The Secret To LinkedIn Leads

When was the last time you updated your LinkedIn profile? Or took the time to comment on a post while scrolling through your feed?

This week, Mark speaks with Joshua B. Lee about how a well-optimized social media presence and authentic engagement allow you to build meaningful connections and establish a robust social and professional network. 

Known as the "Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn," Joshua is an entrepreneur, storyteller, author, and a firm believer in weaving genuine human connections into the digital tapestry. 

He is the author of Balance is Bullsh*t, and the founder of Standout Authority, where he helps professionals and entrepreneurs shine on LinkedIn by breathing life into their personal brands. 

He shares his expertise on creating authentic connections in the digital world and leveraging LinkedIn for business growth.

Here are some of the topics Mark and Joshua discuss in this episode:

• How a well-crafted LinkedIn profile can open new doors for your business
• Why regular updates and active personal branding are crucial
• The top three things business owners should be doing to maximize their presence of LinkedIn
• Why leaders should ensure their LinkedIn profiles are comprehensive and reflective of their professional journey, not just a resume
• How to use the XYZ statement approach on your LinkedIn profile
• How engaging thoughtfully by providing insights elevates your visibility
• Why you should prioritize genuine relationship building, not just making the sale
• How leveraging personal stories and experiences in interactions helps humanize connections
• Why you should be encouraging and training your teams to engage on LinkedIn 
• Josua B. Lee’s #1 strategy for selling more

“The biggest thing most people miss out on with LinkedIn is that it’s the one platform where you can see every single person that looks at your profile.” Joshua B. Lee

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Links to This Episode

• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• YouTube
• Audible

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Key Takeaways

• Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Credibility - Leaders should ensure their profiles are comprehensive and reflective of their professional journey.

• Building Relationships Over Transactions - Networking on LinkedIn should prioritize genuine relationship building rather than just aiming for immediate sales. This approach fosters trust and long-term connections that are more likely to yield sustainable business opportunities.

• Participate and Establish Yourself as an Expert - Commenting on posts and participating in discussions can help draw attention in a positive way, gradually building a reputation as a thoughtful and knowledgeable industry player.

Top 3 Reasons to Listen

Discover how to build relationships, not just connections: Discover why Joshua emphasizes quality interactions over quantity, and how this approach can lead to more meaningful business opportunities.

Understand the role of personal branding on LinkedIn: Joshua discusses the importance of personal branding and how it can influence your professional success and the perception of your business.

Learn how to empower your team on LinkedIn: Find out how enhancing your team's LinkedIn profiles and activity can amplify your company’s reach and improve its branding.

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Follow Joshua B. Lee on Social

Website:  https://standoutauthority.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejoshuablee/?hl=en

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejoshuablee/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuablee/

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More About Today's Guest, Joshua B. Lee

The Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn - Transforming Your Connections into Advocates & Customers so YOU stand out | CEO | Keynote Speaker | Author | Father

Joshua B. Lee, affectionately known as the "Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn," is a dynamic entrepreneur, storyteller, and author dedicated to creating genuine human connections in the digital age. With a remarkable journey spanning the creation of 16 successful businesses and the authorship of his heartfelt book, 'Balance is Bullsh*t,' Josh brings unparalleled expertise and passion to everything he does.

Josh's story began in the early 2000s when he played a pivotal role in propelling industry giants like MySpace, Yahoo, and Google to unprecedented heights. With nearly a billion dollars in ad spends and 35 trillion online impressions to his credit, his accomplishments are impressive. Yet, amid this digital success, Josh recognized a growing disconnect—the loss of human touch.

This realization led him to found Standout Authority in 2014. Standout Authority is dedicated to reviving personal brands and helping professionals and entrepreneurs shine on LinkedIn, the premier platform for business networking. At Standout Authority, the focus isn't merely on metrics; it's about standing out, connecting deeply, and driving meaningful change while staying true to one's core values.

Throughout his journey, Josh has had the honor of collaborating with visionaries like Joe Polish, Dan Sullivan, and John C. Maxwell, and partnering with renowned companies such as Oracle, Gartner, and ADT. His work underscores the belief that business success and genuine human connection can coexist harmoniously.

