Episode 52 7 LinkedIn Activities Bankers Need to Do for 2024

Jack Hubbard  00:01

I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern Bankers.

Hello, Brynne, it's 24. Where does this time go? You know, I was just in grade school yesterday. And what about your boys? They're getting older. 

Brynne Tillman  00:43

Yeah, my babies are 21. But you know, I've got grandbabies to make up for that. 

Jack Hubbard  00:48

Yeah, that really helps and they grow fast. So enjoy them while you can. We're going to talk about seven activities bankers need to do for 2024 today, but I got a couple of things I want to talk about. First behind me here over here is a sign that says “I know Jack.” I got that sign as I retired from graduate school of banking from my really good friend, Tom Hershberger. And it was really cool. My wife had it framed, and said, You should put this on all your programmes this year. So that's kind of cool. 

Second thing is I got this morning, got a great email from Chris Nichols. Over the holidays, we put together a list of really good books that bankers should be looking at in 2024, new ones, classics, leadership, sales, etc. And he put it in a post today and I was really honored that He honored me and the modern banker like that. And if you're not following Chris, you have to be able to do that. 

The third thing is Brynne and I do this every Thursday. And I also do one on Wednesday. And a lot of people don't know that. And it's been relatively new and we're still building an audience. It's called Jack rants with modern bankers. And we interview people in two parts. Lat late last year in the first week of the year with Bill Fink, my good friend. I've got a couple of great ones coming up: Ned Miller, Best Selling Author, Anthony Iannarino of The Negativity Fast. And then John Oxford, one of America's great bank marketers. So that's on Wednesday at noon Eastern time, and it's also on YouTube. Brynne made me a YouTube sensation. So I'm really excited about that. Well, Brynne, how was your holiday? Let's start there. 

Brynne Tillman  02:35

Ohh, it was so nice. It was a busy hustle and bustle, but lots of family and friends. And that's what makes it count? 

Jack Hubbard  02:44

Boy, it sure does. It sure does. And what counts in 2024, is how bankers connect LinkedIn into the sales process. And you've got seven really good ideas around this. Let's start with the first one: networking. 

Brynne Tillman  03:00

So this is huge. And we know bankers need to network in real life. But we not that LinkedIn is not real life. But in person, let's say. But virtually, we need to be networking too. But we also need to bring them together. So a few things. Number one, if you are among the folks that are back in the wild, right going to those Chamber of Commerce meetings, those networking meetings that wherever you're talking with other folks, make sure that you are leveraging the LinkedIn app and the QR code. This allows you and all you have to do if you go to the search function in your app, in this book, top of the search bar, there's a little tiny QR code, when you click on that QR code. You can have someone scan yours, or you can scan theirs, and it will take you right to their profile. This is also my trick when I forget somebody's name, and they don't have –I like Oh, it's good. Great. So, so that's really important. So we want to take our digital networking into the physical world number one, so we want to make sure that we're doing that. 

The other thing and now we're in 2024, it's like okay, let's kind of take inventory of what we're doing and what we need to do. We need to look at who are we already connected to that we're ignoring. And so networking with these folks, we can search by our first degree connections even than the free LinkedIn. And we can export our connections. And we want to identify who in this list should we be having conversations with, and my favorite thing to do because when you're first connected, or back to the app, you can send someone a video, wish them a happy New Year. Ask them you know, what are your initiatives this year? Is there anything that I can do to support you? Right and send that person smell video, maybe you do five to seven a day, most bankers can put out a video a quick little video, there's also audio. So you can send a voicemail on LinkedIn. But just re-engage with the people that you want to be networking with.

Jack Hubbard  05:15

Absolutely. And it's so easy to do. And as long as it's not product pushing, I think you're in really good shape. And I love the point that you made about getting to know your connections through uploading and downloading. I did it again over the holidays. And I went all the way back to August of 2006, or something like that when I first started LinkedIn. And it's amazing as you go up through your connections, the job changes that they've had. 

