SARAH: I am on LinkedIn at least two hours a day, seven days a week. So I'm on more on the weekends, but I definitely block out time in my calendar every single day for LinkedIn. So once I write and do my post, then I'm absolutely spending time engaging on other people's posts. So I'm reacting and I'm commenting. And I new zealand girl whatsapp number think that's so, so important to find people that post knowledgeable good information in your industry and engage. It does a couple of things, it puts you on their radar, so they're gonna know your name, they're gonna know your company. They may have a podcast, they may be hosting a show and might reach out and ask you to be a speaker. If it's a company that could benefit from your service, they're gonna recognize your name and see you commenting, and they may reach out to you if they have a need to buy your product or service. So absolutely it's important to engage and interact with other people's posts. And I think it's really important to be strategic about who you're doing that with. So I actually have a list that I've created, it's a spreadsheet and it is prospects, customers, influencers. So I make sure I'm spending the time on LinkedIn with the right people that I wanna be engaging with.
NICK: Yeah, yeah. And I think maybe, kind of an underrated benefit of all of this is that you're staying, you're keeping your fingers on the pulse of your industry and you're learning, not only are you putting yourself out there as a thought leader, but you're also learning a ton from your fellow, from your peers in the industry.
SARAH: Yeah, and again, as I mentioned, you should not be having an intern manage your most important channel. I actually recommend if you can, do it yourself because you're absolutely right, I get so much intel by reading people's comments. And then writing responses and engaging. And some of those then spur ideas for interview questions, those spur content for future posts, spur content for articles. So if you have somebody else doing that, you're not soaking up and getting that information.
NICK: Couldn't agree more. And we can definitely talk about this all day long, but I think we have time for only one more question. And usually we like to end with this question, which is, what were the most challenging skills, the most kind of impactful challenging skills you have to teach yourself along the way?
SARAH: Yeah, so I would say, this is still in progress, it's not past tense, so I am not a super techie nerdy type person. So if an application is a little bit harder, complicated to use, I will steer clear of it or push it off. And, it's really important to have knowledge and understanding of all of the technology solutions that your company's using for marketing and sales. And so for me, I have to really force myself to sit down and spend time in some of the applications that I haven't used before, that aren't super user-friendly, but from a data perspective, it's a must. And being able to know your data inside and out, be able to report on it, to be able to pivot and change quickly based on the data is so, so important, but I'm more of a creative, community speaker type person. So that piece is something that I really have to force myself to do and to learn.
NICK: That's a very self-aware answer. So, really appreciate the honesty, again, from fashion to manufacturing and now you're keeping manufacturing fashionable, really appreciate your time. Thank you for sharing your insights with us. This was a great interview. And before we hop off, where can people find you?
SARAH: Yeah, the best way to find me is on LinkedIn, Sarah Scudder, the Manufacturing Maven, feel free to shoot me a note if you wanna hop on a call and chat about LinkedIn strategies, always, always open to sharing my experiences and knowledge.
