Speaker 1: 0:00

Wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, wait, shit, no, no, no, I'm not ready. Okay, good.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Are you ready now? Okay.

Speaker 1: 0:11

Wait, wait.

Speaker 2: 0:12

What? Oh, okay, okay, you're ready now Got it. I'm not cutting any of this out. It's good. It's good radio, it's great radio. Confusion is the best podcast they do. They love it. They love being confused. You know what I love what? Welcome back to Corbett Strategy. This podcast could have been an email. I'm Bruce and I'm not Clark, that's right, Got Alex guesting in this week subbing in for Clark while he's still out. Miss you, Clark. Can't wait for you to get back, but until you do, Alex how you doing bud.

Speaker 1: 0:48

I'm doing good. I feel bad for the listeners. I feel like they're getting cheated by getting a cut rate, Clark, so I'll do my best.

Speaker 2: 0:57

despite being the great value brand Clark, I don't think any of us can bring the kind of energy Clark has.

Speaker 1: 1:02

He's got the riz, I know energy clark has what he's got, that he's got the riz, you know, he's got the voice yeah, he's got that golden voice.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Yeah, he's got the pipes making us all look bad by comparison. How are you doing alex five? Check, I'm giving you the vibe check.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Uh, you're giving me the business. Uh, I'm, I'm doing I'm doing pretty good man. Um, you know, busy, busy, work, busy couple of weeks actually, but I like being busy. Actually, I prefer being busy to not being busy. So it's actually a lot of fun to be pulled in 18 directions. It's good times.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Do you ever feel that you're so busy that time feels equally as long as it is short?

Speaker 1: 1:42

Oh yeah, like it's both too long and too short at the same time. Yeah, yeah, all the time Like uh, yeah yeah, You're like man can. Can this meeting be over already? And then also, where did the day go, Correct?

Speaker 2: 1:57

I find myself in that so much these last few months. It has been the longest December to March I've ever lived in my life. Meanwhile, I have no time to do anything and, like I don't know what day it is, half the days of the week.

Speaker 1: 2:14

It's very weird. I'm like trying to get my tax documents together Like and normally I do it like first thing right I'd like I don't stop right, but it's been a weird three months to begin the year.

Speaker 2: 2:28

One of the many reasons I am grateful for our previous guest pod participant, sarah, my wife. She gets all of that and just sends it off to our tax person. I don't want to think about it.

Speaker 1: 2:42

I don't know how people do it. My wife, tracy, is also a godsend for similar reasons. She mostly handles it, but I still gotta log in and like print stuff out, right. So, yeah, oh, they don't mail that to you. Uh, some of it gets mailed, but, like my, um, my various uh stock thing thing about bobbers, the, the corporations that handle the equities, which are doing so well, by the way, so well, yeah, oh, are they?

Speaker 2: 3:04

you might be the only person on the planetities which are doing so well, by the way. So well, oh are they. You might be the only person on the planet who's doing well right now.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Yeah, I guess sarcasm doesn't translate well in voice, so it probably makes more sense in text, would you?

Speaker 2: 3:16

say it is in the toilet, or is it at least floating around the rim? Let's see.

Speaker 1: 3:22

I've lost in the past month about 22% of my equity net worth 22%.

Speaker 2: 3:33

Damn, damn. That hurts to hear I haven't looked, I don't want to look, it's not going to look If I don't look, it can hurt me.

Speaker 1: 3:41

You always got to look on the bright side, man, and I still have a net worth. It's not negative, right, and not everybody can say that. So you know, got to look on the bright side man.

Speaker 2: 3:51

Very true, Very true. And I think that's a big reason why I'm not looking is I'm in the mindset that you know I've got a lot going on at work. You know it's busy time and I don't need the even like the hint of negative thought clouding my productivity, Like I'm still getting paid, I'm still able to eat, drink, sleep, live my normal life, be comfortable with my work. So I'm just going to pretend like maybe you know, I'll take a look once things get better, because they will get better. I, you know I got to stay positive in that regard.

Speaker 1: 4:25

So in the very long arc of history you're not wrong, but there have been periods of time that equal a human lifetime where things did not get better. So you know, we'll see.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Don't like that word human lifetime. Let's avoid using that phrase. Moving forward in terms of wealth Okay Okay, let's avoid using that phrase moving forward in terms of wealth Okay Okay. Hey, let me ask you a question, yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:02

When you're doing real good, when you're real busy at work, is your first instinct to go on LinkedIn and make a post about it and tell people how doing what you do can benefit their life.

Speaker 2: 5:10

I think it should be, I guess, right, because we see so many folks posting everything they do, but no, never comes to mind. You've never felt the urge to go talk about how you know. Oh, this time I got fired. Actually taught me a whole lot about B2B sales.

Speaker 1: 5:23

That would be a normal post, I think, on LinkedIn. Those are not the ones that catch your eye.

Speaker 2: 5:29

No, certainly not. Things are getting weird and I thought it'd be. You actually had the idea, because we've been kind of sharing some of these posts. Recently. Linkedin has turned into the weirdest place on planet Earth. It's not quite Facebook, it is not quite Twitter, twitter, but it's also not linkedin. Like it's lost all identity with being a professional work platform and some of the posts that we have seen just in the last few months are absolutely jaw-dropping in some of the the intent and themes and oversharing that is going on over there, which you know it's funny in following up on a previous episode, like the overshare side of things, linkedin is the overshare capital of the United States. Now I'm quite convinced, maybe even the planet.

Speaker 1: 6:15

So before we get into you know, fake it or make it here on LinkedIn. Now that you mentioned that last episode, I do have a bit of counter advice to something that Sarah mentioned to you. She mentioned a way for you to avoid drinking beers was to tell this elaborate story about how you sampled unattainable flavor in Bruges and you simply cannot ever bring yourself to sip another fermented beverage ever again because of what happened. I would challenge Sarah to say that the last thing you want is for your coworkers to view you as too brugy to imbibe beers with them. Good Lord, I regret nothing. I regret nothing.

Speaker 2: 7:00

This is going to spurn another GIF war and I did say GIF.

Speaker 1: 7:10

This is going to spurn another GIF war, and I did say GIF. The listeners aren't ready for GIF war part two in Discord? No, they're not, and some listeners may not be familiar with what the joke is.

Speaker 2: 7:16

So there's a term, bougie, which actually is a shortening version of bourgeoisie which we've used quite extensively in your title on this platform. Right, right, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:29

So. But bougie basically just means someone who's you know fancy, or trying to affect the nature of being fancy, and so thinking that, oh, I can't have regular common beers because I've had beer in bruges, hence the pun, adding an R into Bougie.

Speaker 2: 7:48

Yes, oh, my eyes couldn't have rolled further to the back of my head.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Thank, you for that. I saw, I saw yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:55

Yes, you did see, and I'm sure my wife will really enjoy that and it certainly won't spurn more back and forth gifs between the two of you and for those comedy uh folks out there that are listening, the more you explain a joke, the funnier it is, yeah, oh, absolutely that's an ironclad rule of comedy, so only the best comics do it. That's why you never really see them do it, because there's no good comedy anymore yeah, a comic no one's explaining jokes out there.

Speaker 1: 8:25

It's a missed opportunity, uh truly but, honestly, I will say this, though I think she had a lot of really good advice in general and, uh, I do think that it's funny how she's coming at it from social skills, like almost in general, right, and I so many times, because right now most of my job is really around enabling sales engineers training, taking on continuous enablement for sales engineers so much of my job. I look at it and I'm like man a lot of these skills translate to real life, but she's kind of doing the inverse where she's like so many of these skills for interpersonal relationships translate to corporate life, and I completely agree. It's like a totally like a mathematical principle where, like you can just, like you know, carry them over one to the other. And there's a good reason for that, and that's because you don't stop being a human when you go to work and you're not. You don't stop working with other humans when you go to work and you're not. You don't stop working with other humans when you go to work.

Speaker 2: 9:26

It's such an interesting point because I think some people legitimately do like their, their work. Sona is, and I've had managers like this it's. They become inhuman robots that are incapable of empathy or socializing or being able to carry just a basic small talk conversation. Everything is either about the spreadsheet, the managerial report, the number and it's weird. But then you might catch them outside of work and they're normal people. I don't think that works. I know this is not the topic for the day, but, like to your point, being a human is part of being an employee in a company. They're hiring you for your humanity just as much as they're hiring you for your skill.

Speaker 1: 10:09

I disagree. I think it is the topic for today because I think it's directly related.

Speaker 2: 10:15

actually, and it's worth noting you bringing up Work Zone.

Speaker 1: 10:18

I had to Google that real quick to see if you just coined a new phrase or not, because I had never heard it, but according to urban dictionary, it was coined in 2018 by some tumblr user called lyra form. So, uh, I guess. So yeah, no, uh, you're late by about seven years. But too bad, because that was cool.

Speaker 2: 10:36

That's a good one, that's why I'm not the best marketer is you'll get a good idea seven years too late.

Speaker 1: 10:44

Well, they say, the good ones come back around. Right, the good ideas come back around. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:48

I almost said work persona, but then I was like this is a perfect opportunity to smash these things together. A portmanteau, absolutely so. Is the LinkedIn post a work persona or is this some weird? Yeah, it feels cultish to me in a way, because, yes, you're right, the B2B sales, that was weird, but that's. I yearn for the days of the B2B sales post. We are in range territory now.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Yeah, and I got a. I got a counterpoint to this eventually, where we get to like maybe using LinkedIn effectively, and all that. But first let's dive into the misuse. Right Like you, you posted something recently and we'll probably share it in the Corpo discord here for everyone listening. But why don't you describe, right Like, this is kind of like what do you mean, but what do you LinkedIn?

Speaker 2: 11:42

What do you? Linkedin? So I saw this post I actually got it from the uh LinkedIn lunatics subreddit, which is just, in a way it's therapeutic because it's so funny, but in a way it's also just like I don't want to think these people are real. And this is definitely a real post. Uh comes from a gentleman who says they're a holistic salesperson. That's an interesting title. I'm going to read it to you.

Speaker 2: 12:03

I'm proud to say that Katya and I are beginning couples therapy tonight. Not ashamed, Double down on the investment in your spouse. One hundo P. Therapy isn't for people who, quote, need help. Therapy is a tool for people who want thrive. Why walk when you can run? Question mark, question mark. Why struggle to communicate about the household chores when you can communicate effectively? Empower yourselves. People Bump fist PS. Go to church because our church is paying for six therapy sessions. Pray fire. Hashtag faith. Hashtag family. Hashtag communication. Hashtag growth. Hashtag mindset. Hashtag parenting. Hashtag counseling, Hashtag therapy. And a picture of two of the whiter people I've ever seen in my life and I'm saying that as one of the whitest in their in their hope, peace therapy session. This is not a LinkedIn post. I would argue this isn't even a Facebook worthy post. This is private life information being shared publicly on a professional platform. What the heck?

Speaker 1: 13:00

Yeah, and you know. First of all, I want to say that I agree that you shouldn't be ashamed about going to therapy Absolutely not, and I say this to people all the time that would you be ashamed about going to physical therapy for an arm injury? And the answer is probably no, right, almost nobody would be ashamed about that. Well, your brain is part of your body and sometimes it's not working 100%. It needs help. So, for anyone listening, never, ever, be ashamed of wanting to or needing to get help in any way, shape or form. Whatever that looks like for you. Maybe it's just a long hot shower in the dark, maybe it's going on a hike by yourself, maybe it's seeing a professional to help talk through some concepts, whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 13:43

I completely agree with the second line, which is not ashamed, agreed. But also, why share this with everyone? That's the part that doesn't make sense. Not sharing doesn't mean you're ashamed. This is a public forum. First of all, and I'll give you my example On Facebook, which I'm still on. I don't know why, but I am, and I really shouldn't be, because it's becoming worse and worse and worse. But they all are.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Yeah, they are, but I have like 350, quote-unquote friends on Facebook. I say quote-unquote because I know some of them, but some of them are. You know, I worked with them for like a year or two 20 years ago and somehow I'm stuck with them as Facebook friends. Right, Okay, fine, whatever, I don't really care that much. I don't post that much on Facebook, it's not a big deal. But LinkedIn I have over 5,000 connections on LinkedIn. Do I really want to share my personal goings on on LinkedIn? Is that the right platform for that? I don't, and it's a it's a legit question. I don't know is is it right? Is that something? Where is it viewed by this individual as um making themselves more human? Is that the idea by by showing this side of themselves?

Speaker 2: 15:02

two, two thoughts, because I agree with you Therapy should be stigmatized as just going to urgent care or the clinic if you have a sore throat or a cold. People should not be afraid to go to therapy. However, it's not that way. A lot of people, unfortunately, do look at therapy as well. This person must have some. They're crazy, they're a crazy person, or there's the stigma that you know therapy is for weak people and only the strong don't need it.

Speaker 2: 15:31

And I can. I can think my way through any situation. Like it's sad but true. Like mental health awareness is just not prioritized at any level that it should be. So posting this, it's never going to have the results you want, because, one, the internet is written in ink, as is LinkedIn. Anyone can look through your post history and, as someone who hires people, I do look through people's LinkedIn post histories because I want to know if they're this kind of lunatic and if I see something like this and you know there's more than just the therapy to unpack here but like I start to question what are they going to do If they're working at my company? What are they going to post about? Is it going to upset my customer base? Is it going to upset other co workers I'm with Like you don't know what stigmas this is going to trigger and it's it's oversharing to the point that, no matter what the intent was, you're going to have so much more negatives than positive gain from ever putting something out there like this in short and long term.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Yeah, I agree, and the thing is that, of course, this is only one example, right, there are. I mean, like I said, I have a lot of connections and LinkedIn will feed you stuff, even from your connections, connections, and I understand that folks want to feel heard on various you think about any of these things, right? I'm not calling out one way or another and maybe they want to share that, but in theory, linkedin, like you just said, is for professionals. It's what my potential hiring manager is going to look through in terms of one aspect of back channeling me as a person. Another thing they might do is talk to anyone else at their company who may have worked with me. Right, absolutely, that back-channeling happens all the time. It's a standard part of the hiring process.

Speaker 1: 17:42

I would argue that if you're being hired, you should back-channel them back to find out if you want to be hired by that person or not, and chances are you're going to go on LinkedIn to do that. Now let's say you're potentially someone who's trying to hire for a role and you posted a bunch of stuff that's political and you've alienated 50% of your potential audience maybe more, maybe less, depending on how popular your opinion is, but regardless and again, it does not matter what your stance is. You potentially have alienated a good chunk of the people you might have otherwise hired, and maybe you want to do that. But I would argue chances are you don't, right, you don't want to have that filter of that severe an amount, right? 50% of the folks out there.

Speaker 1: 18:25

But if they're back-channeling you back and, like I said, if you're a good interviewee, someone who's going for a job, you should back-channel the folks that might be hiring you. They're going to look at that and potentially not want to work with you. They're going to remove their application, they're going to ghost you the inverse of what normally happens, right? And is that an outcome that you want? And so I think, like you said, the internet is written in ink. Linkedin, especially LinkedIn, is something that's publicly Google-able, right? Like I could Google content you post on LinkedIn without even looking at you directly on LinkedIn. The more reactions you have, the more likely it is to pop up on Google and guess what gets the most reactions? Anything polarizing. Anything polarizing, because they're going to get people agreeing with you passionately and people disagreeing with you passionately, and so, ultimately, if you make even one controversial viral post, that is now going to define you when it comes to search engine optimization. Is that the look?

Speaker 2: 19:30

you want Interesting subtract. Here is the last post I made on LinkedIn and I make a lot of joke posts on LinkedIn. It's no secret, I'm a little bit of a meme king. I enjoy poking fun at the platform and the culture of work whenever I can. Last post I made was all about how the hurricane that hit Florida surviving. It was going to teach me something about B2B sales. Got a lot of engagement, but that was the last post I made last year, I think it was in October.

Speaker 2: 19:57

I still get reactions and likes on that post every week and LinkedIn sends me an email to let me know about it because it was the last thing I posted. They keep it in their circulation. I don't care about that and you know, in a way my LinkedIn is a filter for me. If you don't have a sense of humor and if you can't poke fun and satirize things, I'm probably not going to be a good fit for your culture anyway. So filter me out. But it's a good example, right? That post is months old now. It's almost half a year old and it's still getting reactions. It's still getting interactions. So the things you post, they will absolutely follow you and be seen long after you post them and you can't remove it. You can delete the post, but everything is kept in the archive of the internet and the more outstanding and potentially damning your post is, people are going to save screenshots. It's going to show up on the LinkedIn lunatic subreddit. It's going to get passed around the workplace. It will never disappear.

Speaker 1: 20:54

Yeah, and going viral is viewed by some folks as a good thing, right, some influencers. But I mean, what's the connotation in biology of going viral? Right, it's not a good connotation, and I would argue that not all press is good press. Not all attention is good attention, and especially if your goal is to secure a job and at some point you may need to, and that's realistically the only reason to use LinkedIn. The only reason I use LinkedIn right now is, number one, to make sure that my network is maintained and they know who I am. But number two, I do use it to promote my current company because I don't mind doing that. I actually like the company I work for. They treat me well. I think they treat my peers well. I think everyone that works for the company that I'm currently at is overall pretty happy, and so if helping them out is a nominal thing, as like something as simple as sharing something they post, and maybe I add in my own sentence or two to make it a little more attention worthy as far as the algorithm goes, but that's a small effort for me and, more importantly, it's professional and related to what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 22:06

It's not anything like a personal the closest I've come to something personal is something I shared with my company. My company wanted to know about me because they were posting stuff. My parents, as I've talked about before, I come from a family I'm first generation born in the United States. My family came from South America and so we're immigrants, and so for Hispanic Awareness Month, they wanted to post about diverse employees they have at their company. I happen to be one of them, so they posted about me and they wanted to know about me personally. So I posted things like you know, I played Dungeons and Dragons for fun on the weekends, right, stuff like that. And so that's about as personal as I've gotten on LinkedIn and I'm okay with keeping it there and never going anything deeper than that, you know.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Well, and I love that because it's the point of the platform, right Like, we have the Marketing U channel on our Discord, linkedin is marketing you to the widest net possible. I love seeing posts about you know people's backgrounds and their their work backstory, like if they're doing GitHub community posts and they want to share some project that they've recently published. It's like that's kind of neat, right Cause not only is it educating me about a world that I might not know about, but also if I'm looking for someone in the future that's going to stick in the back of my mind and say, oh yeah, this individual posted this thing a while back. They might be a good fit to do some open source work with us. Right Like, there's absolutely a way to advertise yourself and your company appropriately on LinkedIn and really make it work for you.

Speaker 2: 23:31

Because, like you said, as a person who hires people, linkedin is the first place I go. When I get a name, you send me a resume. Before I read it, I'm going to LinkedIn and like that's kind of a weird thing to say, and maybe that's not the norm, maybe that's a me thing, but I feel I can learn so much more from a person's LinkedIn profile than just a page of text. That is going to take me a minute to parse through. Right, like it's the quick hit.

Speaker 1: 23:56

I don't think it's just you. If you ever want a barometer for whether or not your application to a given post has gotten past the black hole, check to see who's viewed your profile recently, because chances are, if your resume got past the black hole that is the resume algorithm, then you're going to have two or three folks checking out your LinkedIn profile pretty quickly from that company, because there's the recruiter, there's the hiring manager, there might be that person's boss, there might be a team member that's on their team that was asked to take a look at you and evaluate you. There's going to be two or three folks that take a look at your profile. So that's a good litmus test for whether or not you're still hanging out in the black hole or if someone's actually taking you seriously.

Speaker 2: 24:38

And you know, thinking about that, what could you post that's going to make you more interesting to recruiters? Like, I would argue, your post about your background, that's a great little quick culture fit. It tells me a lot about Alex as a person. If you know, we're the kind of company that does like D&D and that kind of like that's my team. It's like, oh, I want to get him for the personal interview right away because I already like him as a person.

Speaker 2: 25:03

Like, maybe, maybe the hard skills aren't there, but if it's culturally a good fit, I can teach you everything you need to know to be successful here. So, like there's definitely it's a tightrope, right. Like you can share personal details, but it's understanding what appeals to the culture. And you know it might be a CAC problem, right, like how does your personal details fit into the CAC of this, this organization you're hiring into? It could be a quick fit, right, but sharing about how you and your wife are getting couples therapy paid for by your church, that's an immediate red flag. So you have to be able to delineate culture versus TMI and I'm sure there is some very blurry lines in the middle, but it shouldn't be so difficult to do and it really seems like it is because we're seeing more and more of these absolutely insane posts.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Every day, more and more of these absolutely insane posts every day. Yeah, and I just wonder, like, who is this for? Like I hope they see this, bro, like I don't know who it's for, right, and it just to me. I'll put it this way right, you and I are moderately successful, I would argue, right, in our careers, and we've known people who have been wildly successful, right? How many of them post this kind of cringe themselves, the people who are successful?

Speaker 2: 26:29

I can't really think of any when I think of, like, truly successful people, right like right.

Speaker 1: 26:34

Yeah, I'm talking about like leaders, like people who are either they can be individual contributors, but they might be highly, highly successful in their role, or they're, like you know, managers, directors, vice presidents, which you and I know plenty of right heck, most c-levels don't write their own posts, just spoiler alert.

Speaker 1: 26:49

That comes from the social team right, like we've done some ghost writing before you and I, so so, yeah, we know about that, right, but regardless, right, they don't post cringe. Now they may come close, right. I do know, like I follow a couple of CEO founders on LinkedIn from different companies and their job if they're a CEO founder, right is to be a visionary, and so, as a result, you got to push some lines right and so, yes, there may be some occasional posts where you're like, I mean, that's nebulous in terms of value and or direct relevance, but I kind of get where they're coming from, in the sense of they almost feel like they have to right, I'm okay with that right If it's kept within at least a tenuous tie back to what they do, right, whatever that happens to be.

Speaker 1: 27:41

So if they're in financial space, somehow it ties back to financial. If they're in the tech sector, somehow it ties back to the tech sector, whatever it is, in some way shape or form. If it ties back to what they do as a core attribute of who they are, I'm okay with it, and most of the time that is what it is right, and so I'm okay with that. But yeah, no, the people I know who are extremely successful most of them, the only thing they post that I've seen is like hey, my company's hiring Right.

Speaker 2: 28:16

You hear that from police information. You know it's business updates. It's not personal insights into chief executive officer and what their musings are for the day.

Speaker 1: 28:23

So I'm definitely not going to out him, especially when he's not on the call. But one example is obviously you and I both know Clark personally and I do follow his real LinkedIn and what I see him and, by the way, clark for those of you that are either new to the pod or haven't heard it before, and he's not on the call right now, so he's not on this podcast episode he happens to be an incredibly successful individual, and with good reason. He's incredibly talented, hardworking, thoughtful and honestly caring individual and he deserves the success he has and I say that as someone who's envious of how young he is and dang it, man, that's a lot of success for someone so young Right, but I wish I was there at that age, completely agree.

Speaker 1: 29:05

But listen, but he's earned all of it, right and so, um, incredibly successful Right. But I I, I follow him on LinkedIn and I see his posts and I got to tell you, I see him post all the time, but what he is posting is his team doing awesome work and almost every time that I see him post in fact, I can't think of a single time where he said I did this. I can't think of a single time. It's always our company is doing this, my team did that. That's how he posts. He's bragging on the people that he calls coworkers, likely peers and, I would imagine, even friends. He's bragging on them, right, that's wholesome.

Speaker 2: 29:46

It is wholesome. And you see the engagement he gets. Oh, he gets amazing engagement. It's not just reactions, it's comments, which is that's the ultimate form of engagement. Reactions, it's comments, which is that's the ultimate form of engagement, right? People actually reading what you wrote and responding to it. That is the oh. You have succeeded on LinkedIn if you're getting comments on your posts and he gets them.

Speaker 1: 30:07

And so you know I talk about, like LinkedIn, being like a fake it versus make it right, not fake it till you make it. There are people faking it and there are people who have made it and are making it, and Clark is an example of someone who he's made it for sure already, even if he were to retire tomorrow. He had a successful career, right, and he's relatively young, he's still early in his career, right. But versus you see the folks that post the weird stuff and they're hopping jobs every six months. How truly successful are they?

Speaker 2: 30:40

Well, and you know it's, there's a, there's a middle ground here too, which I think used to be the thing we made fun of, but now it's I. I I long for the old posts, but the whole rise and grind mentality of I'm going to make a post that says I get up at 6am every morning, I don't drink coffee because coffee is a stimulant and I don't believe in it. And you know, when I do my mental yoga before getting to work, then I can really show up and work my 12 hour. Like there's the humble brag about how good my, my work ethic are posts, and like it does straddle the line between weird and kind of welcome to my TED talk. I'm going to actually share something. It's strange, right, Because you are trying to market you on this platform, but my immediate reaction when you talk about fake it or make it you see these rise and grind posts it feels fake to me. Like it could be 100% true, yeah, but I'm like I don't know if I buy what you're selling me here.

Speaker 1: 31:42

So this is where it comes down to a vibe check, right, and that is this more cringe, or is this more wholesome? And if it's more wholesome, then chances are it's coming from the right place, because the right place for that kind of post, in my opinion, is self-motivation and motivating others, right. And so, like it's like going to the gym with a gym buddy, like you pump each other up, right, and so you know, know that you want to go to the gym because you want the outcome right Better health, better cardio, longer life. Maybe it's aesthetics, right, but whatever it is, you want a positive outcome. But you also know it's hard, you know it's going to take work.

Speaker 1: 32:16

And so if what you're doing is pumping up a friend who in turn is pumping you up, you're helping each other get better, that's wholesome, in my opinion. Up, you're helping each other get better, that's wholesome, in my opinion. On the other hand, if you're taking, you know, a bunch of performance enhancing drugs and you're just posting pics of your abs and pecs, right, and saying, look at, you know, like your veiny stuff or whatever, right, like that's cringe, right, like that's coming from a place of probably some, that person probably needs therapy, realistically're probably in a in a, an issue of self-worth, lack of self-worth, right, and so that's. I think that's the difference in the post that you're talking about. In the middle ground is do you feel just in your bones, do you feel it's wholesome or do you feel it's cringe?

Speaker 2: 33:00

Yeah Well, I think interesting side note there, I've seen gym pics on LinkedIn recently which again, probably doesn't need to be there unless you're a physical fitness instructor kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 33:10

Like it's weirdly become, and I do like your gauge you're creating here of wholesome versus cringe, Like that's a good, it's a good barometric on how we can think about these things I'm not going to name them, but someone I know who is currently helping to mentor me and I value that actually did post about achievements in the gym, but it had nothing to do with bragging about physique or anything. It had to do with health and where they were and where they are, and for my money it was wholesome, right, I don't know. I mean, I think that, like you know, being able to post on a LinkedIn forum again, it's a professional forum, but what it's showing is that this individual maybe wasn't in the best headspace because physically that was reflecting that, and now they're in such a better space. It shows, number one, that maybe they're in a good space to be hired now, right. But number two, more importantly, they can overcome challenges like real hard challenges, right. You know, an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and that law couldn't apply more to folks that are currently out of shape.

Speaker 1: 34:20

I'll give you me as an example. I'm in decent overall shape because I'm active. I play sports regularly, but, man, my flexibility is terrible. When my wife tries to tell me to go to yoga, my whole essence rejects that, because I know how inflexible I am. But I also know that I probably need to do that because flexibility and balance is important for health, and so I need to go to yoga, but I'm so resistant. I'm that object at rest right now when it comes to stretching right. But I know I need to get over it and hopefully at some point I can come back as a guest and report. Hey, I've been going to yoga regularly. That'd be great. If anything, I'll tell you what I'll make a LinkedIn post about it and what it taught me about B2B sales.

Speaker 2: 35:04

I need the touch my toes report. Like did, did Alex get to the point of flexibility where he could touch his toes, and what did that teach you about B2B?

Speaker 1: 35:13

Of course. What did it teach you about B2B sale? Of course yes.

Speaker 2: 35:15

It always has to come back to that, I need to know. But you know, like to your point, and it's not for everyone, right, and I think that's that's something to consider too. Like some of these posts can be very motivational to certain types of people and the gentleman I work with super positive and kind of rah rah, go get them on LinkedIn, always posting self-help graphics and things like that. It does not work for me. I do find it kind of cringe. But a lot of salespeople really resonate it and I would never tell this person to stop right.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Like what doesn't work for me doesn't mean it doesn't work for everybody, and I also wouldn't look at it. If I was looking to hire for a sales type person. I wouldn't look at this and say, oh no, I don't like those kinds of posts. Like it really is what works for you, what works for others, but also if it's going to offend people or if it goes a little too far. Now we've got to start having a conversation about what you're posting. So there is a wholesome cringe too. That, I think, is very much to taste.

Speaker 1: 36:15

So funny enough that what you just said reminded me of a sitcom I told you about from the late 70s, early 80s Different Strokes. What are you talking about? Willis, early 80s? Different strokes. Uh, what you talking about? Willis, absolutely, but no, but the. But the world don't move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you may not be right for some, and I know that it's cheesy to quote a sitcom that used the laugh tracks lyrics. But there's some wisdom there, man, and so I would argue that, even if you personally view it as cringe, if you get the sense that the person that was posting it was coming from a good place, a wholesome place, even if it's apparently cringe to you, I would argue give it the benefit of the doubt and move on right, it's not your cup of tea, that's perfectly fine. Maybe you're not the audience, so that's not a problem. Absolutely agree.

Speaker 2: 37:04

Yeah, I could not agree more and I do look at it that way, and I think most people should right. It's weird that LinkedIn has become such an open book place where you can literally get anything from self-help to beach pics on my vacation with my family. I don't know how I feel about those, but it really does run the gamut of the most professional thing you've ever seen in your life and the least professional thing you've ever seen in your life, and learning how to straddle that is only going to benefit you, and I think that's my big takeaway from all of this is think about what you post from your rival's perspective, your enemy's perspective. What are they going to see? What are they going to think and like? If you feel like they would look at you and raise an eyebrow, tweak that post.

Speaker 1: 37:56

I agree, and you know it's funny, we've been kind of dogging LinkedIn a little bit here, but I will say this, right, Like recently I was talking to, I went on a road trip with a couple of friends and we went to New Orleans from Florida. It was a really fun trip, but along the way we got to talking and then later on we followed up on another trip to a Ren Faire one of the same couples and it turns out that this friend of ours, she, wants potentially to look at other employment options, right? So I was talking about my company and how I actually enjoy what I do and I think she would enjoy it too. She's a lot like me, right? We both have similar types of ADHD and all that kind of stuff, right? And I said you know, I think you'd be a really good sales engineer, and I know that you literally just talked to Sarah last pod about how I'm always talking about this, right. But for some people I would argue it's one of the best careers out there. You have to be the right kind of person. You have to be into technology but not want to sit there and code all day. So it's a very specific person, but a lot of these people exist, right, A lot of them are gamers, like I am right.

Speaker 1: 39:04

And so, at any rate, I said, cool, let's get your resume together and send me over your LinkedIn. And she said I don't have a LinkedIn. I said, okay, we got to fix that. It's a red flag. And so what's funny is I'm friends with one of the people that potentially could hire her as a starting off sales engineer, as an inside SE at my company, and so I messaged him and he said, yeah, man, shoot over her LinkedIn and her resume and I'll take a look. And so that was on a Monday. The Sunday I helped her get her LinkedIn together and I got her a bunch of friends to connect with her on LinkedIn and I said, see, literally, I sent her a screenshot. I was like he literally asked for your LinkedIn in the same breath that he asked for your resume. They don't ask for a cover letter anymore. Cover letter is an old hat. No, no, they ask for LinkedIn. It's functioning as your cover letter now.

Speaker 2: 39:55

If you do get asked for a cover letter, run, just run. That's not a good opportunity.

Speaker 1: 40:00

I mean, unless you're specifically trying to get in at a New York firm because you want to be a master of the universe when it comes to money, feel free. Then you're going to have to write a cover letter, probably because they're old school.

Speaker 2: 40:12

But in general. I got an academic thing. You know that's the other. You probably need to write a cover letter.

Speaker 1: 40:18

Yeah, yeah. So, even if you're an introvert, even if you don't like social media, create a LinkedIn and connect with your coworkers. I know that it may sound onerous and I just told you how bad that platform is, and now I'm telling you to go do it. You don't have to log in all the time.

Speaker 1: 40:37

I'm not saying you do. In fact, I would rarely log in if I were someone who does not want to be involved in that circus, because it can be a little bit of a circus, but pretty much you're going to want to do that and it doesn't even matter what job you're looking to get. I helped another friend get a job in accounting at a construction company, completely unrelated to what I do, but I didn't help her directly in the sense that she found the place to apply for and all that herself. I just helped her get a LinkedIn together. This was a few years back, basically at the tail end of COVID, but either way, this is something that is kind of important. It is the other pro tip because I'm mentoring somebody else that's looking for a job after being out of the job market for a bit is get your resume down to one page. Yes, just do it.

Speaker 2: 41:28

If Claude is here, he might have words for you, but since we're on this together, get your resume down to one page, do it?

Speaker 1: 41:34

Yeah, Whatever you think you need to have in there, you don't. I promise you. What you want to do is have a very brief work history and don't go into super detail. If you want to highlight skills, have a skill section that highlights and don't go into super detail. If you want to highlight skills, have a skill section that highlights your key skills that you bring to the table certifications, education, whatever that is but you can get all of that in one page and still have it look good. Do that?

Speaker 2: 41:57

Create intrigue, Make me ask why. What or more? Don't give me everything, because then I don't need to interview you. If you give too much away on the resume, what's the point of the interview? You want to get in the door, not tell them everything about you before you get there.

Speaker 1: 42:16

You know what? It's the same advice you would give to somebody making a slide in a PowerPoint. If you're going to make a slide in a slideshow, do you want to have a wall of words? No, what's going to happen if you do that?

Speaker 2: 42:30

And this is something you and I have talked about. I'm not going to listen to you.

Speaker 1: 42:33

Right, we've trained people on this, you and I. They're going to read the slide and they're not paying attention to you. The slide is a prop. It's a prop to help you articulate your point. It's not the point itself. You bring that. You have to bring that value Well, similarly, your resume is to check a box so that you can qualify to get an interview. That's where you sell yourself. You don't sell yourself in the resume and I think that's where people make mistakes. They think I have to include this because they have to know and it's like, bro, they're not going to read that, they're not going to read the second page. I don't know what to tell you. They're just not right. I mean, they'd have to be really bored, because if I had to guess, like how many resumes did you read for the last job you hired for?

Speaker 2: 43:17

Oh my gosh. Well, I got the top 10, but there were 200 submissions. So our recruiter looked through a lot more than I did and out of the 10, just being fully transparent, I looked at the first page only because I want to see the most recent work history, and if it's a three-pager, I'm like, oh my gosh, it's for a marketing job. If they can't condense, maybe they can't do the job. That's what's going through my mind, right? So I'm judging them based on the length of their resume.

Speaker 1: 43:44

Yeah, and realistically it's going to be the same with any job. I don't care what job you're applying for. If you're applying for a coding job, right, I want you to think about this. If you're applying for a coding job, you could do just about anything with a million lines of code. Does that make you a good coder?

Speaker 2: 44:00

The most inelegant thing you could possibly do, right, and so it's not a brag at all. It's how little can you code to do the same exact thing?

Speaker 1: 44:08

It's a mathematical concept, like in math and physics, about elegance. Right? The shorter you can make the equation right, the more succinct, the more elegant it is and therefore, generally speaking, the better right? That's generally how it's viewed in physics and math. Right? Same thing goes to your resume, but, importantly, don't skimp on the LinkedIn. Connect with everyone.

Speaker 1: 44:30

As you work yeah, like connect with your peers, though Connect with everyone right that you work with. You never know when they're going to move on to a different role and can help you get that next job. I used to do this the analog way. I didn't actually start building my LinkedIn until I worked at the company you and I worked at together. That's actually when I started building my link. I had already gotten that job. By that time. I really started building on my LinkedIn, funny.

Speaker 2: 44:53

Interesting. I didn't know that.

Speaker 1: 44:55

Yeah, yeah, I just never bothered with it because it never was a focus of mine. I thought it was kind of I thought like, no, why am I going to do that? Right? But since then I've done my best to connect with everyone I ever worked with on purpose, because I recognize that, look, you have to have.

Speaker 1: 45:18

It's almost like at a certain point you can't remember all of your connections, all of your connections and the best way to be able to understand hey, I maybe want to go for this role. Linkedin literally tells you hey, here are your connections that work here, right? That couldn't be easier in terms of helping you say hey, maybe I should reach out to so-and-so. I haven't talked to them in 10 years, but we used to go to lunch together a lot at the old job. They'll probably still talk to me, right? And then find out. You'll find out more information about the company you want to go work for. You'll find out more information, potentially, about who the hiring manager is, what that team is like, what their outlook is. You know all of that kind of stuff. And maybe they can put in a good word for you on top of that.

Speaker 2: 45:58

Completely agree, and you know it's. It's funny because I don't use it that much anymore. I used to use it a lot more and I kind of got sick of looking at it and the weirdness there, so I've backed off, but I still log in every week to add folks to my network that I meet through work and I understand the importance of that. Right Like. The connections are huge. It's not just for me, it's for them. So there is a little bit of good citizenship that has to go on there. Citizenship that has to go on there, whether you engage at the maximum level or if you're just sort of a LinkedIn lurker, which is very much what I've become. Oh, also, never put that you have a podcast on LinkedIn. You will get bombarded by the weirdest people and they all want to promote your podcast and give you 3000 listeners and none of them will actually do it. So just don't do that.

Speaker 1: 46:40

Last tip except for raid, raid. Where's my? Sponsor shadow legends I think, uh, I think I think we beat the linkedin topic to death, right. I think, um, I think we can move on to like other segments, like I think there may be a meme for you to discuss, oh, oh, is there?

Speaker 2: 47:01

is there a meme in the what do you meme channel of our discord? I believe.

Speaker 1: 47:05

So let Let me pop this open here you, have to look through all the spam because Sarah and I did talk a lot. We're both extroverts, high energy.

Speaker 2: 47:13

Yes, I know you both very much are, and when you're in the same room or same Discord, as I've now learned the energy escalates.

Speaker 1: 47:21

So thanks for that You're welcome Price was paid. Thanks for that. You're welcome. Price was paid.

Speaker 2: 47:27

So this meme is great. What do you mean by the way? We describe memes with our mouth parts and because you posted this, it's my punishment to describe it no-transcript. My wife and galinda do share some she's. She's kind of both of them in a way she can. She can straddle the line between elphaba and galinda, uh, depending on on mood and situation.

Speaker 1: 48:11

But yes, very much knows about popular I've seen her straddle both I I just uh, I heard her say literally those words and I'm like did she mean to?

Speaker 2: 48:23

was she? She did not. I don't think she's seen it. She's never seen wicked, she's never seen the musical like the original.

Speaker 2: 48:29

No, oh my, oh, my god, you need to take her dude, it's really good we, we've been talking about doing a new york trip, because I don't know if you know this, but bill burr is going to be doing a um glenn gary, glenn ross in new york. I saw that. I have to see that. Like that's one of my favorite movies, just hearing him talk about steak knives. Like we may have to just go do some New York Broadway shows while that's in season.

Speaker 1: 48:52

If you're serious, let me know and maybe we'll go with you if you want, because I would be down for that Good conversation.

Speaker 2: 48:58

We should definitely talk about that because we are very interested. And yeah, wicked is just. I don't even really care for, like the, the subject matter of the musical, but it's one of the most impressive spectacles I've ever seen and the music's good, so, like you really can't go wrong yeah, last time we're in new york we saw six, which was really good, but um, oh, it's really good.

Speaker 1: 49:18

On broad we also saw like moulin rouge the year before that and that was amazing in new york. But we're getting way off topic.

Speaker 2: 49:25

Way off topic. You know what I'll say on topic. If you want to learn more about these memes, you go to our discord and you know what. We can also help you with your LinkedIn. So if you join our discord which you can get to by the show notes let's say you want to grow your network, let's say you want us to give you some opinions, come drop it in there. We have the marketing you channel and you can drop memes in the what do you mean channel. Drop your linkedin in the marketing you and we'll give you feedback if you want it. This is a community that's all about helping others, so we're happy to do that and help you succeed on that platform. If it is uncharted territory for you, uh, anything else, alex?

Speaker 1: 49:58

no, I just, I just agree completely, like we. Um, I look at it like I have a debt because I had so many people help me out along the way that I just owe it to pay it back. So, 100%, if you want and or need help, just all you have to do is ask and we're more than happy to help out Completely agree.

Speaker 2: 50:16

Well, I think that'll do it for this round of Corporate Strategy. The podcast it could have been an email Again. If you want to support the show, you can go to our show notes, check out our link tree, you can get in the Discord, you can do a donation, you can buy a baby onesie. There's so many ways to explore and have fun. Hopefully we'll get back to regular podcast cadence soon, but until we do, as always I'm Bruce. And I've not been Clark, but you are Alex.

Speaker 1: 50:42

And the rest of you are on mute.

Speaker 2: 50:44

We will see you when we see you. Peace, I hope you're holding your breath. I have to find Craig. Yeah, don't breathe.