The other thing I really liked about the new way that LinkedIn is doing this, is that through the Excel spreadsheet that you draw that you do, you can click on their LinkedIn profile. Well, let's do the second one. And I'll tell you what things are moving so fast. Everybody's talking about Okay, first quarter Feds gonna drop rates yesterday, we heard they're not dropping rates, and I don't think they're gonna drop rates until the third quarter, but I'm not an economist. But one thing you can do is to stay on top of what industries, your clients and CMIs referral sources, and prospects are involved with. Industry updates are a vital thing to do on LinkedIn. 

Brynne Tillman  06:40

Absolutely! And our friends at Vertical IQ, do a really good job of curating content in those industries. But if you've got vertical, like you leverage it this way, but you can go out and find industry content through Google and through other places, obviously, that's really relevant. But to Jack's point, let's say you're selling to automotive manufacturing, who's selling to car dealerships. Rather than finding content on the automotive manufacturing side, because that's what they know, go that one step deeper and find out what's happening in those dealerships. What's going on in your customer’s customers world?

When you can do this, I love this, this is your you've really taken that extra step. And they know that it's personal, and you've reached out to them. The other thing is, they do know their own industry typically. So when you're sharing insights about whom, who they sell to, you know that you're probably really providing insights that they haven't seen, or they haven't looked at. So really, absolutely critical, start to take inventory of your existing clients, and who and whom they serve and whom they serve. I'm not good with who and whom. But I think it's Mazur so, you know, and really start to curate content around those industries. Jack, you want to add to that? 

Jack Hubbard  08:18

Yeah, I do. The thing you talked about before the idea of networking, but network networking can be one to 1000, or one to one. And one of the things I think bankers could do better in 2024 is to go when they see a post that they really like around a particular industry issue. They could go if it's a first degree connection, they could go right to the send button, that little paper airplane, and they could individually send that content to a particular prospect or a CLI or client say hey, I thought I saw this and thought of you. Those little things are really really important as it relates to industry updates. 

Let's go to the third one. This phrase irritates me. You are a thought leader. You are a thought leader. But there's too many people out there who say they're thought leaders because they have nominated themselves as a thought leader. I believe. Other people say you're a thought leader. You're a thought leader, Chris Nichols as a thought leader, Kevin Turner's a thought leader, thought leader. Well, that's great. And that's that's fine. I appreciate that. Here's the point. We got to be following thought leaders this year, and we got to work hard to become one in the eyes of our clients.

Brynne Tillman  09:37

Yeah, I love that. And really, we started with a little bit about curating content. original content is a great way to become a thought leader bringing value and insights into a conversation both publicly and one on one is a great way to be seen as a thought leader but I'm gonna go back to your comment. This is not product focus. First, this is not about you b and there's a difference between subject matter expert and thought leader, subject matter expert means you are an awesome banker and you understand everything around banking. And we want you to be known for that. But that is not what gets you appointments. That is what gets you clients. 

Thought leadership is what gets you the conversations, the strategic thinking, the I, you know, I'm teaching you something that you didn't really think about before, when you can do that. So thought leadership is getting others to think differently. When you can do that, and you earn that thought leadership perspective. The next step really is that subject matter expertise when you are one on one with them, when you're learning about their challenges, and how a line of credit might be able to fix that, or, you know, whatever that is, but we don't want and that's the differentiator, right. And we want to show up as a thought leader in step number one, step number two is showing up as a subject matter expert, no doubt. So I think that that's really important. And ultimately, that thought leadership will draw in opportunities.