Josh's personal life is equally fulfilling, anchored by his blended family—his supportive wife Rachel B. Lee, and their wonderful children, Jayden, Skylar, and Ava B. Lee.

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A Transcription of The Talk

Mark Drager: Joshua, you and I met a few years ago actually on a social platform that we don't talk about. But at least I don't; I've scrubbed it from my memory. I hope everyone has scrubbed it from the collective consciousness, but I will share, I will just fill in our audience, we're talking, of course, about Clubhouse. Now, that was the thing that blew up and disappeared, kind of because it caught the zeitgeist of the time of being in lockdown and wanting to network and wanting to connect with people. And it just, was the perfect app at the perfect time for us to be able to connect with like-minded people. And when I met you at the time, you know, I knew that you were the LinkedIn King, the what? What is it that you say in your bio? The dopamine dealer of LinkedIn, the dopamine dealer of LinkedIn. That's it. And so I've been watching you and your wife, who's the co-owner of the business standard authority, and I've been watching us for a while. And then my friend Evan Carmichael connected with you, and he had you on his podcast. Yep. And then I go to the Genius Network event in December, and we're sitting side by side, I have the chance to get to know you and get to meet you a little bit better.

And I share all this to say that three things happened. I met you on a social platform, which was about networking on Clubhouse, I met you through my network watching Evan Carmichael's content because we're friends. And then I went to a networking event. And I met you at that event again. And that's what I'm hoping we're going to talk about today because you are an expert when it comes to all things LinkedIn. Yeah, but at the end of the day, I can't help but notice that every time we've connected, it's been through some kind of social network that's actually not Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or any of these other things, we just keep bumping into each other. And I feel like there's got to be, there's got to be something to that. That's got to be an illustration of what LinkedIn actually is. Am I stretching, or is that true?

Joshua B. Lee: You're not, brother. I mean, I appreciate that. Because you know, you're right, man, I was so stoked at like, 80,000 followers, connections, whatever, on Clubhouse, and guess what? 90% of them were trillionaires. I was like, Dude, this is crazy. I can't believe people are so rich and they're spending 12 hours a day on this platform.

Mark Drager: We were like sleeping with their heads against their phones. And I was only really active for about four or five months. And I feel that was enough time for me to come in and get really impressed, get pretty good at it. And then I realized behind the scenes that maybe some of it was BS.

Joshua B. Lee: Yeah. Well, you know, and we talked about Evan Carmichael as well, too. You know, he realized really quickly, it's like, wow, we all talk about our time, but somehow we all get sucked into it for a little bit. And I remember he didn't even show up, like, he just had past recordings, YouTube...

Mark Drager: that was me doing that. I was the one operating it literally here in my office. I took his recordings, I did the bridges, and I scripted it for him. I ran it through our code, we ran it through ManyChat, and I was actually launching his account. And I was able to get to, like, 12,000 followers in like, three weeks.

Joshua B. Lee: It was mind-blowing to me. And then you know, that's where we kind of realized who there were like a lot of people on here. I don't know if they were all business owners, but it was about how many we get so much, how do we get free information? And if they're looking for free information, guess what? That's all they're willing to pay for as well at the same time. And we realized really quickly if you didn't have, what we called back then, a coffee offer, right? Like, hey, $7 or less for a cup of coffee. Don't be on the platform because it's not really going to be able to grow. But like you said, we got to meet other amazing humans that were actually spending time adding value to the platform. And I met a lot of good friends like yourself, and you talk about networking. It's funny today that I didn't do it on LinkedIn. But I actually did post on LinkedIn, I did a video. And I basically went through and I talked about it. I said, look if you're on LinkedIn just to get leads, get off my platform, right? Like because all you're doing is spamming 1000 people hoping to get one sale when in essence, all you're doing is pissing off the 999 people, there's a better way to be able to do it. It's about relationship building about networking.

