Leveraging LinkedIn for Architecture Business Growth with Sarah Clay | 005

Most architectural practices post the same type of stuff on LinkedIn.

But is there a better way to use the platform so that you can leverage LinkedIn

and accelerate your business growth?

That's exactly what I'm going to be discussing today with Sarah Clay in this

episode of architecture business club.

The weekly podcast for solo and small firm architecture practice owners,

just like you who want to build a profitable future proof architecture

business that fits around their life.

I'm the host, John Clayton.

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Now let's discuss everything about LinkedIn.

Sarah Clay is an award winning social media trainer and strategist.

Sarah has over 10 years experience heading up marketing and PR departments.

She ran her own social media agency, Sarah Clay Social, looking after social

media for all sizes of business before focusing on training business owners

how to love and leverage LinkedIn to accelerate their business growth.

Sarah's specialism is working with entrepreneurs and business owners to

help them get more leads from LinkedIn.

She's a guest lecturer.

Keynote speaker, writes for social media examiner, runs the linking in academy

membership and still finds time to publish a LinkedIn newsletter every single week.

You can contact Sarah via hey, hey, at Sarah clay, social doc, Sarah,

welcome to architecture business club.

Thank you for having me, John.

It is, isn't

Um, crikey that that's quite a list that I've just read out there

of all the things that you're doing.

I know!

And, um, it just makes me think, crikey, you must have a really

busy schedule and it makes me wonder, how you unwind after all of that.

Is there anything that you, you like to do outside of work that, you know,

takes you away from, from LinkedIn?

Yes, so I don't sit still very often.

Um, only when I've got a glass of wine in my hand.

So that's one way of unwinding.

But actually, I love, Sport, running around, cycling, um, PT,

weights, um, Pilates, swimming.

That's how I unwind.

So by, by, uh, by doing more things with my body, but not resting my mind.

That sounds fantastic.

I wish I had as much energy as you, Sarah.

I definitely need to kind of get out more and get more exercise.

That's a conversation for another day.

We're going to talk about how architecture practices can leverage LinkedIn and before

we kind of dive specifically into that what are some of, some of the common

myths and misconceptions about LinkedIn?

So one of the myths is that LinkedIn is social media, because

I absolutely don't think it is.

LinkedIn is lots of things.

It's a search engine and people don't understand how that many

people don't understand how it works.

But you can find so much information on LinkedIn about all kinds of things.

It's also a directory.

Did you know there's now a billion people on LinkedIn?

There's now a billion personal profiles on LinkedIn as of yesterday.

Um, so you can find anybody pretty much on LinkedIn.

And finally, LinkedIn is networking.

It's, it's a networking tool, and it's the biggest networking tool.

And it's open 24 hours a day and it's free.

Wow, that's, that's pretty awesome.

Um, I mean, I didn't really think about it that way.

Um, but there's, well, there's all sorts of reasons to be on LinkedIn.

Now, absolutely.

Um, architecture practices though, they.

They tend to love sharing photos of spaces that they've designed when they

go onto online platforms, social media, and, you know, that's something I see

quite commonly on LinkedIn that the architectural practices that I are on the

platform and using it and I was wondering.

What other things could they consider posting on LinkedIn?

So I think it's great to showcase your products,

your services on LinkedIn.

I think it's important that people know what it is that you

do and what kind of work you're doing and how good your work is.

I think that's fantastic.

People want to know about you.

They want to know about your personality because I've renovated

two houses in my life and it's hard.

It's a really difficult process as a homeowner to go through to watch your,

you know, your home be completely destroyed and then rebuilt again.

And having a team of people around you to help you do that, who

you trust, who you understand, who you can communicate with is.

To me, more important really than the end product.

So I think a lot of people and a lot of architects actually

hide behind their work.

And what I would like to see architects doing on LinkedIn is showing themselves.

Talking about why they love what they do.

A little bit of personal stuff.

No, I know it isn't Facebook.

But it is important that architects show their personalities because they

work so closely with their clients.

And that's the content I'd like to see more of on LinkedIn.

That's a really good idea.

Um, actually that feels like a huge missed opportunity really for a lot of business

owners out there that are using LinkedIn.

