What kind of transformation can you expect after a LinkedIn Training session with me?
In all of my LinkedIn training, whether it's 1:1 or for teams, this is one of the first questions I ask:
HOW CONFIDENT DO YOU FEEL USING LINKEDIN?
1 = HESITANT AND UNCERTAIN, RARELY POST OR ENGAGE
5 = I CAN SEE ITS BENEFITS, CONFIDENT IN POSTING
It's a self-assessment, of course, and the tendency is to under-rate. But I find it's still useful in the moment, so I can adjust pace or tone as we work through the session.
Then, right at the end, I ask a second version of the same question:
HOW CONFIDENT DO YOU FEEL USING LINKEDIN NOW?
1 = STILL HESITANT AND UNCERTAIN, BUT WILL GIVE IT A GO
5 = I CAN CLEARLY SEE MORE OF ITS BENEFITS, CONFIDENCE GROWING
Recently, the fab Liv of West Sussex Urology LLP was my "student." She'd never really used LinkedIn. She'd set up a profile years ago, in a completely different role, and then done nothing with it since. A truly blank canvas for us to work from (lovely stuff!).
Our focus for the two-hour session was building a strategy for the WSU company page, which was an equally blank canvas. West Sussex Urology already has a ton of genuinely helpful, essential content sitting on their website: clear, practical information written to help people understand their symptoms and options. Content like that deserves a bigger stage. It's exactly the kind of thing that helps someone take that first, sometimes scary, step towards booking an appointment with a urology consultant.
Liv picked it all up remarkably quickly. She's a regular Facebook user, and once she realised how similar the posting process actually was, her initial fear (she'd rated herself a 1) more or less disappeared on the spot.
By the end of the session, she had:
started planning what her own personal profile needed;
posted to the WSU company page;
scheduled an article for the company page; and
learned how to post an update to the WSU Google Business Profile.
I'd call that a productive couple of hours.
By the end, she rated herself a 5. That kind of transformation isn't common, the needle is often shifted just a couple of points, there are still reservations, training can feel BIG, time is needed to absorb the learning. However, Liv could clearly see more of what LinkedIn has to offer, and her confidence was visibly growing in session, not just in what she said, but in how she was talking about what came next.
What strikes me most, session after session, isn't a lack of ability. It's unfamiliarity. Give someone a clear method and a bit of encouragement, and the fear usually clears far faster than people expect.
Liv only has a limited amount of time allocated to the business page alongside her main role as a Medical Secretary, so I'll be checking in with her next week to see how she's getting on.
FOOTNOTE: This is the client who found me via ChatGPT
