because we are continually kicking it Linksys door to do some changes.

Tony Winyard 19:48
And you were telling me about you recently did a proposal for an events company that will in turn, tell us about that.

Tony K. Silver 19:54
Yeah, so COVID-19 unfortunately has affected a lot of company Nice, Lucky position with my company was always set up to do work online. But I engaged with an events company through a networking group that I belong to, she just set it up. And it looked good, lovely launch, etc. And she said, Yes, I’d like you to fill out my LinkedIn profile. So as of yet no problems at all. This is the process, which I started. And then you know, 23rd of March with I remember the date, we were put in lockdown, and, you know, basically killed the events, industry, and plans all went west. He said, like, really afford to go ahead with this, like, I’m not certain about my future. And for me, I don’t want to do something that I can’t pay you for. And don’t worry about it. You know, from my point of view, you have got a great idea here. And I don’t think I should be holding you back by not helping you. And we’re going to do it on your profile. We’re going to sit through the implementation. You’re going to do the changes and you’re going to get yourself ready for when we’re out of this financially Don’t worry about it, I will invoice you you just pay up spit the invoice into to actually is what I did. And I said to you pay me when you can you know I know you I know people that know you know like and trust comes kicking in the door and therefore I’m more than happy to do this as investment in your future and if you do good things good things come back and it’s particularly case you said well one of the venues that she’s been working with wants to lay on a speaking based events on a regular basis and by the way, which you become one of our regulars. So you know what comes around goes around. Exactly.

Tony Winyard 21:44
So what are the things of you know, we talked about what instead an example when we were talking about before Anthony and etc is are there any other example examples you can think of where you’ve been able to get people results far beyond what they bought? Probably Because I didn’t realise the power of LinkedIn. Yeah, I

Tony K. Silver 22:03
mean, I was asked to do some statistics. And on average, in a year’s period, I went and surveyed 40 of my clients. And they got an 88% increase in sales, which was directly attributable to what I was doing with them. Which is really, really useful. Yeah. Engagement up to 500%. And other people were getting inquiries from people that they hadn’t ever met before, because I’d make them highly visible on there. So yeah, I guess I mean, the best thing to do is a lot of things that one of the areas that LinkedIn is so much underused is recommendations. Notes. I mean, I’m in there. I’m asking for recommendations every month, and I’m aiming to get to and I get them up on LinkedIn as quick as possible, because he just shows people that I’m currently doing good work and I just think that I try and exceed expectations for people on a regular basis. So I actually offer people a three month helpline. It’s not built into my products, I just feel that working with some people that it will be useful for them to do. And of course, it comes as a shock to them in a pleasant surprise that they’ve got this ability to give me a call, send me a message for up to three months after we’ve done the implementation. So don’t get stuck, you know, they don’t quite understand or something slightly changed. So they can give me a call, I can message me on LinkedIn. And I will tend to do a little video, I’m going to videos at the moment of time and a couple of free Chrome extensions, and I will send them a video which again, exceed expectations, they don’t just get an answer. They get a complete walkthrough of how to actually unblock them and solve the challenges.

Tony Winyard 23:51
Just then you talking about you get them to do the recommendations. I do people tend to use the recommendation Say for potential.

Tony K. Silver 24:02
No. And as a statistic that I use when I’m talking to clients, is that probably looks going to say over 10,000 probably a lot more than that LinkedIn profiles over the years, the number of people have actually got more than 10 recommendations is probably 7%. If that people don’t ask, there seems to be this sort of slight Britishness about not wanting to be rejected. And I say potentially you have complete control when you use a LinkedIn recommendation, and I then show them how but what you could happen is that you put a surgeon and the person comes up. And you know, as I said before, there’s always more than one person that’s going to come up in a search, and they got as the recommendations in person A has got 40 recommendations, and the last one they have was two weeks ago. Okay? Pretty good. Look at Person B, two recommendations. And the last one was eight years old. Who We choose to go with? Yeah, yeah. So I don’t think they use it enough. And I think you know, to get into the top 7%. But just getting in double figures is not going to be that hard for most people, they just got to get off. Get away from this sort of fear, because you have control, you don’t have to show recommendation that someone says if you don’t want to, and if you don’t like it, you can ask him to rewrite it or change it. So you can have the you have control. It’s not like a comment on one of your posts where people can basically put they want the recommendation, you don’t have to show it so you have control. So get out there and ask for their recommendations. It’s been like testimonials or website, you couldn’t do it. So why aren’t you doing on LinkedIn?