And dude, you basically gave me a pitch for a home run, because that's exactly what's on my mind these days. This is about how we actually network. Not about LinkedIn, and Facebook, but I mean, that's what we were forgetting. We're forgetting to be able to have conversations that build relationships because relationships create opportunities. But can you and I look at and look at all the other aspects of Genius Network that you and I are in as well? That's what it's all about, especially now more than ever, as business owners. If you're just gonna go through and just you're trying to sell more, and you're looking at B2B and you think it's just a numbers game. Like Mark, you might think differently. I don't think you do. But it's not a numbers game anymore. Right. That's just called spamming.

Mark Drager: I think it depends on your approach. So...

Joshua B. Lee: Fair enough.

Mark Drager: And I think, you know, you're a business owner. I'm a business owner. I work with business owners, right? It doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I mean, it can, but it just feels icky to me to run Facebook campaigns or Instagram campaigns, like, you know, direct response info product, like buy my course. And I'm going to go ahead and change your world and stuff on a business owner-to-business owner level, that's not great. But surely, I mean, we've worked with companies where we can set up lead generation funnels, through advertising, through the works, through things to be able to get it. You can definitely do outbound. And you have a process in your own agency where it's outbound, and it's finding people on LinkedIn through Sales Navigator and doing all that stuff. But it's different.

Where we run into trouble, I think, is when we try to smash it all together. An outbound campaign, with the right tone, with the right message, at the right target, at the right time, with the right offer, certainly will lead to lead generation, networking on the other side, building relationships, being authentic, and being real, especially in the day of AI. And being able to do all that stuff will certainly help lead to a stronger network where more opportunities will come to you through knowing, liking, and trusting, right? We just can't smash them all together.

Joshua B. Lee: And that's the problem, everyone's trying to do everything all at once. I mean, we just had a movie that came out last year about that, you know, Everything Everywhere All at Once. And I mean, it was very hard to follow the movie at the same time, even though it won a lot of awards. And that's the same situation that we're seeing in online social business, right? It's like...

Mark Drager: What a strange... because just the other day I was looking at it, I was like, oh, we should watch this. And my kids, oh, all have an Oscar. So, oh my goodness, this must be a good movie. But now she was just born. That is confusing as hell.

Joshua B. Lee: Look, you've got to be able to stay really focused, right? To be able to watch and understand and look at every single detail. It'll be like, I looked at like my kids, my wife, they were like, this is confusing. I don't get it. I don't know what's happening. Me, I love the details. So like, I'm paying attention to what happened 50 minutes earlier, and then it references back to the same situation, the average audience we're talking about, like the average person on all platforms, they function at a fifth-grade reading level, right? This is what your audience is.

So if you're trying to throw everything at them, and hope that they're inside your mind enough to be able to pay attention to what's happening. It's not going to work. I mean, we're in our own container. And this is where business owners miss out, especially with sales and marketing is the one that gets the same thing. It's not, there are two different aspects of sales, marketing, and branding, and you and I both know that they...

Mark Drager: I would even add branding, to advertising, which leads to marketing, which leads to sales processes, which leads to onboarding, which leads to referrals, or win-backs, or avoiding churn. Like, that's the way I look at it. So even breaking it down...

Joshua B. Lee: It's a natural progression, right? It's not throwing it all at once and seeing where we actually can tell you the right audience, and enough that they go, well guess this should work. That's what's happening in today's world, right? Most people are confusing their audience enough that they're like, Okay, well, I guess, and they're not educated enough to make that decision. And when they do, now we have bigger issues.

Now we have the chargebacks. Now we have the people that are complaining, now you're playing the game, you sold someone, now you have to continue to sell someone, every single month, it's time to be able to go, Hey, I got it, you owe me another bill. Let's keep on going. And you're exhausted by selling them and they're exhausted about getting sold. And I think that's the difference, right? That's what we have to be able to shift and change.

Mark Drager: So, everybody's on LinkedIn today. Now, we may not be active, we may not have gotten there, and our profile might suck. We might not be putting any content out there. But everyone has a LinkedIn profile. And so, if I'm a business owner, from my perspective, LinkedIn is fantastic for networking, for potential lead generation or lead sources, even though he said you have to be careful about that. It's great for referrals, for know, like, trust, and authority, but also for recruitment. I mean, it's a massive, B2B platform, but people only go there for business purposes. So I love this platform. But what should we be doing as business owners if we have not been taking advantage of LinkedIn in 2020, of how amazing this platform is?