Jack Hubbard  11:19

Yeah, and for me, a couple of thought leaders that I follow pretty significantly on LinkedIn. Number one is a guy named Tom Morris. Tom is what I call America's philosopher. He's amazing. He's written 30 books, and just came out with another new book. Tom writes so eloquently on LinkedIn, it's just tremendous. Another thought leader that I find in bank marketing is really good as James Robert Lake. He writes about digital marketing, and he writes eloquently. And the third one, Eric Cook writes differently than James Robert Lay, he's more informally, he's fun. But there's nobody in banking, bank marketing anyway, that knows more about, here's a new thing that you might want to look at, here's a new something in digital, here's a new software you ought to be considering. 

So those are three people that I follow. And then again, if I see something that Eric writes, or James, Robert, or Tom Wright, I'll follow, I'll repost that, or I'll send it to somebody individually, or put it on our company page, that's important. Well, putting it on your company page. So one of the things I really want to do in 2024, so one of my goals is to get 2500 followers on the modern banker, you know, we just started in June of last year, we've got almost 800 right now. And one of the things I want to do around that is to make sure that if someone comes to our company page and follows us, and I think that's a mistake bankers make, I want to make sure that they are gifted as a result of coming there, that they get a benefit from that. And so what I want to do is to make sure that they are engaged, because I want to be engaged with them. So the next thing we need to be talking about Brynne is client engagement. 

Brynne Tillman  13:17

Yeah, so this is so important on so many levels. And you know, I love that you, you know, you say when they show up, that it needs to be worth their time, right when they show up, we've earned the right for them to engage, we need to engage first, right, and we do all the time. But as bankers, we need to engage first. So one of the things we recommend is go ahead and follow all of your clients' pages, you may be connected to the CEO or some of the folks but go follow their company pages as well. You want to engage not just on the individual post, but the company, you are the banker for the whole company, right and you want to make sure that you are engaging there. 

The other thing you want to do is make sure that you ring the bell of your clients when you ring their bell. And if you are a first degree connection, there's a little bell at the top right right underneath your banner. When you ring that bell, you'll be alerted when they share content. And this will remind you and in a timely way to go and engage with these folks. 

Now, one of the things I noticed is I rang a heck of a lot of bells. And there were some people they see often. So if you're if you run the bell of lots of people, and you're skipping it, it came in as a notification. You're not engaging unring the bell, because we really want your notifications to be. I don't know 80 90% engageable we want you to go there and say, Oh, this is someone I want to have a conversation with. This is someone I want to be on the radar of and we call Audit client engagement, but it's also referral partner engagement. You know, it's who in my ecosystem I want to stay in front of. And so I think that engagement is really important. 

Now, keep in mind, when someone shares content, typically they're not getting too many engagement opportunities there. Because people, if you're not going through one of our programmes, don't know, I mean, they may know how to do it out there. But you know, they just don't put it, they post in Ghost, they put it out, they leave, and three people comment and two people, whatever, right. So when you comment, and you engage with their content, you matter, way more than if you share your content with them. So they really share content because they want engagement. And when you engage and you share, I can tell you another really fun thing to do is if you mentioned someone else on your team that might get value from that, or you mentioned a prospect, a potential prospect of theirs, that might get value from that your credibility goes sky high with them, so that when you do reach out for a conversation, it's not just that you made them matter. But they know that you are taking the time and energy to personalize this in a world where automation is taken over. And in banking, the relationship is still what matters. And when you can personalize that, and really take it to a level where they know that you've invested that time. You just have so much more credibility and trust with them. 

Jack Hubbard  16:47

Yes, no doubt. It's fascinating to me. We did a programme, I did a post about my eight buddies, seven buddies that went to play golf last September. And it was fun, and got a lot of use etc. There were a couple of people over Christmas that engaged in it. So the point is this, that LinkedIn, if you've got a post, where you've got a lot of engagements, and that's partly your responsibility to engage on other's posts, it will stay vibrant, it will stay alive, in the LinkedIn a programme for you. The other thing, we talked to a banker, recently, a bank marketing professional, and one of the things we pointed out is they had several 1000 followers on their company page, but nobody can get to that company page except for the person who owns that company page. 

