Making LinkedIn Work For You with Sarah Greesonbach

LinkedIn Jedi Master (and Founder of the B2B Writing Institute) Sarah Greesonbach shares how she uses LinkedIn to grow her business and relationships--and how you can too.

How Sarah managed to build two soloist businesses—one with clients and the other with students—with one LinkedIn presence.

Using LinkedIn as a way to develop your point of view and practice your voice with your ideal people.

Why it’s time to step up and be heard even if you don’t look or sound like whatever popular culture says is “in”.

How to rev up your LinkedIn machine without having to prove how smart you are (or spend every waking hour working at it).

A few sample prompts to re-think how to humanize your LinkedIn posts.

LINKS

Sarah Greesonbach Website | LinkedIn

Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

A FEW OF SARAH’S PLAYFUL SOCIAL PROMPTS

1.  What event or milestone can you celebrate that very few others can celebrate?

2.   What do you wish you knew about your craft or profession 6 months ago? What about 10 years ago?

3.   What’s a special geographic/physical location to you, and why?

4.   What’s surprised you about parenting in a good way?

5.   What’s surprised you about business or work in a good way?

BIO

Sarah Greesonbach is the founder of the B2B Writing Institute, a rigorous training program that prepares writers for a vibrant career in B2B marketing.

Since 2013, Sarah has operated B2B Content Studio and invoiced more than $1 million as a freelance writer. Writing for agencies and Fortune 500 technology companies in the HR, retail/e-com, and higher education space, Sarah develops B2B content marketing assets like original research, white papers, and more.

BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00 – 00:24

Sarah Greesonbach: People don’t care what you’re talking about. They care how you feel about it and how you make them feel about it. And so people don’t care what information we’re posting, but if we can share it in a way that finally lets it connect or lets them connect emotionally with themselves, like some kind of in there communication-wise, that’s what makes people actually stop and pay attention and maybe even look forward to the next thing you’re going to share.

00:28 – 01:12

Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we’re all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I’m Rachelle Moulton, and today I’m here with my pal Sarah Greesonbach, who is the founder of the B2B Writing Institute, which is a rigorous training program that prepares writers for a vibrant career in B2B marketing. And since 2013, Sarah has operated B2B content studio and invoice more than a million dollars as a freelance writer. Writing for agencies and Fortune 500 technology companies in the HR, retail, e-comm, and higher education space, Sarah develops B2B content marketing assets like original research, white

01:12 – 01:28

Rochelle Moulton: papers, and more. Sarah, welcome. Hello, Thank you so much for having me. And I’ve been such a fan of your stuff for so long that this is quite literally the fanciest I’ve ever felt in my life. So thank you. Well that’s our goal is to make everybody here feel fancy.

01:29 – 01:32

Sarah Greesonbach: I do if I had to check the mirror to make sure I wasn’t wearing a top hat.

01:32 – 02:04

Rochelle Moulton: Well, I had to say your hair looked fabulous today. I just say that. Okay. So I just had to have you on the show to talk about your LinkedIn presence. And I realized that you have the very distinct advantage of being a writer and a very, very witty one. Truly. Thank you. Yeah. But your LinkedIn posts always draw me in because of their humanity. I feel like they show you as a real professional and a real person. And of course, we’re going to talk about your business too. You know I’m going to want to do that.

02:04 – 02:19

Rochelle Moulton: But maybe I should say your 2 businesses, right? Since you write for clients and you teach other writers through your B2B writing institute. So let’s start with kind of your overall business. How long did it take you to hit your first 100, 000?

02:21 – 02:41

Sarah Greesonbach: Ooh, that would have been maybe 2 and a half years in. And I was actually boosted by my first maternity leave because that was my real motivation. I had gone through that first year of just replacing my salary and that second year of almost hitting 100K. And then suddenly I was pregnant and it was like, this is the year this is going to happen.

02:41 – 02:44

Rochelle Moulton: Oh, I have no choice, right?

02:44 – 02:48

Sarah Greesonbach: Yeah, it really was just up against the wall. You have to make it happen.

02:48 – 03:10

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, yeah. So talk to us about when and why you started the B2B Institute, because if I understand your career arc correctly, you’ve done this B2B writing, you’ve done it successfully, You figured out how to make 100k plus. You figured out how to take actually 2 maternity leaves. So where in all this did you start the B2B Institute?

03:11 – 03:42

Sarah Greesonbach: The seed or the disgusting little worm actually began when I was a high school English teacher and that’s how I got my start with careers in general and it was just such a bad experience that it really put me off teaching and it made me question what my purpose was and if I had maybe gotten that wrong And I’m sure we can all imagine like when you crash and burn with a career choice Suddenly you’re questioning all of your intuition and all of the decisions you’ve ever made which is really pleasant So when I bounced back

03:42 – 04:13

Sarah Greesonbach: and kind of returned to like maybe I’m a writer maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do I got into government contracting and then marketing and was suddenly laid off and so that’s what threw me into freelancing. So eventually it took about 5 years for the teacher in me to heal and for me to remember like how important it is for me to help other people achieve something or transform something or learn a new skill. And so once I started doing some webinars, some teaching, it just really felt like the right thing to do. And that that

04:13 – 04:19

Sarah Greesonbach: showed me that my path could be teaching and not getting rocks thrown at me in high school lunchrooms.