Joshua B. Lee: Here's the first thing, man. If you're going to go through and start creating content, you're going to start doing messaging, getting your teams to do it, and as the business owner, it's interesting. I was just having this conversation with one of our fellow Genius Network members, you know, and he was like, "Hey, I want to train my team," and I looked at his profile and I go, "Brother, there's nothing here. You don't exist." So your team's going to go out there. Then people are going to look at what they're saying, they're going to go back to you as the owner of the company. And they're going to be like, "Okay, like, who's this guy? Who's the guy running the show?" So, that's the thing that I want everyone to understand, business owners, you've got to be able to show up first, right?

When we come into these bigger companies, we come in and rework the C-level executives' profiles. First and foremost, before we do content, before we do messaging, because again, all that leads back to the profile. So we have to make sure that profiles rock out. And I'm not talking about a resume unless you're looking for a job. And even if you are, don't put it as a resume, it needs to be able to tell your career journey, where you've been, where you're at, where you're going, right? This is the whole piece, Mark, that so many people miss out on, to be able to really draw someone into their story because that's what people are looking for. Then it's being able to create content that educates and inspires your eyes, and then it's about the messaging. Honestly, as a business owner, I would concentrate, get your profile rock-solid, create content that resonates with your ideal audience and aligns with your team, and then teach your team how to leverage that and humanize the brand by educating them on building a personal brand that elevates them and empowers them, and then teach them how to actually build those conversations that build the relationships that draw all the way back in. Now you've got an amazing, I call it a social selling army, you know, that really works, especially on LinkedIn.

Mark Drager: And so, if the place for us to start is actually on our profile, to make sure that we show up looking the part, saying the right things, building the credibility and trust we need, providing the clarity that one needs. You know, if you're checking it out, because listeners, what we have to understand is, is the vast majority of people who are assessing us are not giving us the benefit of the doubt. They may be cynical, skeptical, or have red flags going off. And almost everyone purchases, buys, or assesses people through a disqualification process. We're not looking to qualify people, we're looking for reasons to disqualify them. And so, if we know that that's how people tend to look at brands and personal brands and profiles and companies, what should we be focusing on to really make sure that our profiles are showing up? So that way, it's as impactful as it would be if we were talking right now. You know, like me speaking to people, I do a great job. I mean, you're helping me, even your agency's helping my profile, because, hey, we do a great job in conversation, but go to my profile, it doesn't really do a great job of representing me.

Joshua B. Lee: And we got you on that. Don't worry, Mark, we're gonna go. Yeah, we're good. We're fixing it.

Mark Drager: It'll all be fixed anyway.

Joshua B. Lee: But no, this is the whole piece, right? Like, as human beings, like you said, we make decisions based on some degree of love or hate. We do not make decisions being indifferent, right? We're always looking for those things that we don't align with. And I'm going to tell you right now, you need to be that person who's not indifferent. I want to attract the right audience and I want to push away the people who aren't aligned with me. So I'm okay with the people who are going on, looking to see why they do not align with me. So, I have to be able to talk about these different aspects; it starts off right out of the gate. Because most people miss out on their profile, the title; they have CEO or business owner or whatever it might be. But that's a label for them. No one cares in the long run.

I mean, they care about who they're talking to at the company, but they can see that on your LinkedIn page. They want to know how it represents them. I always use the XYZ statement, which is, "I help X to achieve Y so they can have Z." That backs your ideal audience, right? Boom, this many people go on, they're like, "Oh, that's me or not me at all, right? Boom, to do by," right? You have to be able to actually tell someone about what the service is you do, like, but honestly, in the long run, if I walked into McDonald's and I said, "Hey, I want to order a Big Mac," and they're like, "Cool. But it's $5 or for $1, you know, I'll show you how," you're going to have some people; they want to know how to be able to do it, and they go, "It's a lot of work. Okay, can I just pay the five now that you paid $60 for the same thing you got for five?" Right? So we've got to tell them why. But that's not why they're making the decision. It's the emotional outcome Z so they can have, so they can achieve, so they can do, right? As beings, I said, we make decisions emotionally, so I help X to achieve Y. So they can have, so they can choose to Gandhi, that's where it starts, then we have to be able to actually tell our story, the first person in the about section, right? And then be able to go so...