And I think particularly architectural practices can, you know, they're very

keen to show the end results, but not necessarily the process and the

team behind achieving those results.

Absolutely.

And yes, and it isn't just about the architect themselves.

It's about the whole team.

And I'm a big, big advocate of employee advocacy of getting

the whole team on LinkedIn.

So everybody can get to know whoever, you know, in the organization that they're

going to be touching or working with.

And that way, when people come to you as an architect, they

already pretty much know you.

So it makes the whole selling journey much, much quicker because they

already feel that they know you, they like you, they trust you before

they've even opened the conversation.

So if you can get yourself and your team out there on LinkedIn talking

about what it is that you do, then You're the whole whole selling process

is going to be much shorter and easier.

Oh, that's a great idea.

Um, so I mean, other than, other than self promotion, could we talk

through some of the other benefits of being active on LinkedIn?

Oh my gosh.

How long have we got?

Yes, absolutely.

Um As I said, you know, LinkedIn is a, is a networking tool.

So architects can use LinkedIn to find collaborators, to find other

people that they have in their team, because architects have huge teams

of people that they don't necessarily want to work with or employ full time,

but they employ on a contract basis.

So finding surveyors, designers, builders, um, Interior designers, all

of those kind of people, um, brick, you know, types of bricks, types of

materials that they want to work with.

They can look for those on LinkedIn and find out all of those kind of things.

So they can build themselves up a huge knowledge base of people

that they can pull on when, you know, when they're very busy.

And of course, the other thing, well, it is self promotional, but you can

look for speaking opportunities, um, podcast opportunities.

I here we are today.

Um, there's so many opportunities for LinkedIn and it's a knowledge base.

I talked about LinkedIn being a search engine.

You can find industry trends, um, news views.

And the other thing you can do is you can tap into the needs of your audience.

So by following and connecting with.

clients, previous clients, current clients, potential clients, and watching

their comments on your posts and on other people's posts, you can really find

what their needs are and find out all about them before you get to meet them.

Wow.

That's, uh, there's quite a lot that we just covered there.

There it is.

Sorry.

there's quite a lot that we just ran through.

Yeah, that sounds like there's a huge opportunity for us there to

find out more, learn more about our customers to build out our network.

So to be able to build out, not just connect with potential customers, but the

other consultants that we might need to have involved, the other people that get

involved in projects, because construction projects, as you mentioned, that.

There usually is a whole team behind it, not just the in house team that

might be working in the practice, but structural engineers, interior designers

and everybody else finding good people to build out that wider team.

Sometimes that can be difficult and.

Um, knowing that LinkedIn is a place where we could go to be

able to make those connections and build those relationships as well.

That's really useful.

Yeah, it is.

It's such a huge tool and can be used in so many different ways.

Um, so yeah, there it is.

That's why I love it.

Oh, it's

Sarah, I'm going to test you a little bit now.

Um, can you give me an example of a LinkedIn feature that, that you wish

more people knew about and could you maybe tell us how we could use that?

So

got to be the search bar.

So, the search bar at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.

page is so tiny.

It's just this tiny little rectangle.

And when LinkedIn had a bit of a redesign design, rather, sorry, during

lockdown, it became even smaller and even paler, which is crazy.

But that's will open so many doors when you know how to use that

search bar correctly and you open it up and you see what's behind it.

Honestly, that's the golden gate that will open up so many opportunities.

I'm not.

When I'm working with my clients and I say, you know, you can do this,

you can find that you can do this.

Their faces, it's like, wow, I had no idea.

And that's for me, the most really important feature of LinkedIn.

that, is that even on the, the free version, the non

paid version of LinkedIn that,

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It is.

Yeah, you can use it.

It, it works the same whether you've got premium or obviously sales

navigator is a very different, um, is very different beast, but, um, that

search bar is available to everybody.

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Now, back to the show.

okay.

So could you, could you give me like an example of how I could use the search

bar if I went on my LinkedIn account now?

Okay, tell me somebody that you want to look for, or

it can be an individual or it can be a category of people.

Ah, okay.

That's a good question.

Um,

Challenging you as

challenging me as well.

Okay.

So let's say, um, I wanted to find.

Somebody that was, I could an energy specialist.

