How to Grow Your Online Presence with Ted Prodromou46 min read

Bryan Hyde
Welcome to the Janine Bolon show, where we share tips from around the globe, as we guide practical people with their finances using money tips, increase their incomes through side businesses, and maintain their sanity by staying in their creative zone.

Janine Bolon
Hey, welcome, we are so happy to see you today. I am thrilled that you’re tuning into us. We are here every Sunday. And I just wanted to let you know, today we’ve got something really special for you. And that is this guy, we have none other than Ted Prodromou, who is an author, a consultant. He’s an expert on online advertising, social media, lead generation and search engine optimization. Ted helps people that are in small and medium sized businesses grow the internet and their earnings through a global presence on their online business. Now, in case you didn’t know this, Ted happens to be the author of “The Growing Ultimate Series for Businesses”, and he’s written “Ultimate Guides to LinkedIn and Twitter” and “How to Grow Your Business to 150 Million Customers in 10 minutes”, all these wonderful things. He’s been an entrepreneur, all these wonderful magazines, and he does “The Seven Steps to LinkedIn Success”. So you know, this guy has a lot going for him. Oh, and did I tell you he’s also my friend, we happen to be sitting in a Starbucks out in the middle of nowhere-ville, Colorado, little place called Littleton. And I say nowhere-ville as a joke, because it’s right outside Denver, and we were sitting there at this Starbucks, and he didn’t know me, and I barely knew him. And I was like, Hey, you want to sit down? And let’s chat. We started talking. And I see a new relationship grew from that. And we have been in touch with each other’s businesses ever since. So, Ted, thanks so much for being on the show today.

Ted Prodromou
Thanks for having me. We can just sit here and chat forever.

Janine Bolon
Yes, we can do there’s a lot to talk about. So I like to refer to Ted as Mr. LinkedIn. He’s the guy the people reach out to who really want to ramp up their businesses by finding the appropriate people on LinkedIn. And what’s interesting is they’ll buy his high ticket items, they will spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars to have this guy teach them. And then they miss the key feature. And he’s willing to talk to us today about the key feature when it comes to social media marketing. So tell us a little bit about where people make mistakes with you. And then tell us about that key feature when it comes to social media.

Ted Prodromou
We’ll have to tease that key feature for like an hour, then we can reveal it. But don’t you hate that?

Janine Bolon
Thanks, Ted. This is the way to keep my people engaged. Hang on. He’ll get to it guys just hang on we’ll get it. We’ll twist his arm here.

Ted Prodromou
Like just give me the answer. Watching an infomercial, right? I’ve been doing this for a long time, when I grew up my parents owned a restaurant. So I’m all about relationships and mealing with good food. My father always said give good food and give good service, you’re never gonna have a problem with the restaurant business. And for some reason, some restaurants don’t get that. And then after I went off to college, and everything I got into the tech world, I was in field service fixing computers, and I was always in front of people. I just love helping people out. So I’m fixing their computers, I’m chatting with them and build relationships with people. I win customer service wars all the time, because I would go in there and like they’re in crisis, their whole computer networks down. I come in like, oh, hi how you doing? put them at ease, fix the problem, and then just follow up with them the next day was my secret there. I would do 10 to 12 service calls a day. And every morning I’d start the day by spending like 10 minutes, I’d call back all the customers I serviced the day before. Hey, is everything okay? Everything’s still running fine? Out of 1000s of technicians that work for digital the time not one other one ever did that. It took 10 minutes a day. Hey, how are things?

Ted Prodromou
Everything okay? Are you doing all right? Let me see. I think they call that follow up in the business world, right? And you hear that all the time, the fortunes in the follow up. And it doesn’t matter how you follow up. Like I like to send people cards, and my cards get there by slow boat, right? US Postal Service isn’t known for being Ooh, the Pony Express right now. But at the same time, my cards follow up a couple of weeks later, and I remind people about the conversation we had on Zoom and they love it. So yeah, we were talking about how you just following up with people and you’re treating them the way you want to be treated and stuff like that the golden rule. So when it comes to LinkedIn, it’s the same sort of thing. But for some reason when people get on social media, they think they can be a robot and people know the difference between a robot and a human these days.

Ted Prodromou
I just got a telemarketer called

Janine Bolon
Excuse me, I’m on the air and I’m talking to Janine Bolon. And I’m sorry, I cannot talk to you right now.

Ted Prodromou
Auto Warranty has not expired.

Janine Bolon
I promise. I promise. My Auto Warranty has not expired. So you started off as this like geek tech guy, you’re running around working on servers and people’s office systems, that sort of thing. Where did you go next after that?

Ted Prodromou
Well, that was my dream career for 20 years. I was like at the beginning of computer networking. Not many people actually had computers in their offices when I started in the 80s. There were a couple people working on a computer, fax machines didn’t even exist yet. Computer networks were just a dream. So all that was evolving and I was working right in it in Silicon Valley. Then I went to work for Cellular One. I was employee number 40. Back when they were like, gigantic things.