Mark Drager: Hold on, hold on. If I'm part of a larger organization, is this what I do? Or is this what my company does? When does my agency do what my team does? Because you might be at the point where you're at eight figures; you have 140 different people working for you. You have your marketing department, you have your teams, so I always struggle with the like, do I do this? I mean, technically my company does. I mean, they're much smarter than I am.

Joshua B. Lee: Yes, because like you might say that. But some of our clients, we've had clients as VPs of Microsoft. And we've been able to shift their profile because what you're trying to do is humanize all the different individuals at the business because not every single person at the company. Again, I'm not saying that we didn't think of Satya Nadella, right? If Microsoft did this, right, it's still EVP at Microsoft pretty high up. And that cousin company talks about what they do and how they represent the company. Now, you will have CEO, what you do, if you are a keynote speaker, whatever it is, but I always start to be able to let the audience know because then it cascades down. Because they're going to go through and they want to be able to see where you sit within the business. Look, I'm going to be honest, at Standard Authority, I don't do everything at this company. I don't want everyone to think that I do everything.

Mark Drager: I hope not.

Joshua B. Lee: I don't want everyone to think my wife. As you mentioned, Rachel believes she is our branding, Lady boss, she crushes it on that side, right? Like, I'm not that guy. So I want people to understand where I sit, what I do, and what my superpower within the company is. So when we relate or talk, we can actually go from there. So yes, and right, there are certain different levels that you need to be able to go in. But I think that when you're talking about, unless you've you know that eight-figure business, I think you're still fine to be able to do that and be able to have that connection with the audience. Personally, I think we miss out on that because they're, we're forgetting that every single person in that company has a different role. And there are different human aspects that we're all going to relate to the audience differently. Just my, again, my opinion...

Mark Drager: Your opinion is the reason why we're bringing you on. Your opinion, your experiences. So now let's talk about the cascading effect, though. So we are working on getting our profile fixed. But of course, it's not just about our own credibility and our own role; we need to ensure that every team member is showing up ideally on-brand, on-message, and fully credible, right? And so sometimes we bumped into, well, you know, do we have the right as business owners to dictate whether our employees follow certain standards? Of course, it's in their best interest to do so. But is this their profile and their resume, and ideally, something that they own? Because it's so personal to them? And we work with them to try and align it with our brand. Or do we just go straight out and say, "Everyone follow these rules, here are the best practices, right? And this way, show up in this way. Because again, our employees do represent our brand online.

Joshua B. Lee: 100 percent. So look, we've worked with a lot of different companies all the way from solo entrepreneurs to, as I mentioned, Microsoft, right, some of the biggest businesses out there. And there are always social media practices that should be set, basic standards of how someone should show up. It isn't Facebook. And look, there's a dude, I remember, like, people were getting laid off back in the MySpace days, right? Like, remember, like, one of my first clients was MySpace, right? I used to create their social media ads, the miners or traffic and people would go in. And after a while, once companies realized, oh, wow, we've got some, some whack jobs that are going on here, just posting random things, you know about their beliefs. And that represents back on us. So 100%, as a business owner, you have to be able to have some standards in place for how people should show up on social media. Now, is that also attribution? It's your call, but at least on LinkedIn, because you're correct. If they're going to put on there, and they're going to tie their name to your business. Yes, you need to be able to have certain standards.

Now, here's the whole piece, Mark, the biggest thing is, rather than setting rules, no, and this is when you can and cannot do if you empower them, to be able to elevate their own personal brand that makes them more visible, they're going to be more on board. And when you empower someone to actually stand up and be able to share their voice in a way that not only elevates them but elevates the company, dude, you get that employee becomes that much more of an asset to your business because they're bought in. Right? They're not just another employee. It's not just a job. Now it's a career. And that's what we're trying to be able to do. Because they see that it's a give-and-take equal relationship on how everyone's showing up on that platform. And it becomes really amazing when you actually see that done right.

