LinkedIn marketing secrets nobody told you about – with Grant Jamison.

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (1s):
G’day guys! It’s Den Lennie here, host of the How to Scale a Video Business podcast. And we’re gonna jump into part to an interview. We started last week with Grant Jamison from Lift Video and If you haven’t watched that, please go and watch or listen to that back. And Grant runs Lift video Productions in Melbourne and the interview last week was about his journey from being a freelance videographer to running a video business. And this week, I wanted to ask Grant about imposter syndrome and how he manages that feeling of being an imposter. And he shares some really key insights, which I know are gonna be very helpful for you.

Den Lennie (44s):
The other thing we talk about in detail is his LinkedIn strategy and how he’s really dominated his niche on LinkedIn. And even during a niche change and a shift in direction, how quickly he was able to do that, exactly how he did it. And I think some really useful insights to help you. If, you are looking at LinkedIn as a means of getting new business. So hope you enjoy this interview and please make sure you like and subscribe. If you are watching this on YouTube and If you have not already done so please leave us a review on iTunes or whatever platform you use to listen to this podcast. Anyway, guys, enjoy the show.

Den Lennie (1m 24s):
Well Grant, we run at a time Last week and we were just getting into LinkedIn and marketing, but as we wrapped that up,. we finished recording and then we talked, started talking about self-doubt. And I thought it’d be a great place to begin this week’s episode because I know I still have imposter syndrome and have self-doubt it doesn’t happen every day. But tell me about your journey with that because it’s very real, isn’t It?

Grant Jamison (1m 54s):
Oh so real. And I know we were just talking about this podcast and how You know you listen to all these other people and you are like, Oh my gosh, everyone’s doing so amazing. Like what am I doing? And then you reflect on your journey, you go, Oh actually maybe I have come a fair way even though I still feel like I’ve got a long way to go. But yeah, self doubt’s a huge one for me. I imagine other videographers as well. It’s kind of hard when you’re in the moment every day and there’s like emails coming in and there’s jobs to do. You kind of forget to take a step back and reflect on the wins you’ve had. And that’s why the weekly wins are so great in our group. But you need to take that time to just reflect and go, Oh, actually a year ago for me, I was a bit stuck.

Grant Jamison (2m 40s):
I think we were in Covid as well, don’t wanna talk about that. But a bit stuck with who we were working with and the engineering and manufacturing wasn’t really working. And now we’ve actually come a pretty long way. But if you don’t take a moment to step back and really think about that and go, Yeah, actually I’m doing alright. And I think it’s easy to get into that whole of self doubt anxiety. And then for me, like I didn’t really want to, Some, there’s been, there were a few days where I just didn’t wanna do anything at all. And I think it’s really easy to fall into that, that hole.

Den Lennie (3m 13s):
Yeah. Yeah. And then how does, how does being part of the VBA. You know for someone who doesn’t know what it is or has heard me Rabbit on about it, but they’re kind of like not really sure what it is, what are some of the things that, that you find to be beneficial being part of a community like that?

Grant Jamison (3m 31s):
The most valuable part of the VBA for me is having a group of other video business owners who are at a similar level or even doing better than me, which is great. I love surrounding myself with people who are doing better than me, but who understand where you are coming from, what you’ve been through, because they’re either going through it themself or they’ve been through it And so they can, you can kind of bounce off each other, give support to each other. I call like sometimes I have calls outside the VBA with some of the guys catching up. So yeah, it’s a pretty great little tight-knit circle.

Den Lennie (4m 5s):
Yeah, no, it’s cool. And I mean, I agree and it sounds weird for me to say cause it’s my group, but I, I, I’m very proud of just creating an environment and a framework and, and a space. I, I often think of the VBA as, I mean, yeah, we’ve got amazing training and all the kind of tools that you need to build a business, but it’s, I often feel like it’s a men’s shed. It’s like a place where you can come and no matter how you’re feeling, you, you’re never really alone.

Grant Jamison (4m 34s):
Absolutely. And yeah, it’s a bit of a men’s Shed. Women are welcome to of course, but it’s a great place just to share what’s happening and, and if things aren’t going so well as well, which was happening particularly during Covid. Oh my goodness. But it was a really kind of a safe space just to share what’s happening and, and just get some support and rely on kind of other people. Just to give you a bit of a pep talk, You know sometimes you need it. Yeah.