So maybe we had a project where, it was going to be, like a low

carbon build that be like sort of, um, with energy efficiency being

front of mind with the design.

What would I do if I went on LinkedIn?

I didn't know I needed some specialist input when it came to

energy efficiency on my design.

How could I use LinkedIn?

So you could, there's various different ways, you could look for

content, um, being written by people.

So you could search energy efficiency, uh, perhaps renewable energy might

be another key phrase you could use.

Um.

And then you could look for content that's written with those key phrases

in and see who's writing that content.

But probably a more, well definitely a more efficient way would be to

type in, somebody, you could type in somebody who's talking about, so who's

got the hashtags, energy efficiency, renewable energy, whatever that is.

Or you could just look for, uh, the title of that person.

I don't know if they would have a specific title.

Do you think they would, energy provider or energy specialist,

yeah, it could be energy assessor possibly.

Um, Yeah,

title, which is one of the, which is one of the things

hidden right, really, really far back.

Um, so you could actually use a Boolean search and you could look

for energy assessor, energy, um, I don't know, all of the different,

um, key phrases in a Boolean search, which is you're searching for and or,

um, You could then niche that down.

You could then, um, center it down by location.

So, obviously, you don't want somebody who lives outside the UK

because the project's in the UK.

Uh, if your project is in Gloucestershire, you could type in,

you know, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, or a town or a city that's nearby.

Um, you can't look for length of service.

That's something you can only do on...

sales navigator, but that would be a really good start

for you to search energy.

Um, you know, energy providers in your area.

You could definitely do that.

You could even search for companies who provide that

service as well as individuals.

And within the company, you can search for the role of the right

person that you need to speak to.

So whether you want to go into a company and talk to the CEO

and see if they've got somebody.

or whether you talk to HR and see if they've got somebody so you could

look for different companies and different departments within companies

to try and narrow down your search.

Absolutely.

go off after this recording and get onto LinkedIn and to test out that

search bar because I've definitely not used it as, as much as I could be doing.

Um, that's awesome.

Thanks, Sarah.

Um, what advice would you give to.

To architects and building designers to get more out of the platform.

Could you perhaps share maybe three simple steps to help

them up their game on LinkedIn?

So when I teach LinkedIn, whether I'm teaching somebody one to

one, whether I'm teaching my six week program or, you know, a huge corporate.

I always say there are three steps to LinkedIn success.

So the first part, you've got to get your profile finished

and done and looking amazing.

And not only looking amazing, get keywords in there because you'll come

up in searches for those keywords, um, on LinkedIn and on Google.

And I bet that a lot of the people listening to this, if they, um,

put their name into a Google search bar and hit return, it's going

to be their LinkedIn profile that will come up above their website.

If they have one linked to profile, of course, if they have one,

um, so get your profile built.

That's the first place that people go to look for you.

The second thing is start generating content.

Start generating content that adds value, that talks about who you are.

And then the third thing is use that search bar.

Because it's all very well having thousands and thousands of followers,

but as I say, you wouldn't try and sell handbags at a football match.

You need followers who are in connections who are going to form part of your tribe,

who are going to help you find more people in the area that you want to be in.

And the LinkedIn algorithm keeps an eye on what you're doing

and who you're connecting to.

So if you're spending all day watching cat videos, for example, I don't even

know if there are cat videos on LinkedIn.

guilty.

No, no, me neither.

But because you're not watching them, LinkedIn isn't going to feed you them.

But if you start looking at cat videos, the algorithm goes, all right,

this person wants some cat videos, let's chuck more in their feed.

So if you're hanging out on LinkedIn, in the sort of architecture, construction,

building, design space, that's the content that you're going to find in your feed.

So you can be very targeted and you can Curate your own feed by the

activity that you, you have on it.

So three steps, get your profile built beautifully, SEO optimized,

get a content strategy and start posting consistently on the platform

and then use the search engine and go out and talk to people on LinkedIn.

That's brilliant.

Thanks for that, Sarah.

Um, is there anything else that you wanted to share about LinkedIn that

we haven't covered already today?

So I was with some people this morning and the word

that comes up a lot is fear.

People are scared of LinkedIn because they don't understand it.

Yeah.