Tony Winyard 25:51
How can you think LinkedIn might change in the next few years?

Tony K. Silver 25:57
People would say you know, you’ve put all your eggs into LinkedIn by Escape, you’re not worried about that. I, my wife, and I say I’m not, there is nothing out there. That’s remotely close to it, there’s been a few things that have come and gone. But because of the size of the database, and the fact that it’s Microsoft owned, means it’s here at is going to be for nest is going to change. One of the latest rumours is that you know, we have these stories version on Facebook and other Instagram other places, the boys version of posts and things coming to LinkedIn. So they are continually looking to develop things not always great when they brought emotions onto it. And you know, most of us Cirrus users just laugh at what the hell they’re playing out. And then I’ll catch up with the likes of Facebook on certain things, but they are continually evolving and say with the last official figure I had was January. So I’m a bit out of date, and I don’t like that, but I’m going to guess now that the total number of like counts is in the region of 685 million worldwide. And the interesting thing is they claim to be in 200 countries around the world shames only under 96 countries but, you know, slight insight on their behalf, but they have massive reach, you know, 685,000,080 5 million, whatever it is currently. It’s it’s massive, and it’s not going to be going away. People still have a lot to learn to say 90% of the people I meet are not using it to its full potential for themselves. So there’s so much more expansion that can be can be used. Yeah, I’m, I’m completely convinced that if you were and I fully intend to have a beer with you in 10 years time, Tony, I still believe the same thing. Just to me, it would have evolved slightly which way it goes. I’m not too sure but they they think with on a regular basis.

Tony Winyard 27:54
There are no there’s lots of sort of add on tools and the guy was telling me about Tofu duck soup. To you familiar with that? And what do you think about

Tony K. Silver 28:06
18 helper duck soup is there’s a few of them around there and that there was a big issue a while ago. And the issue was that weren’t in actually, if you look at the terms and conditions that you didn’t read when you joined LinkedIn in the first place, it excluded you from using these types of programmes, and LinkedIn scrapers as they became known. So if LinkedIn found you using them, they close your account down. No prior warning, just you know, you sign the terms and conditions, you’ve broken them goodbye. They’re getting a little bit clever. I mean, duck soup, and the likes are making themselves into Chrome extensions now. So LinkedIn doesn’t quite understand what’s going on. It doesn’t work quite so blatant. For me, and again, it’s a massive discussion is I’m not massively into automation, the other LinkedIn trainers that go out there and we’ll just promote it. I’m not interested in getting 100 new connections a day, I’m more about quality, and things such as duck soup law, they’re all about automation, which is useful. But if you’re just piling people in, and trying to get to that 30,000 limits, which is the current limit of number collections that you can have. I’ve been to the point I sit around about 2800. And I’m proud to say that I’ve met 2007 of those people that shook their hands. Mine’s all about building a network. It’s all about relationship building. And yeah, people say to me, Well, you know, would you be in Could you give me 100 new connections and all this? I said, Well, yeah, I can do not a problem but is a plumber in Grimsby and Grimsby and he used to you, my brother, get someone who actually fits your demographic and it’s a completely good fit with your avatar. Again, these automation tools are out there. Yeah, I’m not a massive fan of them, but doesn’t I mean, they don’t do a good job for certain people trying to achieve certain things. And that’s the thing about LinkedIn is every single client I talked to had a slightly different reason for what they want to get out of it. And so my most vital part of what I do is my initial discovery call where people just to find out what it is, I can’t assume that I know what it is they need our LinkedIn. Often I’m writing, you know, I’d rather they said to me, I’m trying to do this. I’m trying to do that. And then yeah, and I’ve turned people down. I mean, I’ve just done a five day who fight a challenge and one person came on and then the whole aim was to get to 30,000 as quick as they possibly could. I just had found out that the sort of thing I want to be doing, so yeah, it’s horses for courses. There are other trainers out there that will probably have taken that person on but they, they there are programmes out there. Be careful. LinkedIn will not be stupid enough to realise that you’re using them and you have to Silent agreements says you won’t be using that sort of thing.