04:20 – 04:23

Rochelle Moulton: Oh, I don’t even want to, I try to forget high school myself.

04:23 – 04:24

Sarah Greesonbach: True story.

04:26 – 04:43

Rochelle Moulton: So it’s challenging serving 2 audiences, right? Because you, you’ve got the clients that you’re trying to attract with your writing and you have writers that you want to teach how to become better B2B writers. So how did you serve 2 audiences and are you still doing that now?

04:44 – 05:18

Sarah Greesonbach: I am and I was actually really sneaky about it because what I did was learn from people like you and Jonathan Stark and the book, Book Solid, Michael Port, just all of that stuff. And I was really intentional about building a client base that was recurring so that I don’t actually have to prospect all that much to keep the writing side of my business going. It’s truly like 90% recurring clients and clients I’ve had for 3 to 5 years. And so I did have a lot of inner emotional turmoil of, am I allowed to talk about

05:18 – 05:26

Sarah Greesonbach: freelancing? Will that put off my old clients and stuff? But surprisingly, no 1 really cares and it hasn’t affected the writing work that I’ve been able to do.

05:27 – 05:43

Rochelle Moulton: Well, you know, what’s also interesting is I think we also over index on what we think our clients care about what we do. Cause I’m like a lot of them, they never go to our website, right? They, they may or may not read the stuff that we send out to our email list. They may not even be on our email list.

05:43 – 05:50

Sarah Greesonbach: Yeah. It’s kind of like your family. They don’t know what you’re doing. They care about you, but they don’t necessarily care what you’re saying on LinkedIn.

05:51 – 05:55

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, well they just don’t get it. That happens too.

05:55 – 05:56

Sarah Greesonbach: Yeah.

05:56 – 06:29

Rochelle Moulton: So I saw that you said, and I’m gonna quote, successful social media was about giving myself intentional time, space, and permission. Love that permission. To say what I want to say and to put thought and time and intention into how I phrase what I think. So I like that you see using social as an opportunity, but what made you start down the path to conquering social, specifically with LinkedIn? Was there like a single event or a situation that made you decide to go all in?

06:29 – 07:04

Sarah Greesonbach: Yeah, For me, I’ve always tried to follow the path of where my customers were going to go for information. And since I had some early work in career transition to help people jump from basically being Smeez in their line of work to writing as Smeez. And just everybody heads to LinkedIn once they start thinking about jobs. So it always really stood out as a place where everybody else is kind of boring for the most part. So you could stand out just by being funny or sharing something obvious, almost like improv or stand up. And then it’s

07:04 – 07:19

Sarah Greesonbach: where people go when they start thinking about businessy, worky kind of stuff. And so it just seemed really obvious if I can use that network effect and show people what I’m thinking or what goes on behind the scenes, that that would be a way to build trust over the long term.

07:20 – 07:24

Rochelle Moulton: Okay. And when did you really go all in? How long ago is that?

07:24 – 07:27

Sarah Greesonbach: I’d say it’d be 3 to 5 years.

07:27 – 07:29

Rochelle Moulton: Oh, it’s not that long in the scheme of things.

07:30 – 07:58

Sarah Greesonbach: Yeah, I had a lot of hangups when I first started. Man, it just seems like it’s all hangups at this point. But 1 I remember really clearly was the sense that if I want to be an authority in the space, then I need to be very neutral and very formal and very authoritative, like all the boring things that have come before. And so right before COVID, I went to a retreat in New York. And 1 of the things was doing some mindset exercises and writing out how we’ve been approaching things and how we’re going to change

07:58 – 08:12

Sarah Greesonbach: things. And I just had this light bulb moment of, I’m gonna stop trying to pursue authority by being neutral. And I’m going to like actually be more human, like exactly what you said. And that was when people actually started caring what I was saying.

08:13 – 08:23

Rochelle Moulton: Wow. I feel like that’s a mic drop moment where you realize you can be yourself and you can have an opinion and you can really find your own voice.

08:24 – 08:56

Sarah Greesonbach: Ooh, yeah, that’s like 12 mic drops right there. Cause there were so many reasons. I’m generally a fairly confident person and I know I have things to contribute, but when it came to Getting on the internet and telling people to look at me and listen to me I definitely had to give myself permission for that and to just accept that maybe I had something relevant for people to see and hear. It was a process I would not have gotten through without 2 coaches. A mind tech coach and a business coach and lots of crying.

08:56 – 09:13

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. Clearly you’re a terrific writer but Lots of great writers crash and burn on LinkedIn and Twitter too, for that matter. So what goals did you have at first and how did you start making it work for you? I mean, once you decided not to be bland.