Den Lennie (4m 59s):
And look, I agree. I would love to see more women than the VBA. We’ve had a couple come and go. We have more women in the Uplevel program. And I’m not sure why that is. And I’d love for there to be more women in the group, but the fact is it’s mostly men. Yeah. And, that’s why I call it a men shed. But most importantly I think it’s just as a real genuine care and support and I think that’s important because there’s self-doubt because I, I feel like building a business is such an emotionally challenging journey at times. And, and you know, you’ve got a partner and, and she works full time and, and she works shift and you’re trying to balance your life. And I mean, how do you find running a business now, sort of five years in from where you were five years ago?

Den Lennie (5m 46s):
What are some of the things you noticed to be easier, but what are some of the newer challenges you find? Cause You know when, when you build a business, right? You just, you scale and then you create more problems.

Grant Jamison (5m 56s):
Yeah, a hundred percent. So I’m finding myself, I’m a lot more confident when I talk to clients. I’m a lot more confident when I talk to new clients. I’m improving on the sales side of things. Like just on a call thinking You know, I’ve gotten rid of that whole, I was kind of scared of sales and I felt kind of sleazy about it.

Den Lennie (6m 17s):
I’d be icky. Yeah. I remember having a number of conversations where you were like, Oh, I just dunno what to say. You know, and, and you spent quite a long time. But that, but that, it’s great that you’re sharing this because you, you learn to be better at sales.

Grant Jamison (6m 29s):
Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. So I’ve really, and now I feel a lot more comfortable and I, think of it less of like a sales call as more like You know, I’m helping, I’m guiding a new client into the video space. So yeah, a lot more confident with that. But yeah, definitely new struggles. Of course finding I’m spending a lot more time working than I was freelancing. Like with freelancing, I just kinda like, yep, edit’s, done, go home, And. So balancing that work life thing at the moment is another, definitely another challenge that’s popped up.

Den Lennie (7m 3s):
Yeah. So let’s go back to LinkedIn because one of the things that I think is a real challenge for videographers and creatives is creativity is a spontaneous thing. It’s, it’s ideas. It’s, let’s do something different. Let’s find a fresh way to approach a subject. I think we have a bias towards monotony, a bias towards anything that seems like we’ve done it before. And yet on LinkedIn you’ve got to be consistently reaching out to people kind of with the same message over and over again. How have you managed to switch your brain off from being a creative, always wanting to do something new?

Den Lennie (7m 45s):
Cause I, I believe one of the reasons you’ve been so successful on LinkedIn and I think your LinkedIn game is absolutely on point, is that you are consistent with the types of content you put out when you put it out and how you connect with people. And I think you built some systems around that, but how did you approach that as a creative person?

Grant Jamison (8m 3s):
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, I’ve got heaps of ideas. Most of them go in my ideas list on my notes app and I never look at them again. But I guess in terms of the approach, we, I started out kind of being really self-conscious about posting on LinkedIn. Like I felt like, oh, what’s people gonna think? And I felt really awkward about it and I, I quickly realized that no one really cares. But what I did with that was I essentially made a batch of content based on the Ask framework, Den, which is where we kind of, you ask customers like what are their biggest challenges? What do they most wanna achieve in their roles? That kind of thing. So firstly, I’d, I’d ask those questions and then I’d try to make some monthly content around that once a month.

Grant Jamison (8m 49s):
And I’d hand that to my virtual assistant and she would post it for me, which removed that block of You know you’re about to post and you go, Oh actually You know, no one really cares. I’m not gonna post that You know this isn’t good enough. It removes that cause it’s done. So that’s how I first got over it. And then I started to feel a lot more confident about LinkedIn after a couple of months of having my virtual assistant consistently post for me, I felt a lot, much confident about it and I started posting myself, and then I started to track the content that was working and versus the content that wasn’t. And I found that most of the content that was working was A, little bit of like me talking on camera educating like educational kind of content.

Grant Jamison (9m 33s):
Like what kind of videos are best for your brand, why you should use customer case studies in your brand. That kind of stuff was, was popular. And on those sales calls people would mention that even if they’d never engaged, they’d be like, Hey, I saw you did those how-to videos. So that was great. And then I started posting a lot more behind the scenes imagery as well. And that gets a ton of engagement. So every time I go on a shoot, I’m like, You know back of my mind, right? Gotta take a photo and I just post it on LinkedIn, tag the client, tag the company, and that that goes into their network as well. And then my third kind of pillar of content is I’m still working on this is like customer video testimonials and they’re hugely popular as well.