Mark Drager: So I want to keep moving through this in the little bit of time we have left. So, you fix your profile. That's number one. Yeah. Now, again, we want to grow our network, we want more opportunities and leads coming our way. We want more referrals, we want to recruit A-plus talent. What should we be focusing on the least to make it feel like something is happening?

Joshua B. Lee: I mean, here's the whole piece. It's not just about putting out content, right? Everyone can put out content these days, especially with AI. Everyone's an expert, right? Like so, be careful about how much content you're putting out there. Make sure it's actually relevant and that you can actually back it up, you know, with personal history. But the first thing I want everyone to think about is how you are actually attracting your ideal audience. Content doesn't do it right. Content isn't king these days, right? There's so much of it that we're overloaded. Quality is queen. And when we talk about quality, quality connections, quality relationships, how are you actually going to draw those people in? We use Sales Navigator, which is LinkedIn's built-in CRM system, you and I have had that conversation. And it's not just a game; it's, "Mark, I know you get these messages, I get them too. And I swear somewhere my profile says, 'Hey, Josh, I see you're in the coaching industry, you know, ever thought about using LinkedIn to get leads.' And I mean, they're just going through and grabbing some piece of Sales Navigator, downloading it, putting it in automation, and hoping they're going to strike gold every so often.

But that's not how you use it. I'm going to be honest, that's not how you use it. Because it's not representative of the brand, or the company, especially as the owner of the business. Don't do that. Teach your salespeople, we use Sales Navigator to identify our audience. And then we actually go through because the average person on LinkedIn gets less than 1% engagement, we actually go through and use this little thing that says, 'Posted on LinkedIn the last 30 days.' And we actually go through, engage. I see Mark's post, I want to get Mark's attention now. Go in, buy this podcast, already posted on LinkedIn, like it, and comment in the recheck mark, 'Dude, loved your podcast with Josh, it was amazing. I got X, Y, and Z.' That will stop Mark and his team and go, 'Oh, wow, this is different than the usual pitch I get all the time.'"

Mark Drager: I think we've all experienced this, but maybe I'm unique. But if someone comments on four or five posts over the course of a few weeks, that is like already enough for me to hit my radar. It's so little. Now I don't have a huge following, and I imagine if you have 200, 300, or 400 comments on every single post you put out, maybe it takes a few months, and maybe it's not four or five, maybe it's 20 or 30.

Joshua B. Lee: We're talking about 1% of people that have that many comments on, like, "Yeah, this is, be honest." So well, that...

Mark Drager: Oh, there you go. I mean, it's a bit like podcasting. Actually, everybody talks about podcasting, podcasting, podcasting. 90% of podcasts have fewer than 100 listeners. And so it's nice. The people are like, 'We have a top 10% podcast, like, cool, you're better than 90%. But you have 110 listeners, very few people listening, right.' And so, but where I go, when I go on, what I'm going on to is, it just takes so little effort that I'm aware of for people to for me to go like, 'Oh, oh, it's Bill and Bill keeps commenting on stuff. And okay, and then they're thoughtful comments. No, I better take the time to and who is Bill? What's Bill doing? Okay, cool. Um, like, it just takes such a little amount of time and effort to get on people's radars. Because no one's doing it...

Joshua B. Lee: And Mark, you know, what's really cool. We've used this in a lot of businesses to really be able to, like, speed up the process because when you're talking about bigger deals, bigger, bigger business, right? 100,000 plus deals like those deals, you know, it takes, we all know, especially in this business, they take a long time, when you're going through corporate, all the T's have been crossed, all the I's are dotted. I mean, they ask 50 different people if are they in. Well, what we found is don't just go after the person you think makes the decisions, go around all the people and do this exact same strategy to all the people around them. Because guess what, when they go in, and then you, Mark, let's say, you're like, 'Oh, hey, I'm thinking about working with Josh's team,' and then someone on your team like, 'Oh, man, dude, I follow Josh on LinkedIn, we're content, he has amazing information.' Now you just super sped the process along because now you have that relationship and that ability that you don't have to get to know someone else within the company. So it actually helps you achieve your goals faster.