09:14 – 09:47

Sarah Greesonbach: Oh, I love that because at first I definitely thought if I just show off how much I know about writing or business then surely droves and droves of people Fuck to see what I have to say and obviously that’s not a good decision because the internet is full of information. It’s actually, so I do improv for fun with my husband. And 1 of the lessons they really hammer in is people don’t care what you’re talking about. They care how you feel about it and how you make them feel about it. And so people don’t care what

09:47 – 10:04

Sarah Greesonbach: information we’re posting, but if we can share it in a way that finally lets it connect or lets them connect emotionally with themselves, like some kind of in there communication wise, that’s what makes people actually stop and pay attention and maybe even look forward to the next thing you’re going to share.

10:04 – 10:39

Rochelle Moulton: Well, it’s working on me because like, first of all, you post a lot. So you’re in my feed a lot, but I never pass them by. Like sometimes If they’re really long, I might scan them. And the other thing that you do that’s really intriguing to me, I’m so in awe, I just could not do this myself, is you’ll get, let’s say 10, 20, even 30 responses on something, and you’ll have this quick witty response to each 1. Like, I think just recently you said something to me, I commented on something and you said, I’m putting

10:39 – 10:50

Rochelle Moulton: on a hat and I’m tipping it. Who says that? But it made me feel seen and appreciated. And it was clever. I mean, I just love that you’re able to do that.

10:50 – 11:03

Sarah Greesonbach: Oh, I love that. Thank you. Yeah, I definitely had to talk myself into being more comfortable. And sometimes I just have to go with whatever comes to mind first, and really not think about the consequences.

11:03 – 11:19

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. Well, and sometimes you’re a little goofy, which I love. I think you had something, like there was something for 1 of the products that you were selling. Like there was some extra that came with it. I can’t remember. I think it was like a drawing of a cat or something. I can’t remember.

11:19 – 11:20

Sarah Greesonbach: The crap dragon.

11:20 – 11:25

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. That was it. The crap dragon. I love that. I thought that was genius.

11:25 – 11:27

Sarah Greesonbach: That’s a deep dive. Yeah.

11:29 – 11:33

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So What do you see as your goals for LinkedIn now?

11:34 – 12:08

Sarah Greesonbach: Again, I feel like I’m admitting to being really sneaky, but that is what marketing does sometimes. And I think I realized my goal for LinkedIn is to be known and be able to have a relationship with people because they can’t trust and like you or buy from you until they actually feel like they know you. And once that clicked for me and once I realized it could be safe to be known on LinkedIn, Then it got really easy to share about marriage and parenting and the times in my business that I felt failure. We had mentioned

12:08 – 12:12

Sarah Greesonbach: a little bit about weight stuff and being a plus-size person online.

12:12 – 12:36

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. Will you talk about that for a moment? Sure. Because anybody who doesn’t look like what they think is the entertainment norm, right? Like A58 blonde haired white woman with blue eyes, right? Anybody who’s who doesn’t feel like they’re that archetype can often have a lot of trouble getting in front of a camera or a microphone or a LinkedIn page.

12:37 – 13:10

Sarah Greesonbach: Yeah, it kills me how subconscious it can be, because if you had asked me if I thought that had anything to do with leadership or being in public, I would have laughed and kind of scooched past you on the sidewalk. But when I went to do it, it was suddenly, everything was cold. My intuition was like, no, don’t do this. It’s dangerous. You can’t do this. And When I did that inner work with the coaches and the journaling and stuff it came up Well, who am I to contribute anything since I’m fat? Once I wrote that

13:10 – 13:38

Sarah Greesonbach: down and I read that and I was like, do I actually believe that that can’t be no that who would believe that because it sounds so crazy, but I was holding that belief with what I was doing. And that literally kept me from posting something online that I thought. I thought that was really silly. So I had to address that and then move past it kind of like, gosh, was it the big leap? Just something where once you shine a light on it, it disappears and you can move past it. And I had to do that

13:38 – 13:39

Sarah Greesonbach: really intentionally.

13:40 – 14:03

Rochelle Moulton: Well, thank God you did, because the world needs your voice. We need your voice. And just thank you for sharing that, Sarah, because I think a lot of us have had, you know, very private struggles with that and putting our voice out there, attaching our names or our faces to a belief that feels scary. And yeah, and once you shine a light on it, you might even like the spotlight.

14:03 – 14:30

Sarah Greesonbach: Yeah. And I have worked with at least 3 or 4 coaching clients at this point who feel that way about age. Again, it just kills me that someone would have this outrageous, wonderful experience in these cool life stories, and then hesitate to share something because they think they might look old or they might not look the way they’re supposed to look when I would find those the most interesting stories in my feed. So I I love being able to encourage people to do that.

14:31 – 15:08

Rochelle Moulton: Ageism is alive and rampant. Yeah and especially women of a certain age, we tend to be invisible. So it’s yeah, it’s pushing those stories out. Just as a side note, though, if anybody is dealing with this, go on Instagram and pay attention to some women in their late 70s, 80s, and yes,...