Still, um, people are like, Oh, no, I don't, I don't know what to say.

Uh, it's a business platform.

I don't, you know, I have to put my suit and tie on before

I even go on kind of thing.

It's just helping people get over that fear is something I do a lot.

And it's, I just want to say to people, just get out and just start.

Because until you start, you won't get anywhere.

So just go out on LinkedIn, be yourself.

And start talking to people.

That's great advice.

SaRah, actually something else that I wanted to just ask you

about, you mentioned that you've previously done a couple of home

renovation projects in the past.

Could you tell us the story of that and what your experience was like when you did

maybe the first home renovation projects and what that experience was like for you?

Well, the first one wasn't a, was a smaller one.

And we got, I'll never forget, we got back from holiday.

Wonderful two week holiday we'd had with the little kids and stuff.

And we got back and our living room was...

Full of rubble, literally bags bags and bags of rubble.

I mean, it was a building site and we kind of expected it to be

a building site when we got back.

But it was not meant to be like that.

Um, and the whole house was just a mess and it was awful.

They knew we were coming back then, um, and bless them.

We called them up and they said, Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

And they came around and they cleared it and tidied everything up.

But it was a real mess.

The second project.

was my four, now five story house, which ended up in an insurance

claim and us having to move out for 18 months to redo all the poor

work that the builders had done

No.

about it.

Now

Oh God.

What a nightmare.

it was awful.

It was really awful.

Um, yeah, I won't go into it now, but now we have a lovely home and it's wonderful.

Geez.

Wow.

Um, what an experience you had there.

So are you, would you ever, ever do a home renovation again or is that it

No.

for,

Or if I did, I'd, uh, choose my, uh, choose my builder and my art.

Well, no, the architect, actually, no problems there, but I would choose the

builder perhaps a bit more carefully.

Oh, that's really interesting.

Well, um, I do have another episode about how to find and

vet a great building contractor.

So, um, you have to have a listen to that in case you, um,

decide to, uh, ever do it again.

I will.

And actually, you know, what we've got is what we wanted.

You know, it's, it's how we wanted it to work.

It flows in the way we wanted.

So the end result is great, but it took a lot longer than we expected.

Yeah, that's quite a common story to be honest, maybe not to

the extent of what happened to you with having to be out, moved out for so long

and that the insurance claim issues, but, the projects often do take a bit longer

than people expect them to, particularly the preparation stage as well, actually

getting all of your ducks in a row before you're actually able to start

the build can, can take quite a while.

Yeah.

And it did take a while, but we, and I, but I, I was very conscious that.

That was right.

It was right that it should take a long time because it was a

big, such a big, big project.

But yeah, I can see how people would get frustrated with that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah, thanks so much for sharing everything you've

talked through about LinkedIn.

It's been absolutely amazing.

There was just one more question that I wanted to ask.

It's not actually related to LinkedIn.

I love travel and discovering new places.

And I just wondered if you could tell me one of your favorite places in

the world and what you love about it.

This could be somewhere near or far.

Oh, wow.

Um, I've traveled a lot, been, you know, in lots and lots of

different places in the world.

My happy place, I suppose, is at the top of a mountain in Wales.

That's where I, I, I love.

I love climbing up mountains and being with nature.

Uh, and I would love to do that more, actually.

Um, hopefully when I start to hang up my boots, I'll be doing that a lot more.

But that won't be for a while yet.

Oh, that sounds fantastic.

I'm actually, um, Well, I have a trip planned to Wales next spring

for, a hiking trip to go and climb some mountains in Snowdonia.

So, um, really looking forward to that.

I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

I want to see the photos, please.

I will, I'll send you some photos.

I'll make sure I share them online.

So that's been absolutely amazing.

Could I just ask you to share your contact details again for everybody, please?

Yes, absolutely.

So my website is sarahclaysocial.

com.

But find me on LinkedIn.

Just type Sarah Clay, um, in LinkedIn.

Look for orange and purple, and I'll be there.

And that's where I love to, to hang out.

And that's where, that's where you'll find me.

Brilliant.

Thanks again, Sarah.

Thanks so much.

It's been great chatting.

Next time, I'll be talking to Bob gentle about

building your personal brand.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Architecture Business Club.

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