Tony Winyard 31:04
You made a good point is there actually about the networking aspect of LinkedIn? And I think maybe that can be easily forgotten about the Well, I know, for example, you’ve got an amazing networking background to use to network extensively for a number of years in your sort of local area. And so that’s probably why I’m guessing that’s why you understand LinkedIn so well.

Tony K. Silver 31:27
Um, I mean, I think they’re intrinsically linked together. And of course, of course, I would do and when I started my business, I also thought I will be doing network training. Yeah, I’ve been networking Thames Valley for 1214 years, till about 1700 events. But am I you know, I always had a plan. Again, a lot of people don’t have plans when they go to networking. They just go there, have a coffee, have a chat and try to get as many cards as they can, which to me is not what I’m after, while I’m going to a network event for is to find two or three people who I would then To a one to one meeting. But the first thing I’ll do is invite them to join my network on LinkedIn. And you know, it will be. I’m all about engagement. So actually, if people don’t engage in the process, I do that really weird thing of every month, I call people from my LinkedIn connections.

Tony Winyard 32:20
And why is that?

Tony K. Silver 32:21
Because they haven’t engaged now I’ve made it very, you know, I’m very honest, you know, this is why I’m looking to connect with you. So it could be that I’m looking to see to help you. Do joint venture with you potentially buy from you. But I’m all about engagement. And the first thing whenever I do a connection request, which I always personalise, essentially everyone else is I send a message out immediately, so only accepted or accepted. They’re saying, Hi, I’m all about engagement. Really want to know I can help you. If you could let me know. It’d be great to have a one to one. Now, if someone doesn’t respond to that in the first one. Hey, we’re all busy. I get that. So I’m trying name. I won’t try Too many more times after that, to find that Well, actually, the I’ve been linked into this person for three months, but I’ve done absolutely nothing, no made no attempt to actually gauge me. Therefore, I need him in my network. My opinion is I don’t

Tony Winyard 33:17
like that kind of Facebook page, I’m under the understanding is that the, the way the algorithm works is if you get, say 3000 people who like your page, and 2900 of them never engaged with the page, Facebook then kind of penalise you as such individuals. Any content you post gets shown to less and less people is it similar with LinkedIn

Tony K. Silver 33:42
it is it is similar. So it is all about engagement. So one of the one of the things I teach people, it’s about the activities required. And post posting on LinkedIn is the most common and it’s you know, one of the better ways of doing it, but if you’re getting on it is a series of likes, you know, thousands of people like my posts. Again, go back to that say, what sporting game Have you got from it? What interaction Have you got with it? That’s where? So I would if I go and engage with my clients posts, which obviously I do, because they’re my clients, I will always make sure that I do comments and I share which is gets a gets me indexing, but it gets them far more exposure. And then that works. Just liking something itself is a bit pointless to be honest with it.

Tony Winyard 34:32
So it sounds like from what you’re saying that people probably should be going through their LinkedIn contacting con connections and calling quite a few people.

Tony K. Silver 34:42
Again, it’s a personal other people will say no, as I say there are people that want to get to 30,000 and want to know why they’re restricted. I have a judgement or judgement we will know. Angela Parton. Not any more than 600. And we’ve had a discussion about This and, you know, when when I sort of sent the collection request to him when we had a discussion about it, and he led me through the gate, and I’m on LinkedIn to him, and I can’t quite understand that his point of views, that’s the maximum number of people that you could actually handle dealing with anymore. And it was just, it was just too much. And probably, if I really got a load of time on my hand, and I hadn’t look at all my 2000 100 connections, let me give it another go. Who are they? Hmm. So I can’t tell him where he comes from. But I’m happy between two and a half and 3000. I think like give them value. And you know, they do engage on a regular basis.

Tony Winyard 35:42
And from what you’re saying, it sounds like you know, someone gets to 2520 or even a magical 30,000 number. It’s purely a vanity exercise.