Janine Bolon
They looked like huge battery packs that you held up to your ear. That’s what cellular telephones were looking like.

Ted Prodromou
And they literally fried your brain…

Janine Bolon
With electromagnetic radiation, because of the batteries.

Ted Prodromou
Most of them were built into your car at that time. They didn’t have portables.

Janine Bolon
Oh, that’s right. That’s right. Thank you.

Ted Prodromou
I was at the beginning of the cellular industry and I was like, I was thinking, I have the greatest career. After 20 years, I’ll never have to worry about getting a job. I’m at the leading edge of all this technology. And then the.com crash flight that 20 year career off the map, I couldn’t find a job, they didn’t want a 42 year old Network Manager. So I got certified as a coach, because I love mentoring my employees. Knew zero about marketing, started going to conferences, learned internet marketing, learned all that stuff you mentioned earlier, and here I am today.

Janine Bolon
And one of the things I’d like to let you folks know is that I run a business and my business is educating people on how to go about marketing their books online. So my thing is author podcasting, how to go out and be a standout guest and how to be a good podcast guest and then take your book on a virtual tour. And then it led into businesses, getting businesses to use podcasting as a way of marketing by educating clients, by educating people before you ever got to talk to them. So one of the beautiful things is I ended up having people say, well Janine teach me what you know about LinkedIn. So I created this little $37 course, because I did not feel like I was an expert. And then if you take that little course, guess who you’ll see, at the very end of that course, you’ll see Ted and I talking about how you need Ted services now. So talk to us about how you became Mr. LinkedIn.

Ted Prodromou
That was because I invested in some high end coaching actually. You know, people always say, you know, I can’t afford coaching. I can’t afford whatever. I’m just writing a blog post right now. People say, you know, do I need a LinkedIn premium account? I say, Do you need more clients? They say, Yes, I need more clients. I say, What’s your marketing budget? I don’t have one. How much time you spend on LinkedIn every day, I don’t have time for LinkedIn. So you have no clients. You don’t have a marketing budget, you have no money coming in. But you can’t spend a couple minutes a day on LinkedIn. It’s just unbelievable, peoples thoughts. Like, if you start a business, you need some capital to get that business rolling. It just doesn’t magically appear and turn into Apple Computer.

Janine Bolon
Right. Right, because even Apple had a marketing budget. It looked very different than now. But you still had a marketing budget. And that’s one of the things,

Ted Prodromou
Spend an hour a day on LinkedIn, or social media sites, and have conversations with people. It’s free.

Janine Bolon
It’s free. And it’s amazing what you not only learn about people, but you also start learning that maybe what you thought was your primary demographic isn’t. You start realizing Wait, there’s a problem out there that somebody is not serving and I have an answer to that. And it may lead you in a totally different direction, which is exactly what happened to me. I started off doing one area and ended up pivoting going into a totally different area, just because I had written 11 books by that time, and realized there were a lot of authors out there that had no idea how to market their book, or the 27 ways they can make money on their book, right? And so then people were like, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t even know there was 27 ways. I’m like, oh, yeah, there’s a lot of ways you can make money on your book. So anyway, so it’s all about this crazy thing we keep talking about we’re dancing around it a little bit. And we’ll, we’ll go into depth at the next segment. But it’s this getting on LinkedIn. So the first thing people say is, well, I don’t know what to say. Right. So do you have some tips for us on what people could say? Because you don’t want to be a cold caller. Right?

Ted Prodromou
Well, I’m sure you’ve been to your share of networking meetings over the years. I was a member of BNI for a few years and different networking, local networking groups. I remember the first time I ever went to one of those meetings, I was just starting started as a coach, I went to this meeting and they make you stand up and give your little elevator pitch. And I’m like, Oh God, I don’t even know what that is.

Janine Bolon
How can I do this in 30 seconds or less when I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be saying.

Ted Prodromou
And I just got certified as a coach, and they didn’t teach us anything about marketing or building the business. It was just pure coaching skills. So I get up, I’m like, I’m a life coach. I had nothing more to say.

Janine Bolon
I’m gonna sit down.

Ted Prodromou
I help certain people solve certain problems. I knew nothing about that stuff at the time. Like, I’m a life coach. What’s a life coach? It was pretty embarrassing the first few times I went to those networking events.

Janine Bolon
Listen to the proverbial pin drop.

Ted Prodromou
This is when people didn’t even know what coaches were. This is like 2001.

Janine Bolon
Right, right. Yes, exactly so. Yep.

Ted Prodromou
I never knew I was a life coach at the time.

Janine Bolon
And people are like, Excuse me?

Ted Prodromou
Yes, what’s that? Why would I need a life coach?

Janine Bolon
Number one, I don’t know what it is. And number two, that doesn’t even sound like fun.

Ted Prodromou
So they told me to charge $400 a month for three coaching sessions. So I put up, how much does it cost? $400 for three coaching sessions, I didn’t try to build any value, or talk about benefits.