And one of the things I think when you talk about client engagement, I think partner engagement can become really important here. If I'm, if I'm a commercial lender, I need to find out who owns that page. And can I see it, can I come to your office? Can you do a couple of screen captures, because the reason people follow pages are many and varied. Some might be because I want to be an investor, some might be because I want to buy something from you. And if I know Oh, my prospect is following our company page, I can do something to engage on that. So I think partner engagement becomes really important as well,

Brynne Tillman  18:18

I'm going to Yes, and that, and I'm gonna say you can temporarily add other admins to the company page. You don't necessarily want all your commercial bankers to have ownership of the page, but temporarily, you can give it to them. And then two things happen, now they can look through and see who those followers are. Number two, they can actually invite their first degree connections to follow the page. So I actually highly recommend that that temporary co ownership of that company page or CO admin, and you can have different levels of admin, but in the case of actually seeing who's following, you need to give them you know, big power. So keep it temporary for sure. The other thing, if you have Sales Navigator is you can search and filter criteria of who whom you want to do business with. And click on the toggle people that follow my company page. So you can actually even if you don't have access to the company page, but you do have Sales Navigator, they do kind of give you that little edge in. 

Jack Hubbard  19:36

That's a great catch. And I love the temporary admin too. I think that's awesome. All right. Let's go to the next one. Something that's so near and dear to my heart over the past 50 years and that skill development. We need to continue to get better at LinkedIn. I interviewed Kevin Turner over the holidays and the program's going to come out a little bit later. LinkedIn did over 170 changes. Just this year, we need to stay on top of this number one and number two, we need to go from the foundational level to an intermediate and advanced level so that we stay up with what's going on on LinkedIn and make LinkedIn effective for us and part of our sales process. skill development. Brynne. 

Brynne Tillman  20:17

Yeah, so you want to take a look at first of all, what is your responsibility inside of the bank or credit union? What are you in a full on business development role? Are you in a networking role to bring people into the bank? Do you like gung ho in the deposit world? Like, what is it that you're looking to achieve? And then we have to decide, what is it that you want to hone? What skills do we want to hone? So for everyone, not that this isn't necessarily a skill, but foundationally, before we get into the skills, you've got to have a strong profile, so that when people show up, they know how you can help them. 

Now, some skills, content and engagement is a skill, there's three skills, we're more in content and engagement. Are you going to do original content? Most bankers would say no, no, no. And that's fine. But where are you going to curate the engagement? And who are you going to engage with, we gave you some ideas around ringing bells and following company pages. But there's a skill around that engagement. And there's a strategy. So we want to make sure part of, you know, honing the skill is honing the skill for the right strategy, is what I'm doing here, getting me toward my goal. And if that does, then we want to keep honing that and sharpening that skill. If you say, You know what, this is not necessarily the best pathway in, I might hone my skill, a little bit on the side here, but I'm really going to focus on client referrals. And so now I'm going to hone in on my searching skills, how do I search my clients connections more effectively? That's a skill to hone in on? How do I ask my client for a conversation around those names without being too pushy, where you're maintaining the integrity of the relationship? But you know, but you're still getting the opportunity to review the names of the people they're connected to? How do you ask for introductions at the right time, or know when not to ask for introductions and potentially meet just permission to name drop, if you get on a call, that's a skill, right? 

If you get on a call with a prospect or a client, excuse me, around the prospect list, and you're hearing that they're overwhelmed in their world, you do not want to put more on their plate, that is the last thing we want to do. But if we review these folks, and then we ask for permission to name drop, we can do that. But if you hear that, ask them if there's anything you can do to support them. In many cases, you can't buy the fact that you hear that overwhelm, and you're not putting, asking for introductions will maintain the integrity of that relationship. Right? 