Den Lennie (10m 13s):
And I think the fact you’ve got themes and you’re tracking them is You know you, you’re actually a great marketer. Grant You know, you maybe don’t realize it, but Mark a great marketer doesn’t think they test you test it from bits of content. And, and a true marketer and a business owner who’s who’s got the idea of scale in minds, it starts to run their business by the numbers. It starts to run their business based on data. And, and that data can be simply, how many likes did I get on that post? How many people looked at that post? And, and we had a, one of the, the calls we had then just a week or two ago in, in the VBA, one of our weekly coaching calls, I think we just reviewed what you’ve been doing on LinkedIn and I think a lot of the group were just like, Oh wow.

Den Lennie (11m 0s):
Like they, they just looked to what you were doing and go, I wish I could do that. Which kind of comes back to how we started this call when you, you sometimes you don’t realize how far you’ve come until you have a chat like this, or on the call Last week when we just reviewed your page and your messaging was on point, your description was on point and it’s working. So You know very well done to you because it’s, it takes a lot of work. And, and what are, what are some of the things where, where is some of the resistance that you felt when you were kind of figuring that stuff out?

Grant Jamison (11m 35s):
Yeah, I mean, so I, I, so basically at the start of this year, I was like, I wanted to dedicate to LinkedIn. I knew I did, but I still was, I felt really self-conscious about posting like just like, I don’t know what it was just some imposter syndrome or like who am I to be talking to these brands about video production? But once you get past that, then for me it was just right, here’s a pain point. I know I can help them with it. Here’s how we help it. And I just post that content, pass it to my virtual assistant who posted it for me just to remove that block of actually posting. That was probably the biggest thing.

Grant Jamison (12m 16s):
And then also coming up with ideas for content as well, because for my audience, like video is only one part of their job. So it’s not like I’m expecting tons and tons of engagement, but for it helps stay top of mind when they’re sort of on LinkedIn and they, they see something and, and to, honestly I have gotten in discovery calls, comments from people who never engaged with anything and they say, Oh, I’ve watched a couple of your videos, that’s really helpful. I’d love for you to share me a bit more about how we could do X.

Den Lennie (12m 50s):
Yeah. Isn’t it interesting? LinkedIn is one of those strange platforms where If, you look at Instagram or Facebook, You know whenever someone posts something, there seems to be a ton of like, they’re like, like Vultures liking stuff and commenting And. So you get that kind of endorphin hit that like, oh, at least my content’s being seen. Even if that content’s been seen by other filmmakers which are never gonna spend any money with you, you, you find yourself getting a kinda hit. And actually it was Corey, one of our other members of the group who commented a few weeks ago saying, You know you get this endorphin hit from Facebook and Instagram that you don’t get from LinkedIn.

Den Lennie (13m 32s):
That actually statistically there are way more people observing your content on LinkedIn who never comment, who never engage and If you think about that, it’s cuz they’re busy. If they’re in Markcom, they’re busy, they might log onto LinkedIn when they’re sitting on the bus or sitting on the train and they see stuff. Yeah, but you’re making them aware of you and, and it’s that awareness that that builds a relationship. And I think You know there’s, there’s a kind of a trifecta of awareness at the top of the triangle and trust in the bottom corner and in the middle. The bit that people forget about is nurture is like we, we, you can’t just connect with someone, they expect them to know instantly that they wanna work with you.

Den Lennie (14m 18s):
And then nurturing comes in the form of what’s the mere exposure effect? Like the more times you’re exposed to a product, brand or service, the more you build trust and I think that’s what you’re doing very well. And I remember you sharing this with the guys in the group. It’s just like, I’ve got this document and I, I put down ideas and we put that as week one and this one is week two and I think you started with just like one post a week, didn’t you?

Grant Jamison (14m 41s):
Yeah, a hundred percent. So, well originally I started with, I was gonna go five posts a week, just smash it outta the pot. Nah, that did not work at all. Like immediately like day two, I was like, no, don’t worry about it. So it really was about starting small. So one post a week and I think I did that for like two months, just one post a week. I had heaps of content ready to go and then I went up to two times a week and I still could manage that and then three times a week and that was where I was like, right, I, I can’t do any more than this And. So that’s kind of where I am now is still just posting three times, two to three times a week. And at the same time messaging people who I might not have, I might have connected with but haven’t messaged in a while, been couple of months maybe they liked one of my posts.

Grant Jamison (15m 28s):
I might just message them and say, Hey, we didn’t get a chance to speak. How are you going, how are things that company? So that’s been kind of the approach we’re taking now. And yeah it seems, it seems to be working.

Den Lennie (15m 39s):
Another, another cool thing to do that I’ve been testing is the more you post, the more your network sort of shares what you’re doing and a really good sort of tactic, and I’m sure you do this, is that If, you see someone who likes your post, the who you don’t know is I go and then connect with them and I just say, Hey Bill You know really good of you to like my post on this subject matter. We’d love to connect and learn A little bit more about what you do. And I find that’s a really good way of just expanding the network. And it’s not, it’s not creepy and it’s not sleazy because I think If, you do it in the right tone.