Janine Bolon
No, this is it. This is the price tag. A customer just moves on along.

Ted Prodromou
And what do you get? You get three coaching sessions. I couldn’t have made more mistakes.

Janine Bolon
And so the only reason we’re laughing is because we’ve all been there as business owners, right? And the only reason we’re laughing is just because you make these mistakes, and that’s what makes you a seasoned veteran. And that’s fine. That’s why people like Ted and I can charge what we charge now because we’ve made all the mistakes for you. And oh, oh, did Ted say no, he didn’t. We can cut seven years off your learning curve, if you will allow us to work with you. Now, I recommend that if you have any questions regarding LinkedIn, Twitter, or any of the social media, you definitely hire out Ted, find out what he’s doing, find out what he’s working on, what projects he has going on, and see how you can dovetail in with that. After the commercial break that we’re about ready to go into. We’re going to be talking about networking and how when you show up, don’t show up sitting there ready to sell. And that is what we’ll discuss at the end.

Janine Bolon
Hey, welcome back. This is Janine Bolon with our guest today Mr. LinkedIn himself, the man that entrepreneur.com loves to highlight when it comes to LinkedIn. This is Ted Prodromou, and he’s not only a life coach, but if you own a business and you’re trying to figure out how to use this social media marketing stuff, he’s the man that can help you with that. Welcome back Ted.

Ted Prodromou
Hey, thanks for having me.

Janine Bolon
Hey, so we were talking right before the break, we were talking about networking and how nobody goes to a networking meeting to buy. But unfortunately, so many people go to a networking meeting to sell. So talk to us a little bit about how that’s not really a good way to start doing your network marketing.

Ted Prodromou
Yeah, we’ve been through our share of networking events and conferences, I can’t even remember how many conferences I’ve been to. And one thing that really stood out one time where they’re standing there talking, a group of us, some guy comes up with his hand out, I want your business card, I want your business card. There’s like 500 people in the room, so I’m going to get a business card from every person in this room. That’s all he said. He never followed up, never introduced himself. We had no idea who this guy was, we’re like, that’s an interesting way to network. He wasn’t trying to sell us anything.

Janine Bolon
Right? But I really don’t know what you’re doing with my contact information.

Ted Prodromou
And then you meet the other guy that comes he talks about you know, he’s dressed in the $2,000 suit, fancy hair slicked back, and he’s the smooth talker. You feel like when you shake his hand, it’s all sleazy. And you know, he’s gonna start talking about himself, his car and how much money he makes, then he tries to sell you something. And everybody’s just slowly backing away from that guy. And we’ve all met those people. And other people you really hit it off with at networking events or conferences, because you talk about your family, or you introduce each other, get to know each other. You build a relationship. It’s not that hard.

Janine Bolon
And that’s one of those things that used to be the way they ran a lot of the cocktail parties and stuff like that in the 60s and 70s. And everybody just sees everybody else drinking and getting drunk, and that’s really not what those social events are all about. It was really how they establish what we now call referral partnerships or getting two business owners together. And there are chamber of commerce groups trying to do that, but I’ve noticed even they struggle, and especially now with COVID, they have tried to go online. But because so many people show up at a networking event, ready to sell, not realizing that nobody’s there to buy, they’re actually they’re looking for that ever important thing called relationships. So talk to us a little bit, you know, we have all had those experiences with the networkers we didn’t like. So tell us about the successful networkers that you were able to communicate with?

Ted Prodromou
They just flip it around. What’s the book? The infamous one, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Janine Bolon
Gosh, you know, that classic? Yes. Everybody thinks it’s old news. Oh, no.

Ted Prodromou
You know maybe some of the words are a little dated, but it’s the same concept. Show interest in the other person, ask questions. If you ever took a sales course. Ask a question, and don’t say a word. Listen. 80% listening, 20% talking. People will open up and they think oh, Ted’s a wonderful guy. He just makes me feel so good. And all you do is ask a couple questions and listen and be interested. I don’t just ask questions, just ask questions. Be genuinely interested. Like when we sat down had that cup of coffee, we were at a conference we just kind of got there early was, hey, let’s just sit down and get to know each other. That was maybe five years ago now.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, it’s been a while. And the thing that most impressed me about that experience was the fact I had seen you up on stage, you had seen me up on stage. But we weren’t operating in the same circles. So we didn’t know each other. And then you started teaching the crowd, you started teaching everybody at that conference, how to go about using LinkedIn. And it’s not something that you can really do readily today. But when you’re at a conference where you could open up everybody’s LinkedIn account, so that you could get off a huge number of people. So your guy that you were talking about that wanted a business card from everybody. Nowadays, you could actually do that. And you taught us there, you’re like, Alright, everybody get your phones out. When was the last time you heard that at a conference? Number one. So that’s what I remember about that. And then number two, I had 28, new contacts of people from the folks who were quick. And then over the course of the next, you know, 15-20 minutes, you’re like, Okay, now turn off that feature of LinkedIn, blah, blah, blah. And that way, nobody can, you know, get into your account that you don’t want yada yada. Anyway, it was just a lovely little example of what you do to serve the larger community and get people talking to one another.