So those are all skills, and then how do you reach out to that person dropping the name in a way that gets them to take your call? Those are all skills that need to be honed, there are so many other things right? Maybe we want to hone? How do we leverage polls, which is a tactic, but there's a skill around? How do we get the most votes from the most of the right people that we want to engage? So the first thing we need to do is what is our goal? What skills or what features do we need to leverage? And then what skill do we need to learn to make sure that our time is effective and efficient, and we're not going down rabbit holes, that we really have a plan in place that leads to our goal. And that to me is honing skills.

Jack Hubbard 24:16

No doubt and and you know, in our Mastering LinkedIn for Bankers Training, we have 80 modules. And if you add the support bankers, it's 110. That's a lot to learn. So if you can set a goal and say, Okay, this year or this quarter, I want to learn one skill that I do better on LinkedIn and really isolate and focus on that. I think that that's a really good plan. Brent, I liked that idea. Well, another idea that goes way back to the start of LinkedIn is something that you're really passionate about and really good at and that's personal branding. Talk about that a little  bit.

Brynne Tillman  24:52

Yeah. And we started with that skill. It's not really a skill, but you're out there. sharing everything you share leads back to your profile. Now, I heard I was listening to a b2b growth podcast. And I have to go back and find out where they got this. But there was a statistic, I actually think they may have said they got it off of LinkedIn, where it and I'm throwing this out there, if it's wrong, I have to go back and something like 80% of people don't trust brands. They trust people. So your personal brand, I have to go back, B2B growth. I think it was the last episode of 2023 B2B growth podcast, you can go listen to it. But it floored me, I was like, I was on the treadmill. And I'm like, Oh, I'm listening to my podcast. And I'm like, literally, I'm like, we'll get my step that was like, it's, like, don't trust brands, or even if you're a little local, regional bank or credit union, it's probably not that high, you probably have a bigger trust percentage than maybe the big banks just in the world of you know what people think. But no matter where you are, people are still doing business with people. If you're not Apple, or Nike, right? Those are the brands that people might trust, or Adidas, right. But if you as a banker, they're not switching because of the brand, they're switching because of you. 

So personal branding is critical. And what you want to do is make sure this is where that thought leadership and subject matter expert position kind of collide, where when you're building out your profile, and even the content that you share, needs to reflect who you are as a person as well as who you are, as a professional. So in today's world, it's a combination, if you want to throw in something personal, in, you know, five posts, and one of them is personal, but not overly personal, like something you would share in a networking meeting, right? 

Then, you know, that's how people will get to know your video is personal branding. I just really quickly know I'm going on and on. But I was at a conference a little while back. And someone came up to me and gave me a really huge hug. And she's like, I love you. And I'm like I didn't know you. And I had never met her. But because of my video, she knew me. That's the personal brand. Right? so strong that I have. And I happen to be a hugger. So it's okay, don't go hugging people. Unless you have permission. You can hug me, it's fine. But ultimately, you're getting handshakes and hugs and people used to be the same people who do business. I'm sorry. I messed that up. The old saying was it's who you know, but with social and personal branding, it's about who knows you?

Jack Hubbard  28:30

For sure. I've got one more. And then I have a question for you. So let's talk about client referrals a little bit? How, why is that important on LinkedIn? How do you go about getting them?

Brynne Tillman  28:46

You know, in the real world, we ask our clients, who else do you know that could use our banking services the way you have? And they shrug and say, Oh, no, no, I can't think of anyone right now. But if someone should ask, I'm certainly happy to refer you. Well, we now have the ability to search and filter clients' connections with LinkedIn to identify who they know that we want to meet, and have that conversation with them. So you know, we touched on that a little bit, but tactically, you, it's and by the way, you can do this in the free LinkedIn, it's better in Sales Navigator, but it is possible in the free LinkedIn where you can go in and look at who your client knows, that meets your criteria. Maybe it's business owners in your state, or in your greater city area. Maybe it's CPAs that you want to meet.