Den Lennie (16m 19s):
People don’t mind you expanding networks.

Grant Jamison (16m 22s):
Yeah. No, a hundred percent. And the other thing you can also do is just engaging with other people’s content and and commenting and then yeah, being more present on LinkedIn because If you comment on someone else’s post or a company post and other people connected to them see you as well. So yeah, If you can comment with some value or add some value to another post, then that’s another good strategy as well.

Den Lennie (16m 46s):
And. So talking a bit about, and you don’t need to share your numbers obviously, but, but you’ve had, beginning of this year it was, there was a tough couple of months where they, I think they’re definitely in transition phase. Yeah. But You know, what I wanted to kind of get into here was A little bit about, there’s still a rollercoaster in business and it’s a rollercoaster of mindset and emotions and holding your nerve when things seem like they’re not working. But I think if we think back six months to where you are six months ago to where you are today, what, what’s happened, what, what’s happened in that journey. And it may be a bit longer than six months, but I recall a period this early this year where you were like, man, this is just like not working.

Grant Jamison (17m 28s):
Yeah, a hundred percent. So basically started, well we had covid over the Christmas break here in Melbourne and everything was shut down, which was a real pain. But let’s move on from that. So I had a bunch of projects pushed back, blah, blah blah, blah. The biggest thing that happened was probably in March one of my biggest clients at the time was like, Hey, we’re putting a stop on video content and I just hired someone full time basically to help manage this one client. So that was bitch shit. I was like, oh, oh no,

Den Lennie (17m 59s):
I know laughing, but that’s, I’m laughing cause like life’s a bitch, right? That’s exact, that’s typically what happens.

Grant Jamison (18m 6s):
I couldn’t believe it was like within a week of each other. I was like, is this for real? I couldn’t believe it. So that was a huge challenge. So yeah, there was definitely a bit of scrambling on my part, definitely a bit of a fire under me to really push hard on the marketing, the sales, asking for referrals from other clients, asking for video testimonials and sharing those, posting more on LinkedIn, writing the, the guides, all that stuff. Was it really I had to do, I had no choice. It was either single swim cuz I had his full time and I had, I had to pay him first You know.

Grant Jamison (18m 48s):
And I didn’t pay myself for that first month that he was on as well. Like I was like, no, I just wanna make sure he gets paid and then I can look after myself. Yeah. And now six months on of, of doing that, things are looking much better. That client came back, which is great, but I kind of was like a You know, an old ex returning and you’d moved on. So no, just kidding. They’re lovely. But yeah, it was kind of like I’d done so much work on the marketing sales that I realized, hey, actually I don’t have to rely on one or two big clients anymore. So I was really thankful for that. And a couple of new clients come in and I was having a blast. We saw having a blast working with them. Yeah,

Den Lennie (19m 28s):
It’s interesting isn’t it? You know this growth only happens when there’s pain, right? You never learn anything when everything is going great. It’s when things are not going great. And I and I think this is an important lesson for anyone listening is that clients don’t stay forever. And you might have an amazing client who’s been given you great work for years and they love you, but it just takes one person to leave and that gig is over and it’s happened to me and I know it’s happened to you and it’s happened to probably every single person in the VBA. But the lesson from that is that you get to go, right, there’s a big risk in my business as a vulnerability here.

Den Lennie (20m 9s):
What do I need to do to take that vulnerability away? And that’s exactly what you did. You went out, you created marketing material, you looked at different, different sectors, you started pushing into those sectors, you started winning work and then that client came back in a slightly different forum. But but how great is that that that that particular client was your main client for a long time. They were the majority of your work and now they’ve come back and they’re an important client to you, but they’re just a num they’re one of many And I think that is probably one of the greatest achievements in lift video because you’ve built resilience into, into what you’re doing.

Grant Jamison (20m 53s):
Yeah. And looking back it was a real, yeah, it definitely forced me to make that change. Like I had no choice.

Den Lennie (20m 59s):
Yeah. And and, and this is the thing about the, the cruel mistress that is business is that you can never, ever get too comfortable and as soon as you get comfortable she whips the run from under you. But tell me now, I mean you, you must have learned a lot this year in terms of resilience and, and realizing how tough you are as a business owner. Because I remember You know you maybe a year ago talking about wanting to hire someone, being very fearful of it because you weren’t sure how to, to communicate what you wanted doing and, and build systems. But you did end up finding someone. Tell me about that process and how that’s impacted your, your life in business now.