Tony K. Silver 35:51
Yeah, I was all you know, they just want to spam everyone. Hmm. And that’s what worries me is that you know, we’re 30 Thousand nuclear just yeah. You can’t have a relationship with 30,000 people like that. Yeah,

Tony Winyard 36:07
look. I know apart from LinkedIn, I know you’ve got your fingers in a few other pies and you’ve recently started doing some voiceover work.

Tony K. Silver 36:18
Yeah, that was it came out of a conversation. I had a networking event with a professional speaker, who says, I really like your voice, I think your voice over something you’re to look at, and it’s something I’ve never considered before. He said he had a contact. He tried to hook us up and that never really happened. And then, as I say, I didn’t used to believe in karma, but I’d certainly do now. And I came across this lady, and I don’t remember exactly how. But I had raised a one to one meeting with her. I just liked her. And yeah, I’m now being trained by her and she He’s opened up my eyes. She’s introduced me to gravy for the brain, which is a website, a membership based website, which is all about voiceover work. And it is completely and I know you’ve done voiceover work, and it’s completely different from public speaking. If I’m up on stage, I’m going to project my voice and reached back to the room. But when I’m talking on a voiceover, it’s a bit more like this podcast. It’s more conversational style. It’s more me and you. And there are massive difference. differences. So even if we recorded this podcast in a year’s time, that should be a dramatic difference in the way that I come across. Because I’m in the process of learning. And I do make mistakes but it’s great fun, record stuff, send it to her. She lets me know where I’m going wrong. And yeah, voiceover work. This quite a demand for it is this. We are really surprised. There’s like, 20 different Individual categories that we’ll look at. So yeah, obviously this is fantastic and I training now, but I think that 2020 I will be adding to it as one of my revenue streams.

Tony Winyard 38:13
Hmm. One, is there been any times where you’ve been surprised by you know, your own expectations have been surpassed?

Tony K. Silver 38:24
Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s recent, and it is going to be local. It’s going to be on a fairly low scale. But I am a coffee lover, which by networking is can be enjoyable for me or can be disastrous depending on the coffee. I’ll have been known when I used to work for the Chamber of Commerce to actually send the coffee back. But I love coffee and I met this lady, local networking event as he was LinkedIn local. And she said she was roasting coffee locally. So I thought great, I love supporting local businesses. I’ll give you a card And it never happens straightaway. But I then sort of she got herself up and running. So yeah. Okay, I’d like to try some. What do you you know, what do you recommend to any discussion on that sort of coffee that I’d like, etc. And, yeah, I mean, service I got from her was fantastic. I bought the coffee that she recommended, but she also put in some samples of two or three others. And she’s done that on a regular basis ever since, you know, because I’m very much pro her. I definitely promote her online. But her service levels are just fantastic. And you know, she lets me know as soon as it’s left, she’s pretty. She’s pretty in the post office and it should be on its way to me and when I received it, and I just put it all Sophos on the house like you might be interested in and it’s you just feel really, you know, appreciated your pieces. It’s not massive emphasis on giving it because only so much coffee, one can drink, but the coffee’s exclusive. She’s Lovely Lady, but it’s just a attention to detail just making sure I feel really, really, you know, I’m not gonna go anywhere else. There’s no way he treats me. Um, so it is a total service. Yeah, I mean, I just feel, you know, I feel Yeah, really sort of privileged in our

Tony Winyard 40:21
What does the phrase exceeding expectations mean to you?

Tony K. Silver 40:24
Well, what does that mean? What it means to me is going over and above, we should all be delivering good services I’m not. There’s a few cliche sayings out there, but I think he’s, you know, just not go through the motions. The client has signed up for something, but you just deliver that that little bit more, you just make it a little bit more personal. You might just add in a little bit more to the product so you might explore service. In my case, I caught off the news recommendations to other people as as one of my add ons So people get the profile stuff and move on and say, Well, actually, when I’m out and about, I will actually sort of recommend you as well. It’s just giving people more than they expect. And doing it with a smile.