Ted Prodromou
They took that feature away during the pandemic.

Janine Bolon
And I found that fascinating. Yeah, yeah. So that feature isn’t there anymore. But that’s one of the things that I wanted to share with you about Ted, he is incredibly generous, he will give you information that will be very usable. It’s practical, it’s on point for you. But there’s this one thing that we promised you we would talk about, and that is how to go about networking well. So we’ve talked about what doesn’t work. So we’ll talk a little bit about what does work. And so Ted, do you want to start and you’ll give us a few tips, and then I’ll give a few.

Ted Prodromou
So what we do now we have a few in person events we’ve been to, to get a business card from someone, even when I go back up to my hotel room, when I’m traveling, I’ll look that person up on LinkedIn and invite them to connect, I’ll say, hey, it’s great meeting you at Gary’s event, let’s connect. Make it you know, immediate within 24 hours reach out to those people and just say something friendly, if you had a good conversation with them. Talk about that, do an invitation, and it just builds a relationship from the beginning. And not that, Hey, I saw you at the conference. Here’s a link to buy my product.

Janine Bolon
So in case you haven’t noticed this is a pet peeve of both Ted and mines. And that is you meet somebody, they find out that you’re on LinkedIn, they connect with you. And then the next thing they’re doing is they’re selling you. Well, they don’t know me. They don’t know, Ted, I mean, our profile does not explain what our passion project is of the moment for 2022. Every business owner I’ve ever met has some sort of passion project, like they’ve got a project they’re currently working on. They’re super jazzed about it. They can’t wait to get it out to their clients and customers. And that’s what you want to tap into. What are you working on now? What’s your area? And so that’s what you want to do in the that beautiful invitation that I think what gives us 500 characters or something like that. I can’t remember. You can actually write some of that stuff out. And so what Ted says about you grab the business card and you go up there and you make it personalized and intimate like, this is our phone, you know, this is the conversation that we had. And I hope that your granddaughter really enjoys her ballet lessons or whatever, whatever you guys talked about. And that way they know, oh my gosh, this is like a real person doing real things. So talk to us about what you’re currently involved in Ted. What is ready for you? What are you doing for 2022? Since you’re Mr. LinkedIn.

Ted Prodromou
Stop selling, build relationships. It’s just kind of my mantra. Because it’s so frustrating. I guess when people go online, they go to Google, they do a search because they want to buy something. So they go search Google and buy something, they go to LinkedIn, you search, and you find people, it’s not products. And they don’t want to buy from you. You said it earlier. People don’t log into LinkedIn, oh, somebody sells me something today. You go in there to have conversations, like when you’re at networking events, just go with that attitude. Who can I help today, I’ve done a few posts like that, I’ll put it like, hey, instead of selling something today, reach out to someone and help them. People just love that. I give so many free profile reviews for people and just the more you give, the more you get in return.

Janine Bolon
And that’s one of those beautiful aspects about that relationship marketing. And I know that’s a buzzword, you know, a lot of people talk about, oh, it’s all about relationships, and relationship marketing. And I always like to go on to those particular marketing people’s profiles and find out what I can learn about them. And if I see that they’re using very similar words, and verbiage that is feeling like a template, and not like they’re really trying to talk to me, as somebody who’s reading the profile, that irritates me, but I’m also an author, and I know how important it is for my reader to feel like I am talking to them, like I am talking to Ted right now is like over a cup of coffee, and we’re having a conversation. And if it doesn’t come off feeling that way, I really don’t have an interest in doing business with that person because I’m not out for the glitz and the glamour, I’m out for the relationship that we can build together as two business owners. So what are some of your experiences with the the LinkedIn because you have more people hitting your profile than I have hitting mine, you have more invitations per day than anybody I have yet interviewed.

Ted Prodromou
It’s painful some mornings.

Janine Bolon
So talk to us about those painful moments.

Ted Prodromou
Well, you can tell when people use automated software, and they send you an invitation, I see we have something in common, let’s connect and do a joint venture together. Like, what do we have in common? I don’t know you? Why would I want to go into business with you? Like three strikes, you’re out, buddy. They don’t make any attempt to reach out to people. But I don’t invite a lot of people to connect anymore because I get so many invitations. But when I do become a certified coach, I’ve been certified for 20 years. So I’ll reach out to other coaches, and say, Hey, I like connecting with other coaches and hear your story how you got started. I started my coaching crew in the.com, crash blew up my tech business. And then I said how did you get started in coaching? They connect with me and they tell me something about them. Starts a deeper conversation. So we’re only going to like step two or three in the relationship just for that simple little, ask a question and tell him how you got started. It’s not hard.