Grant Jamison (21m 44s):
S so good. Yeah, so I was pretty afraid of hiring someone, like just having to pay someone else every single month no matter what. I was like, Oh my goodness, I can’t do that. What? But I I did realize, like I knew deep down that I had to do it to have any chance of growing. So I, I knew I had to do it. It just took me a while to build up the courage to make the, the call. But I, I did do it. I’m glad I did cuz we got a great videographer. Now he does a lot of the shooting and editing and he, he loves the, he loves that stuff, which I’d kind of grown tired of, but I’m You know, I I can still help where I need to. But yeah, it’s really freed up my time to focus on marketing and sales, which I wouldn’t be able to do if I was still editing three days a week and shooting You know what I mean?

Den Lennie (22m 34s):
And from a kind of financial point of view, the biggest fear was, oh my God, I’ve gotta pay this person every month. What You know, what if I can’t? But, and actually in hiring this guy, you’ve created more time and space to be more consistent with your sales marketing. What impact is that having on your sales and your business?

Grant Jamison (22m 58s):
Made us more money.

Den Lennie (22m 60s):
It’s funny, isn’t it?

Grant Jamison (23m 0s):
Exactly. And it took me, even though it’s so simple, it does take you a while to realize that, oh actually now that I’ve got time I can focus on earning us more revenue, more jobs, more projects and I can afford to pay someone else to sit on the tools and do that. So it’s so simple. It just took me a while I guess to really build up the courage to, to make the leap.

Den Lennie (23m 22s):
And then in terms of percentages, how much, how much do you think you’ve grown since you’ve changed direction and and broaden your full-time employee and, and you’ve had You know four very consistent sales months, a a number that probably You know is pretty cool from a kind of sales target perspective.

Grant Jamison (23m 45s):
Yeah, I mean particularly going from like a Lance videographer, I mean we are, we are doing like three times, four times what I was when I was a freelancer, which is great, but this year, I mean compared to the last financial year, we’re probably up by about 40 or 50% or something around there. I mean I’m not great with numbers.

Den Lennie (24m 8s):
But those are healthy, You know those are healthy growth numbers.

Grant Jamison (24m 13s):
Yeah. Sloan Steady is really what it’s been.

Den Lennie (24m 16s):
And, I think that’s very important. A lot of, a lot of what I see online is like, hey, it’s, there’s like, again, there’s kind of get rich quick with video type concept, but, but in the book, Great by Choice by Jim Collins, which is one of the bibles we reflect on in the VBA is business is a, is a long, it’s a 30 year game. You know you’d be doing this in 30 years from now. So you’ve got plenty of time and I think You know a 50% growth at this stage is really healthy. You probably won’t keep growing at 50% each year. But if you grew it 20% each year and maintained it and had the opportunity to, I think it’s like you’ve gotta be able to, it’s like being in A little boat, okay?

Den Lennie (24m 59s):
And being on the ocean. Anyone can be on the ocean when it’s flat calm, but what if a big storm rolls in? How resilient are you at being able to handle whatever’s thrown at you? And I think that’s one of the many lessons that you’ve been shown in the last two years. I mean, you were in lockdown for the longest time. You hired someone, you changed niche direction, but yet you’re still here. And I know we were talking, we were talking before the call about cash flow and that being a constant challenge and, and it’s a constant challenge for most businesses because of the nature of the video production game is that even if you’re billing 50% upfront, you’re not always getting, the projects can take three or four months in some cases And.

Den Lennie (25m 44s):
So that, that is just something You know. That’s, that’s your next challenge is to manage the cashflow in a way that You know, I’ve got this expression, what you focus on expands and If, you were still editing and shooting, that’s all you’d be focusing on now. You’re you business owner, you’re looking strategically at the big picture for the year. What is the financial goal? How are you gonna get there? What resources do you have in your team? And I think it’s, and I think it’s incredible mate You know, I think you should be very, very proud of, of what you’ve achieved cuz it’s, it’s a hell of a journey and a fairly short amount of time.

Grant Jamison (26m 15s):
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s been pretty crazy to be honest. And you still a long way to go, but exciting and yeah, kind of loving it or like, I feel a lot more relaxed now than I probably was at the start of the year feeling pretty, pretty stressed the first quarter of this year. But yeah, feeling a lot more confident going forward now.

Den Lennie (26m 37s):
That’s awesome man. Well listen, thanks so much for sharing your story, Grant. I’m sure those people listening to this will find this to be very beneficial and thanks for being so open.

Grant Jamison (26m 47s):
Amazing. Thanks for having me, Den.