Tony Winyard 41:18
If people want to find out more about you and to find out some of the Yeah, your website and how they will when they find your attorney,

Tony K. Silver 41:25
okay, yeah, so the Tony k silver is the big giveaway there. If you go to LinkedIn and put Tony K Silver into the LinkedIn search engine, you’re going to find me because I’m the only one. The websites, the company is Solid Silver Solutions. So it’s www.solidsilversolutions.com. And currently, I am running a free five day challenge which I mentioned earlier, and that is www.profilechallenge.co.uk is totally free. It’s a five day challenge and it just makes people To think, what they could do to improve their LinkedIn. So those are those are probably the best ways of getting hold of me through the website. Probably mostly through LinkedIn, because hey, that’s where I spend most of my time. And then engage me on the challenge. And then you have the ability to talk to me as a date six. See how you get along?

Tony Winyard 42:20
And sometimes you also run courses and workshops?

Tony K. Silver 42:24
Yeah, I have. Still while we’re in lockdown. I have run workshops. I do two types of workshops, which one which is the one I’m doing currently, which is online, and it tends to be what version of the in house workshop I would have provided for companies. I then do an open version, which is people buy a place on it and I just set a minimum number. I have just got a new venue sorted out. I’m now going to be running a lot of my stuff from Ascot Racecourse, so Highly prestigious venue, I have a little access to a meeting room, I can do some training there. So individuals can come along to that. But I also get involved in appearing on people’s webinars and people’s podcasts and other such things. But yeah, I get on stage and talking about a course. So may you do.

Tony Winyard 43:22
And before we finish, Tony, I believe there’s a book that you sometimes recommend to people.

Tony K. Silver 43:27
Yeah, I suppose from my point of view is we were talking about books this morning at a networking meeting. And you know, I still probably go back to Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits as being similar for me. Once you know there are other ones out there, I think if you haven’t read that one, that is certainly one that you should be having a look at. And the also the follow up the eighth habit as well which not many people have read.

Tony Winyard 43:54
Was there anything about Ava those two books that really stood out for you that really sort of stays with you and what you do

Tony K. Silver 44:00
Yeah, I mean it again, it was a subject subject of my last article on LinkedIn and also subject to the meeting this morning and sharpened the soul. It doesn’t just talk about being in business, etc. It how you need to keep and look after yourself. Number one, the sharpen story is making sure that this particular case this morning we’re talking about continue learning. This will show your health and your spiritual side of things. In the physical side of things. Yeah, making sure you stay healthy both in mind and body and in spirit, but also, you know, reading books on a regular basis taking courses and what I said to people this morning was forget work, you know, what have you done in the last year to improve yourself isn’t work related. And that proved to be quite an interesting topic and most people struggle to find something like done which was just for them as they will have out you know, finding something that is just for you.

Tony Winyard 44:55
And finally, Tony do you have a quotation that you like,?

Tony K. Silver 45:01
If it is to be, it is up to me.

Tony Winyard 45:05
And who was that?

Tony K. Silver 45:07
I don’t actually remember to be honest with you, I’d have to look that one up. But it’s the I know, it’s a series of two letter words. But generally speaking, if you’re gonna make it happen, it’s going to be you don’t rely on other people.

Tony Winyard 45:18
Tony, thank you for sharing your knowledge. And I’m sure people are gonna be whatever eyes It probably been open to how they could use LinkedIn better. So he’ll be getting in touch with you to improve. Yeah, how they can be found. And so next.

Tony K. Silver 45:34
Well, it’s been a pleasure talking to you and hopefully see you soon when we’re out of the lockdown..

Tony Winyard 45:41
Thank you, Tony. All the best. Next week, Episode 99. And it is with Nathanael Zurbruegg. I may have pronounced that wrong and and we’ll find out next week. He is remarkable to say the least. He has come back literally from the dead. He was declared dead. Not once, not twice, not three times, four times, five, six times. What this guy has gone through in his life is astounding. And it is a real cliche about you know, some people are really inspirational. But this guy really is, what he’s done and now how he helps people around the world. So we’re going to be hearing a lot more about his stories less next week. Nathanael Zurbruegg, who, as I said, has come back from the dead six times. Have you enjoyed this week’s show with Tony Silver, please do share the episode with anyone who could really have some help to improve their presence on LinkedIn and their effectiveness on LinkedIn. And hope you did enjoy the show. Please do subscribe, leave a review and I hope you have a fantastic week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai