LinkedIn Live for Beginners: How to Get Started with LinkedIn Live

Curt Anderson  00:00

Damon, Happy Wednesday, how are you? Dude?

Damon Pistulka  00:01

I’m great, you know. And that’s the wonderful thing about live streams. And do live stream. Doing live streaming is because you never know what’s going to happen. I mean, how many times have we have live streams and people have had, you know, someone come to the door and they’re office or right? Or if they’re working from home, the dog barking, Kid walk into the room, or, God forbid, the internet just dies and we’re sitting there to talk by ourselves. It’s always fun. We’ve

Curt Anderson  00:29

had, we’ve had all the above. So hey, today we’re talking about LinkedIn live by LinkedIn. Live is such an incredible business development tool. And in particular, we want to talk about LinkedIn live for beginners. Okay, yeah. So every week we talk about, you know, business development. So let’s just kind of recap, but then we’re going to talk about some of the basics. For anybody out there that was interested, wants to start like, hey, I want to try this LinkedIn live thing, right? So, you know, from a business development standpoint, I don’t know of a greater, more powerful tool than right here on LinkedIn live. Damon, you’ve, you know, you’ve been doing this for years now, just, you know, real quickly. You know, the reaching out, the engagement, just share, like, how is this such a different it flips a script on that and that outreach. What are your thoughts? It

Damon Pistulka  01:12

really does. Because you’re not making a cold call, you’re not sending out a cold email. Well, you might be sending out a cold email, but it’s got a much different message in it, right? Because you can research who you want to talk to, and talk to them about something they’re passionate about, and invite them to come on the show and share with your your audience, which is, yeah, as you as you can tell just from hearing that it’s dramatically different outreach and and then that just starts the relationship building process, absolutely

Curt Anderson  01:43

so again. So from a business development standpoint, we’ve, you know, we’ve talked about this extensively. We’re going to be talking about it more and more giving examples. We have some clients coming on in the upcoming weeks that we’re going to talk about this further next. It’s just, you know, you create, it’s an opportunity to create a content machine, you know. It’s just, you know, since the mid 2000s it’s been, you know, blogging, blogging, blogging, and just, you know, unless you went to journalism school, it’s just difficult to sit down and knock down a blog. You know, it’s just so much easier just to kind of share your passion through video. And then, you know, we’ve been seeing some incredible results with keyword rankings. Yes, you know, by getting those important keywords of yours. We call them our Ricks, those ridiculously important keywords, yeah, into the headline. And we’re seeing a lot of folks, you know, starting to get quick rankings through live and then, you know, most of all, it’s just building these wonderful relationships, right? Yeah?

Damon Pistulka  02:36

Yeah, the relationships are just, it’s really just tons of fun. I mean, let’s just get down to it. It’s fun to do business development this way, because you’re meeting cool people, you’re learning a lot of stuff. You’re listening to them talk about something you’re passionate about. You’re helping them share that with the world, right? And you’re getting to know them.

Curt Anderson  02:54

You’re getting to know and just, you know, just the emotion, the power of the, you know, the entrepreneurial origin stories that we get here, week in, week out. You know, the struggles, the challenges, the, you know, I’m on the verge of, of not making it, but then the turnaround, you know, we’ve had, you know, folks that have shared some really deep, vulnerable, personal situations. You know, I shared a couple with, you know, a couple examples with you earlier. So, you know, I mean, just, it’s really, I find irreplaceable of what you know, and I don’t care what field you’re in, if you’re selling products, if you’re selling services, financial sector, you know, whatever it is that you’re doing, it’s just, this is such a great way to get your message out there. So let’s talk about, how does somebody get started? Damon, so say there’s a dear friend of ours out there, if you’re out there, drop us a note. Let us know where you’re coming from. Love to hear what you’ve got going on in your world. Damon, if for somebody that’s just starting out with LinkedIn, live, what’s a good first step? Where do they even start?

Damon Pistulka  03:50

Well, you know, I think the one thing that that I did when I first started is I talked to somebody that that had done it right. And, I mean, now how, when was it? Kurt, did I start? It was like 2019, or 2020, something like that. Yeah, start doing it. And that, that software wasn’t really as good as it is now, because, like someone today, should just go watch a few stream yard YouTube videos, and they can, they can get, get, literally, get started and and you don’t have to do things like we did when we started. Used to have to apply to get LinkedIn live approve. You know, get approved to do LinkedIn live. I think if you got over 100 contacts or something or connections on LinkedIn, now you can do it or something pretty simple. So the thing that I would suggest get on streamyard, create a create a free account, connect your LinkedIn profile to it, and then try it. What’s it hurt you get on and you don’t, don’t even get crazy with microphone, camera, nothing. If you got a laptop that’s got a camera in it, a microphone, that’s all you need to start trying it, right? And that’s honestly what I did. I’ve got, I was going to pull it out. Here, I’ve got it. I’ve literally got a $19 microphone that I started with, and I use it for many, many years. And that thing was like, and now it’s my road mic, actually here, yeah, look, it is literally 19 bucks. It’s got a little stand and everything. You don’t have to get fancy. Then I then I bought a camera, and then I bought a better microphone, you know, and still, and then even some lights. I mean, you can, you can, if you’re into it and you really like it, for two, 300 bucks, you can get set up pretty nicely and to be able to do it. But to start out, don’t do anything other than your laptop. Get yourself in a quiet place, get your laptop up so it kind of looks at you, so it’s not, you’re not looking down into the dark and give it a try. Get a free stream yard account. You don’t have to pay a thing. Don’t have to pay to be on LinkedIn and go live on LinkedIn and give it a try. Absolutely.

Curt Anderson  05:52

Yeah, it’s, I couldn’t agree more, you know. And it’s funny, I’ve got my laptop right here. I mean, this is where, you know, when you and I started, I was just doing my laptop for ages, you know, my wife was like, you know, should, should you step it up a little bit, you know? And I’ve got, you know, buddy, you know, you know, you’re gonna get those guys that give you, you know, we can call it tough love. Or maybe they, yeah, they love tough. How’s that? Yeah, there you go. They love you tough. And so, you know, you get the note like, hey dude, what do you know you’re way too close in the camera. Or, yeah, you know, your hair’s a little messed up today, though, you know, I get all those comments, you know. So good thing is just putting yourself out there. And like you said, you know, a $20 microphone, you know, get a camera, you know. And if you don’t want to do all that, just start with your laptop. But the big thing is, is just getting started, if you had any interest, you know, when podcasting started, what? 20 years ago, or whatever. Like, you know, what’s this podcast thing? Well, you know what podcasting was 20 years ago, in our humble opinion, is what live streaming is today. And it’s just such an incredible, powerful tool, just to get started. And like, yeah, cost wise, and like, like, you know, like you said you you literally could do it for almost nothing, yes,

Damon Pistulka  07:01

almost nothing. You’re, you’re right in and the the other cool thing that you can do if you want to start live streaming, you start doing it a little bit. And like we said, you got your free stream yard, you done a couple lives. You just and just lives about, hey, this is what I did today. I did something interesting to me today, or just anything like that, right, right? And then once you start, if you really want to get into live streaming more, then you’re going to get to think about things while things like we talk about in our course, about what’s my show going to be about, and other things. But as you’re and as you get started, though, the thing that I found that was really helpful is there’s a lot of YouTube videos on interview skills for live stream, interview for podcasting, interview for blah, blah, blah. And then go back and study some of these masters, these people that have done it forever. You know, you look at Jimmy Kimmel, you look at some of these other people. Watch how they talk. There is a structure to the way they talk, and when you learn that, it makes it so much easier, because you don’t have to. I mean, great conversations with people is about asking the right questions, and learn from the great the people that are really good at asking good questions, and that will help your live streaming even more. And I didn’t even think about that until someone gave me that tip into it a while and, and I was like, wow, that’s really good. And then you start studying them, and you go there, that means there’s just so much you can learn, and it’s not hard again. And then we’re still not spending much money, right at all. You’re spending a little time, right, right?

Curt Anderson  08:36

And so, you know, and again, just kind of going through the boxes that you’re checking, right? Yes, it’s, you know, unless you’re just blessed with just business coming your way. Then then, you know, then this might not be the best direction, but for most of us, you know, we need to be out there pounding the pavement, you know, like the expression, like, if you don’t hunt, you’re not eating type thing, right? So if you need to be in you know, you have to be in business development. What a great way to do it is by knocking on doors. Now, let me play little devil’s advocate. I did have somebody. I was talking with somebody recently, and I was like, you know, you know, going through this whole process. And they’re like, you know, I’m like, Well, if you got into this, what would your competitors say? Would you feel that this, that they would be like, Man, What’s this guy doing? Or, you know, he was like, my client, my customers are so primitive and behind the times, technology wise, he goes, they would probably like, why are you wasting your time doing that? You know? And so, you know, if it’s not for you, not your right industry, not right, you know, like, hey, this isn’t for everybody, right? Yeah. And with marketing, you know, like, what with marketing numbers? You know, if you on Google ads, let’s just say,

Damon Pistulka  09:38

Oh, wow, yeah.

Curt Anderson  09:39

If you bet, if, if you bet in Google ads, if you bet 2% if you hit 2% in Google ads, you’re like a Hall of Famer, you know? I mean so meaning if you strike out 98% of the time on paid ads, yeah, man, you can make a great you get up to 3% striking out 97 Percent. Like, you know you’re going to make a you know you’re going to be phenomenal, right? Your Hall of Fame status. So here, you know, it’s, you know, how much business are you driving? But again, the process is so much different, because a paid ad, it’s just like you’re putting something out there and interrupting somebody’s day, yes. Of like, Hey, do you want my product? Do you want my service? We’re here. You have the opportunity to create community. Talk a little bit about, you know, we were just talking last night about, you know, five years going four years ago when covid hit, you started creating community. What is community meant and done for you and your business? Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  10:36

that I tell you, and, you know this Curt, it’s just, I mean, you build some friendships and relationships that are so just life enriching, really, and and it’s, and then you think about the opportunities that they’ve they’ve brought, either for collaboration or just getting to know people that are really and learning from. It’s, it’s incredible. And when you can expand your community to the world, which literally you think. Over the last few years, we’ve had people from all over the world on our shows. We’ve had people all over the world in our in our events and and getting to know some of these people pretty well and and really, like I said, learning from them, them, enriching our lives, our our US, the work that we’re doing, enriching their lives. It’s just a wonderful thing. Well,

Curt Anderson  11:24

I think the key word right there is learning, right? And to flip the script, and the learning part is like, what do we love to say is like, be that fierce educator. So if you’re in business development, if you’re in marketing, and I know it’s so easy to be, you know, hey, buy my product. Buy my product, buy my service, right, bye, bye, bye, please, right? But if you flip the script and you come in with just that fierce, unapologetic attitude of being an educator, right? I’m just, I’m just relentlessly committed to educating my customers, my ideal buyers, you know. And like you just said, from a learning standpoint, look at what a blessing and what a gift it is the folks that come on that we’ve interviewed, and like I, learned something new every time. Yes,

Damon Pistulka  12:11

yes, definitely. And it it is so cool to be able to you get this one on one time, because you’ll get into a into a live stream show, and they’ll your guests will come up with something. You go, Oh my God, that’s really interesting. And then you can just ask more questions, and it’s something, if it’s something they’re passionate about, it’s even better, because then you really let people understand them. And if it’s interesting to you, hopefully it’s really interesting to the audience as well. And you can, the conversations you can have are phenomenal, yeah, just

Curt Anderson  12:42

priceless. And, you know, like you just talked, we spoke with our mutual friend, dear buddy, Dave Chrysler. Yeah, Dave Chrysler, you know, he came on the show and he, you know, he said something to us on the show that I think about every single day now. He said, You know, for you to be efficient, for you to be effective, for you to scale your business, you have to do one of three things. You have to be focusing on. You need to either, you know, whatever’s on your plate, yeah, you either need to automate it. You need to delegate it, or you’ve gotta eliminate it. And you and I, I boy, if we could master that, man, it would be that I’m looking forward to that day. But if you can focus on those three things, and again, that was from our show, and we could be here, we could talk for hours about all the incredible things that we’ve learned from friends, you know, folks that we’ve just met. We’ve had folks that come on the show for the first time. We’ve just we meet them as they come on the show, and like you and I are just taking notes like crazy, just like it’s a masterclass with these people.

Damon Pistulka  13:42

Yeah, it is. It really is something. And, you know, so if you’re a beginner, and you’re looking at live streaming, you’re thinking about, this could be a great business development or community building thing for you, I would, I would highly recommend, like we said, you know, just getting you set a number, free stream yard account, hooking it to your YouTube or your LinkedIn live first of all, and then your YouTube, because you guys think you can go two or three places with a free account, and then try it you got, if you got a laptop, if you got an iPhone or Android phone, you can do it on those to it. It all works, right? And just get started, because you will be very surprised at how easy it is to get started and going. And then the steps beyond that are, you know, there’s a little more work to it, and if you decide to do it as a, you know, solid business development tool, it’s, it’s, it’s a good idea to get a little more advice or training on it. And, you know, we do have a free course on that that we can, we could give, give people access to if they want to look at that. But it’s, it’s just a really, I mean, it’s not hard to do, and it’s so much easier than, hey, you know, I’m Damon. Would you like to talk about this? It’s like,

Curt Anderson  14:52

yeah. And we’ve got clients that have gone this direction now, one on one, clients that that are now and now, like, they’re all. In, right? They’re just like, oh my goodness, this is phenomenal, going this direction. And so the thing is, you know, for folks like, you know what, man, I’m just, I’m stretched. I just, I don’t have time. I just, you know, in a lot of times, like, if your marketing is a little bit scattered, and she’s like, Okay, I’ve got some that, you know, I thought of today, I’m going to post it today, and next week, you know, then like, Oh gee, I haven’t post, you know, like, there’s always that pressure, and it’s not even fun now, now it’s like, you know, now it’s a burden, you know what I mean. But then, if you don’t, you’re the best kept secret. So like, you’ve gotta, you know, you’ve gotta get a message out there. What this does is it creates a structure, and so even if live streaming isn’t your thing, like just creating that structure and that consistency. So if you’re going to be emailing, if you’re gonna be posting on LinkedIn, if you’re gonna be putting out a video, if you’re gonna video, if you’re gonna be doing whatever it is, you know, like 12 o’clock Eastern time on every Wednesday, nine o’clock Pacific, you’re gonna find Dame and I hanging out here chatting on our Monday and Friday show same time every week. We’ve been doing it for years, same time that, you know, and just, I just know, okay, that’s my marketing time, that’s my business development time, that’s my content creation. And, you know, we will, we don’t have time right now. We’re going to wrap up. But just the amount, how you could repurpose all this content, it is just so efficient. Yes,

Damon Pistulka  16:14

I mean, yeah, you just, you, you talk about repurposing it, and it’s a whole different topic for us, but it will make your content go so far, and you I just can’t even I, we need a whole nother session to talk about that, and we will, yeah, going back again. You know LinkedIn live for beginners. You know how you get started with LinkedIn live is really, like I said, it’s so simple, yeah, dreamy, Arctic. Free streaming our account, connect your LinkedIn account, and then set up a little live event in streamyard, and you can look to video, YouTube videos and give it a try. Or, I think you can even just go live now. You don’t even have to do that, yeah, you know. So just do it and try it. Just do it

Curt Anderson  16:59

and try it, you know. And yeah, and you know what, next week we’re going to dive into streamyard. We’re going to talk about how to use streamyard. So we’ll come back and talk about that. And then, you know what, we’ll have a repurpose you know, in our course, we do office hours, yeah, and I geeked out, and I showed everybody how we repurpose. And I think I overwhelmed everyone, because it is, it’s, if you’re, if you, if you’re seeing it for the first time, it can be like, Oh my gosh, how am, how am I going to get there? You know? And we show you step by step how to get there, but it can be daunting to get there. But, I mean, again, you can put it, put out and produce so much great content your you know, SEO value, you know, sales enablement tools,

Damon Pistulka  17:38

yeah. I mean, I think, on our website now, we’ve got over 500 blog posts now, right? And I think I’ve written maybe 10 in the last five years, right? Right? Yeah. So it, it makes things much easier, because you just pick a subject and you talk about it,

Curt Anderson  17:54

right? Exactly. So we’re going to wrap up for today. Thank everybody catching this. We appreciate you more than you can possibly imagine. Damon, I appreciate you more than you can possibly imagine. If you have any questions, man, connect with Damon. He’s got a few followers on LinkedIn. Connect with myself. Curt Anderson, love to hear what’s going on in your world. Got a free course. If you guys are interested, send us a note. We can send it out to you guys. So we’ll be back here. We have an incredible, amazing guest. We’ve got Rob Howze is a guest on Friday, and so we’ll see you on our live show this Friday with just more more energy and inspiration.

Damon Pistulka  18:30

Have a great rest of your day. Everyone.

18:32

See you.