Janine Bolon
And so for those of you out there who may be going well, yeah, Janine I don’t have a business, you know, how is this going to help me as an individual. And I say, it’s even more important if you’re an individual to have a LinkedIn profile, because one of the beautiful things that TED talks about is that Facebook, you don’t know where people are when they get on Facebook. You don’t know if they’re just scrolling to find out what’s going on with their kids, or if they’re scrolling just wanting to catch up with what’s happening with one of their groups. You don’t know if they’re in a leisure environment, or if they’re actually doing business. And you know, it’s kind of a mixed bag. On LinkedIn, I can guarantee you it’s business oriented. And one of the fun things that Ted first talked to us about was how, when you go on LinkedIn, it’s like walking into a library, you kind of have to get your feet in there first because you don’t know what level are you in the super quiet area or what area of LinkedIn are you in? So we’re going to talk more about what you need to do when you get into LinkedIn. Whether you’re a single person that is thinking about starting a business, or if you are a business owner, or if you’re just somebody that’s looking for a job. So we’re going to be talking about your profile, that sort of thing. When we come back after the break.

Janine Bolon
Welcome back to the Janine Bolon show, and I am here with Mr. LinkedIn, Ted Prodromou, who happens to be a life coach. But man, he has written a couple of amazing books on guides on how to use LinkedIn and Twitter, he talks about how to use this thing that people call relationship marketing. And if you’re sitting there listening going, Janine, I don’t have a business, I am just a person trying to make my way in the world. Well, guess what Ted can help you with that as well, especially when it comes to a LinkedIn profile. So, Ted talk to us a little bit about some of the ways that you’ve seen people are not really using the power of their LinkedIn profile to get what they want out of life, especially like if you’re looking for a job, or if you’re wanting to connect with a very specific group of people. LinkedIn is really the platform for that.

Ted Prodromou
Yeah. LinkedIn with this big everybody quitting their jobs right now. And like, what are these people gonna do? But there’s companies. Someone just hired me, actually, they’re trying to find, they have a CPA position they’ve been trying to fill for a year. And it’s a six figure salary with profit sharing, and they get commissions on business that they sell for extra upsells to their clients. And they can’t get people to even interview. It’s like, wow. And they’ve, you know, they’ve done everything they can, but a lot of people are really kind of just like, Okay, I want to start my business or I’m looking for a job. Two thirds of LinkedIn revenue is still jobs and recruiter related. If you’re looking for a job, there’s actually a little setting in your profile, when you flip the switch, it tells recruiters you want to get a job, you’re looking for a job. So you have to be really clear in your profile, what’s your expertise, what kind of job you’re looking for. Because if it looks at very generic and it’s not filled out, it’s like a half filled out resume, recruiters are going to look at, it’s like, no, thank you.

Janine Bolon
So talk to us about the profile picture. That’s one of the big ones that I see. And I’m like, Oh, please, don’t be sitting there cropping a photo that has you and your buddies on a mountain top. We’ve seen those on LinkedIn. So talk to us a little bit about that profile picture, it doesn’t have to be…

Ted Prodromou
The ex-wife cropped out. Now, that’s the first impression. And you think about it, if you’re applying for a job, or you’re in business, if somebody refers me to Janine, first thing I’m gonna do is probably go to Google and search her name, do some research. And your LinkedIn profile usually comes up in the top two or three positions when you search for a name. So that picture and your name field and that headline underneath is the first impression you’re gonna make on people. So you want to make a great first impression there. To be really clear, don’t just put a job title of what you’re doing, you know, vice president of sales that blah, blah, blah, company. Make it different compelling, especially if you’re a coach or consultant, you’re in business for yourself, who do you help? And how do you help them?

Janine Bolon
And that’s like free advertising every time you leave a comment. And people forget about that. That if you’re commenting on either a group that you happen to be on with LinkedIn, or you’re commenting on some recruiters profile, or some articles that somebody has that title that goes along with you. So, express, like, what is the problem you solve?

Ted Prodromou
Or what is your passion, like if you’re, if you’re a CPA, and you’re passionate about working with certain nonprofits, or something, a CPA passionate about nonprofit work or volunteering, put that in your headline. And then what you can do is search LinkedIn for certain posts, about different topics, and then you see who’s posting this content that’s related to what you want to do, and start engaging in the content. So as the active people on LinkedIn, 40% login more than once a month 60% login, like every other month or less. To find those active people engage in topics that you’re interested in, they see your headline, and then you build a relationship, you connect with each other.

Janine Bolon
And make sure you don’t try to sell them.

Ted Prodromou
Right. When I first got on LinkedIn, there was some automated tools came out before LinkedIn knew about them. So if I wanted to work with attorneys that changed my headline to I have attorneys get better clients or something, then I can view 1000 profiles a day with this software.

Janine Bolon
I did not know of that.

Ted Prodromou
Years ago before LinkedIn caught on, but I would felt certain number of attorneys would see that I viewed their profile in the who’s viewed your profile section, and then they’d reach out and connect with me, then I got a lot of business that way. It’s like, kind of shooting fish in a barrel, you change your headline, view 1000 files, get some appointments. Obviously, that’s not possible now. So I look for people there posting content. You can go into groups too, but most groups don’t have much activity. So if you just search for content, there’s like millions of pieces of content being posted every day on LinkedIn, every single day. So you search for a topic, under posts, and just start engaging where conversations are.