Mark Drager: That is an amazing tactic. So, one thing I've noticed is that I've spent so long as a business owner working with business owners and C-suite executives. But there's something that happens when you hit a certain maturity in your career, or maybe income, or maybe awareness—you get a lot of opportunities, right? You do get to go and be a part of really great rooms, you get invited to really cool events, and you get to experience and have one-on-one connections and conversations with really high-level thinkers. And I just have taken that for granted in the past. So one thing we started doing maybe five or ten years ago, is we started looking for opportunities and ways to extend the same types of things we get as business owners, and as C-suite executives to mid-level managers or below.

Yeah, so for some of our clients, we just started sending them to spa days. And they were like, "What? It's like, well, I mean, like, cool, like, just go, just go do something, go do something for the afternoon." And they were for these huge companies and they're like, "Okay," they have to like secretly sign out to do these things. But what I want to connect the dots with is what you're suggesting, which is everyone is going after the most competitive, highest awareness person—that manager, the VP, the SVP, the EVP, the CEO, the owner, the head of procurement, the whatever it is, everybody's going for that one person. But if you just spread a little bit of the attention and love around everyone else, in terms of commenting, questioning, including them, asking them what they think, getting their attention, giving them time that most people won't, giving them experiences most people won't. It goes so much further because they're so used to just living in the shadows, right?

Joshua B. Lee: And they become your advocates within the company. Advocates are so much more powerful than just going after the one-on-one. Going after one-on-one clients is exhausting, right? But you have an advocate within that company. I mean, like, Look, you and I, right, like we're connected, we would have we have been connected, but we built a bigger connection once I was with Evan, right? And we were going on doing his podcast, and he was like an advocate for me. You're like, "Dude, Josh, we need to connect more. Right? It's been 20 years since the fun of Clubhouse. Let's go deeper." And so a club has. It was the "Here's the rules of Fight Club," right? "Don't talk about Fight Club." You know, man, I'm getting movie references like crazy this time. That's the whole piece, man.

I mean, we talk about this all the time. I mean, I want advocates over clients every day of the week, because an advocate can bring me 1,000 clients. And so like when you're talking about what you mentioned, right there when I talked about, that's an advocate within the company that actually supersedes the opportunities because you're actually giving time to the people that aren't getting bombarded with messaging and opportunities all the time. And now, they're working with you rather than you having to work against everyone.

Mark Drager: So I've been talking to Joshua B. Lee, who is the CEO and founder of Standout Authority. Now, final question for you, Joshua, before I let you go, what would be your number one tip or strategy to help our listeners sell more?

Joshua B. Lee: The biggest thing that I think most people miss out on LinkedIn, especially more than anything, is the one platform where you can actually see every single person that looks at your profile. When was the last time you took time out to acknowledge those people for looking you up? And to be able to ask them the simple question, "What pushed you to look me up?" Right? It is amazing—it's that stone unturned. And it's an opportunity because if they're looking you up, they're looking for something about, you or something that you do in the industry, and you showed up. So make sure that you actually start that conversation and build that relationship.

Mark Drager: Hold on. So you just reach out to them and say, "Hey, I couldn't help but notice you were checking me out. What's up?" or like, is that it?

Joshua B. Lee: I mean, honestly, Mark, we go through, if you look me up, I'm like, "Hey, Mark, I noticed you looked me up. You checked out my profile. I just want to reach out and say thank you." Again, we always start everything with thank you to acknowledge—thank you so amazing for creating a stopgap in someone's pattern. When you appreciate them for something they take it for granted every single day. And then you go, "Hey, love to find out what pushed you to look me up." And that's it because all it's doing is starting a conversation. You're acknowledging them for an action they took, and then you're asking them why they did it. You're making it about them. That's it. It's crazy how simple it is, but it works every single time.

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