You can search their connections and make a list and bring that list to them. And say of these folks who do you think it might make sense for me to connect with? And if the timing is right, maybe you have 17 names and it comes down to four. You may say of these four Is there anyone you feel comfortable introducing me to and me Maybe there's one or two. And then the other two, you might say, thank you so much, I really appreciate it. I can offer up, I'll send you a little paragraph if you want to just copy us both in an email to make it as easy as possible for you. When I reached out to the other two, Can I mention you're my happy client, and you thought it made sense for me to reach out. So now, you know, we've got that that becomes the tactics in the skill set, right to get through. But you can do this with all of your clients that love you. And by the way, sometimes I never asked for the introduction, I just asked for permission to name drop, because I get to keep control of the sale. I mean, it's just and I'm not putting my client out. Now, if I'm doing this with a networking partner, and we're making mutual introductions, I want the introductions. But with a client, again, you have to feel how busy they are? And I will say it's just as successful when you drop a name. 

Jack Hubbard  30:58

Perfect. That's great. Well, those are excellent seven, networking, industry updates, thought leadership, client engagement, skill development, personal branding, and client referrals. So I have a question. So as the calendar turns, everybody has a birthday, my wife, Kathy's birthday was January 1, so it's hard to celebrate Happy New Year and all that kind of stuff. We've worked around that. My birthday is next Tuesday. So I have a strategy as to what happens. First of all, I've put my birthday on my LinkedIn date on my LinkedIn for a reason. What gives me some guidance, somebody says he reaches out and says Happy Birthday. Not what? 

Brynne Tillman  31:46

Well, so I mean, I might take this to crazy levels, but I always create a birthday gift to give them. So although I had you know, my 50th birthday, it was 50 LinkedIn tips. What but every year, I have a gift of content of value, something that I probably spend six weeks creating, right? Because I think that's important. And this is, to me, one of the best opportunities because you've got all these people wishing you a happy birthday, hundreds if not, you know. And so what do I do, and I have a thank you so much for the birthday wishes. Every year on my birthday, I like to give my network a gift. Here's a link to the ebook, the video, whatever that is. And I get a lot of responses. And I actually often use SmartLink. 

So I can see who's actually clicking through. And that's it, a Sales Navigator tip. But I do that. But on the other hand, I like to give gifts to my network on their birthday. So you can see other people's birthdays. And if you have, you know some kind of value that you can bring in on their birthday. It's great. I had a partner that literally sent a beautiful voice singing Happy Birthday, with their name on the audio, to lots of fun, you know like it and that's what she did. She went on the phone and sang Happy Birthday to everybody with their name. You could do a video birthday wish. But these are opportunities. Everyone has a birthday you will and almost everyone has it listed. So you'll hit a huge percentage of your network if you did the 456 every day.

Jack Hubbard  33:33

Yep, short message and something of value. And I'll give you one more tip on your birthday. LinkedIn when you know it's somebody's birthday, they have a little one line, happy birthday, and it's all generic. And I get a lot of those. If you're going to wish somebody a happy birthday, take a couple extra minutes and make it personal. That's really important. Well, this was fun Brynne first programme in 2024. It was great. 

Next week, we've got a terrific program, and it is creating an effective LinkedIn profile. Now we go back to the basics every once in a while. And there are new things that we can be talking about next week and creating that effective LinkedIn profile. Thanks Brynne was great. A lot of fun. Always great to see you. Ah, so much fun. Thanks, Jack. See everybody. 

Outro:
Thanks for joining us for Jack Rants with Brynne brought to you by our good friends at Vertical IQ and RelPro. We're live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time helping bankers turn connections into conversations. Don't miss an episode, visit themodernbanker.com/tmbpodcast. Leave us a review if you would. You can also listen to this program and the new Jack Rants with Modern Bankers on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Play and I Heart Radio. We're on YouTube as well. Subscribe at https://www.youtube.com/@TheModernBanker. Finally, don't forget, make today and every day a great client day!