Janine Bolon
So a lot of people, they hear that, right. So they’re like, Okay, I go on to LinkedIn, and I get a decent headshot of myself standing by a tree outside of my front yard or something like that, you know, where it’s obviously smiling at the camera. Okay, there you go. You got your headshot now. So now that’s taken care of, and you have some sort of banner in the background that you have built up that represents either where you live or what you do. And a lot of people it’s like, they take it for granted where they live, but not everybody lives where you do. And believe it or not, there is a romanticism to being able to see, what do you see every day. And so that’s one of those things that I know you may be bored of your landscape. But there are people around the world who love looking at profiles to see where different people live. So that’s an idea.

Ted Prodromou
Then thay would be a huge topic where I am. The Golden Gate Bridge, there’s a lot of people with the Golden Gate Bridge as their background photo on LinkedIn.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, and that’s one of those features of Hey, didn’t know you were in California. Right. I’m lucky because I’m in Colorado, and so I have a beautiful Mount Meeker out by my place, I just walk to the end of my sidewalk and take a picture of it. And I post that picture up as the seasons change, and you can watch the snow creep down the side of the mountain in the winter, and in the summer, everything is beautiful green. So it just depends. Those are wonderful things that you can do, just to humanize this social media. But talk to us a little bit Ted about the messaging. Because a lot of people really don’t know how to start conversations. So you say start conversation, start conversations. But what I get from folks is, oh, my God, what do I talk about?

Ted Prodromou
Right. Well, I used to do that also invite a bunch of people to connect. And back in the day, when you could sit there, I used to sit there watching TV at night, and I’d be just like, on the iPad, connect, connect, connect, connect, and you’d have like 1000s of invitations out there. You didn’t know anything about these people. I just wanted to connect with certain jobs at the time. And it got me absolutely nowhere, and now I have 24,000 people in my network and it was very unfocused at times. But the good news is 99% of the time, people never reach out to you again, unless you start a conversation with them. But that’s why I don’t search for job titles anymore. I searched for the problems I solve. So if somebody is looking for LinkedIn help or something about their business, I search for those problems, and the skills that I have that I can solve, then there’s content related to that. So those are targeted conversations. And it’s just like, if you walked up to someone at a networking event or a conference and start a conversation, say, Oh, I saw that speaker was great, wasn’t he great. He’s talking about search engine optimization, that was really great conversation, start those conversations on LinkedIn.

Janine Bolon
A lot of times, when it comes to social media, we forget there’s actually a human being on the other side of that keyboard. And we’re so used to artificial you know, AI and SEO Marketing. And we’re so used to the robots talking to us, we forget when we are on social media, these are human beings that are responding to us. And so you want to be able to have something that you can offer them to go to to get them offline, the whole point of you connecting with these people and creating these relationships, is so that you can pull them off that platform and have a conversation with them on Zoom. And now everybody’s on Zoom. Remember when you and I were first talking, we would both talk about the very first session that you had with anyone was basically saying, This is how you work Zoom. I can remember, Can you hear me? Can you hear me now it felt like the old cell phone commercials. I was like, Oh my gosh. And now that everybody has joined our party, you know, and everybody’s on Zoom or Streamyard or all the other platforms that you have out there. It’s wonderful that we can just dive into conversations right now. And so when it comes to conversations, Ted, one of the things you shared with us, you shared with, you know, the rest of the 100-180 people in the room, was it you’re actually an introvert. And so for you starting conversations is not a simple thing. So how did you work through that introvertism to be the coach that you are today?

Ted Prodromou
Yeah, just walk up, not talk about it. But if there’s already a conversation started, that really helped me finding those already going on conversations on LinkedIn, and jump into it or start a conversation with someone, if you post something or did a good video, I would obviously watch the video and make a comment about some part of it that I really enjoyed, or something that I learned about, and repeat that in the comment. And then the person comes back, so thank you very much. People love to be complimented. Nothing worse than posting content online and not having anyone like it or look at it even.

Janine Bolon
You almost start knocking on the microphone. Hello. Is anyone there? Anyone hear me at all?

Ted Prodromou
Being genuinely interested in the person too. Don’t just comment, to comment. It’s better to make one or two good comments a day, then 10 Oh, that was wonderful post.

Janine Bolon
Right? That does not help me move forward. Right. And the other thing is too, it doesn’t let us know where the golden nuggets are for people, you know, being able to tell whoever it is that had the video, or what have you. That, hey, that was a really good idea. I can implement that in my life. You know, this is why we do what we do. We want to make people’s lives better. So we’re about ready to go into a commercial break again. And in the next segment, Ted and I are actually going to talk about some of the ways that you can set up your messaging and the way you can set up your commenting that really brings the conversation full circle where people will reach back around and say I really want to talk to you. And when that happens, you know you’ve hit that golden stride that we all look forward to on social media. We’ll see you in the next segment.

Janine Bolon
Welcome back to the Janine Bolon show, and I am joined today with Ted Prodromou who is Mr. LinkedIn, he’s been in a bunch of magazines, he is a life coach. He’s written several books on how to really work on your success when it comes to using social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter and how to go about messaging people. So in the previous segment, we were talking about this relationship marketing, you know how you go about commenting on LinkedIn, and how you can get jobs on LinkedIn. But to me, the biggest thing is just the personal connection that you can have on LinkedIn, that’s very difficult to have when you’re on Facebook, because you never know where somebody is on Facebook. Whereas LinkedIn, most of the time, people are sitting at their desk, they’re ready to start business. So talk to us about this crazy special feature that you were talking to me in the greenroom about.

Ted Prodromou
Yeah, we’re talking about I’m an introvert. I don’t say a whole lot. I just kind of say what’s important. I don’t add a lot of extra words. So that works really well for me on social media. You know, you get those long messages on LinkedIn, you scroll for like five minutes to get to the end of it. Like you just told me your whole life story and trying to sell me something. So these short little conversations work much better. One or two lines back and forth is asking questions, being curious “Hhow to Win Friends and Influence People”. I’ve read that book every year I read that book, because it’s still a classic, it still works. So ask questions, be curious, listen, and reply to what they say.

Janine Bolon
And let them know that you actually read what they said above, like, acknowledge the comment above that lets them know that you’re actually in real time with them. You know that it’s not a robot or something that’s talking to them. It’s like, oh, wow, that must have been really difficult. How did you handle that? So and so got COVID and here you are trying to launch this new event? Or whatever. A lot of things happen.

Ted Prodromou
Yeah. So just be natural. Don’t force it. Don’t you know overthink it just have a normal conversation with the people. And one thing I’ve discovered is last year, it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. When we’re on social media, we’re marketing, we’re not marketing our coaching services or our products, we’re marketing a phone call, we’re trying to get people on a Zoom call. That’s really what we’re selling when we’re online engaging with people. We don’t obviously, you know, say you’re selling a Zoom call, but your goal is actually, let’s get on a call like this, have a conversation and see if we can help each other. If it’s not a fit, great. If no, just move on. That was like a ton of bricks. Oh, my God, I’m actually selling just a phone call.

Janine Bolon
All I’m trying to do is get them off that platform and talking to me, but in the greenroom, you were talking to me about, oh, well, it’s not, you don’t have to get them off the platform anymore. Tell me about what you just discovered.

Ted Prodromou
Yeah, so we all have a Calendly, or some kind of automated calendar now. So we’re having these conversations or through email, or chats, like, hey, let’s set up a call and see if we can help each other. You give them your calendar link, you have this great conversation going, like a man and a woman meeting the bar and having a great conversation, they hand each other their calendars and say, Hey, call me some time. Maybe a week or two later, you get to that conversation again. It’s totally died out the energy’s gone. I discovered this last year on LinkedIn while you’re chatting with people, there’s a little camera up there, you can click on this camera, you can connect it to your Zoom account, do an immediate Zoom call, or LinkedIn has built their own version of Zoom within the chat. And also say, Hey, you got a minute to chat. They say sure I got a minute. That opens up the window, all of a sudden, you’re on a call like this. And to continue that conversation, you close the deal.

Janine Bolon
It’s like crazy. That’s crazy. I didn’t even realize they had that. I always thought that was how to upload a video or you know, I didn’t even think about it. So that’s one of those things that Oh, guess what, Janine is going to be doing next week.

Ted Prodromou
You can send an audio message to people and you can record a video and send it to people on the chat too. But if you’re having a great chat back and forth, both of you’re like totally engaged, like, hey, you got a minute, is all you have to say, usually, within five minutes, you close the deal, right? Because you already got the conversation going.

Janine Bolon
So for a lot of people, you may think that LinkedIn isn’t for you, you’re much more comfortable on Facebook. And I understand that there are certain businesses that lend themselves to the Facebook environment, I get that. But for individuals who maybe you’re looking for a job, or maybe you’re just looking to have some help, like you’re you’re wanting to hire somebody yourself, to help you with what you’re doing, or you’re running your own business, LinkedIn is that wonderful place that has people who are out to, they will pay for services, they will pay for those things, however, you cannot sell them, because that’s just not what will work. And so let’s talk a little bit about messaging. And that is we were talking about how you connect with somebody, one of the things that you want to make sure you don’t do is that when you do get somebody to connect with you says sure I’ll connect with you. And the very first message they get from you, after they say yes, I’ll connect is your selling them. Now, you don’t know this person, you don’t know where they are, where they’ve been, and you know nothing about him except what’s on their profile. And I assure you that is not always up to date or current.

Ted Prodromou
Or that 13 year old picture of the person.

Janine Bolon
Back, some of my guys say back when I had hair, right? You can’t see Ted but he’s a thinker. You can tell he’s a thinker.

Ted Prodromou
Thank you.

Janine Bolon
You’re welcome. So anyway, so the messaging kind of needs to run with Hey, how are you doing? I saw in your profile, XYZ, whatever it was, and be honest, this really intrigued me. I want to learn more about how you became you know, whatever this was, whatever it is that triggered that for you. And then you wait. And the thing is, is you set up messaging so that every two weeks to every month, they’re getting a message from you, I had somebody who I had been messaging for over five years on LinkedIn reached out to me yesterday, and I was able to solve them a program that I run, but it was because she had read through five years worth of messages from me. And she was just really impressed because I said, Hey, I wrote this article on my website, I thought it might help you because you know you’re in the holistic services business or whatever. There are ways that you can bring value to people and that is something you want to do. So Ted, if you wouldn’t mind because you’ve been so helpful to us over the course of this show. Talk to us about what’s the easiest way for people to get a hold of you sure they can get on LinkedIn, you may connect with them if they mentioned The Janine Bolon show but where can they really find out more about your your products and your services?

Ted Prodromou
That’s it. If you want to connect on LinkedIn tell people why you want to connect, Hey I saw you on Janine’s show, love what you said, let’s connect. That simple. But yeah, come to my website, www.yourLinkedIncoach.com. I make it really easy. Because you can’t spell Prodromou. I do LinkedIn lives every week on Tuesdays. I’m always interviewing experts. Janine has been a guest on there. And I just write a daily email, about three to five times a week. I’ve been writing emails about tips I learned not just about LinkedIn. Talking about the peloton yesterday. The peloton was like going down in flames after it was on fire last year. I just talk about topical contents and give tips and hoop interesting people I meet. There’s always giving people these tips on how to grow their business or to find a job or to build their network.

Janine Bolon
And so when we talk about relationship marketing, in a day and age where relationships can be swiped left or right, on our cell phones, it’s helpful to go back to some classics. So talk to us about what is most impressive to you about how to win friends and influence people. That seems to be your classic you’d like to read every year.

Ted Prodromou
Yeah. Think and Grow Rich, too, is another one.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, Napoleon Hill good stuff.

Ted Prodromou
I guess growing up in the restaurant, I’ve been in the service my whole life. For serving people. You got to keep people happy, and you do that by having conversations and building relationships. And asking them questions, Is everything okay? So one thing I do after I work with a client, I’ll write a recommendation forum on LinkedIn, I’ll say, Hey, I did a project with Janine, she’s great to work with, I’ll write, you know, here’s the experience I had working with you as a client. And people just love that stuff. They didn’t ask me to do it, I just do it for them reach out to people and help. You’re a giver too like me, just give people lots of great information and the right people will come to you.

Janine Bolon
And that’s what it’s all about. Because a lot of you that are listening to the show. First of all, I just wanted to thank you a shout out to Liz, you sent me an email. And I would like to let you know, yes, we do archive all of these shows, we are not only a radio show, we are also a podcast program. And you can go to www.theJanineBolonshow.com, and that’s where we are archived. And you can see every single, or you can see all of the episodes and listen to them. But we also have like with Ted today, where after we have promoted him and his show goes live on Sunday, we will then by Tuesday or Wednesday, have it posted on the website, along with show notes so that you can actually see where he resides. So you can go to hyperlinks and see what he does, sign up for his daily emails. They’re uplifting. They’re not annoying. Ted is very good at not being annoying. Why? Because he gets annoyed when people are annoying, so he doesn’t do the same. So tell us a little bit about what got you started into writing so many frequent emails, some businesses, it kills them, but for yours, it actually has been a benefit.

Ted Prodromou
Well, I always have an email list. I’ve been building it for 20 years, almost. And I always never, I’d write an email once a month, sometimes once every other month. I just wasn’t consistent. So I just started really reaching out and I learned a lot about copywriting the last couple years and email marketing. So I’ve studied with a lot of the top email marketers. And Laura Belgray taught me to be myself of anyone, all these technical people teaching me the technical aspects. She writes these funny, cheeky kind of emails www.talkingshrimp.com. And that’s the kind of person I want to work with. I like that kind of person. So I just started writing. I do my morning meditation, I do journaling, and ideas just come to me. And I’ll just sit down and crank out a 15 minute email that you’re reading in about two minutes.

Janine Bolon
And that is why people love to get on his email list. So I highly recommend that you go to Ted’s website, www.yourLinkedIncoach.com, sign up for his emails. He ships them out. He is wonderful to listen to. Ted, thanks so much for being on the show today.

Ted Prodromou
Thanks for having me.

Janine Bolon
And this is Janine Bolon with the Janine Bolon show and we will listen to you and hear you next Sunday.

Bryan Hyde
Thank you for listening to the Janine Bolon show. Be sure to subscribe to our show notes by going to www.theJanineBolonshow.com, where you’ll find additional resources as well as the opportunity to sign up to receive our program in your email each week. Be sure to visit our sponsor at www.the8gates.com.