In this episode of The One Small Change Podcast, Yvonne McCoy sits down with Sophie Lechner, a marketing coach with a passion for authentic relationship-building on LinkedIn. Sophie Lechner shares how an unexpected pivot during the pandemic led her to discover the untapped power of LinkedIn—not just as a resume platform, but as a hub for real, meaningful engagement. Together, Yvonne McCoy and Sophie Lechner explore the value of small changes, the importance of quality over quantity in marketing, and give tactical advice for anyone looking to make LinkedIn a richer, more fulfilling experience.

Guest Bio:

Sophie Lechner is a seasoned marketing coach who helps entrepreneurs and professionals use LinkedIn as a tool for authentic connection and sustainable business growth. With over 20 years of experience leveraging LinkedIn, Sophie Lechner guides her clients to market with intention, prioritize relationships, and find their unique voice. She is the creator of The Magnet Model and the author of "Unlock Your Impact."

Chapters:

00:00 "One Small Change Podcast"

04:35 "Authentic Connections Platform"

09:25 "Algorithm Tips: Comments Matter"

11:01 "Authentic Engagement in Posting Parties"

15:04 "Quality Over Quantity in Posting"

18:05 "Consistency Builds Trust and Momentum"

21:02 "Joyful, Authentic Marketing Strategies"

26:18 "Beach Reset and Staying Curious"

26:59 "Podcast Growth and Small Changes"

Quote from the Guest:

"The power of LinkedIn is in those exchanges, in those conversations that lead to, you know, DM exchanges, a couple of which, after which you say, let's get on a call. So it's the relationships that you build that really are the core."

Link:

Sign up for Sophie’s free monthly co-working here. It's a 2-hour session with other mission-driven entrepreneurs where you’ll get work done, with 15 to 20 minutes of office-hour style Q&A on anything related to LinkedIn, marketing or book writing. She also provides a prompt (human, not AI) that usually inspires several posts.

https://themagnetmodel.com/coworking

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the One Small Change. I am so

thrilled that you took time out of your busy schedule to be on this

journey of exploration and transformation with me. I'm your host,

Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost 30 years of entrepreneurial experience,

and I have a passion for discovering growth through the power of

seemingly small change. So, again, I want to thank you for taking time out

of your busy bus, your busy business, your busy week,

so that we can talk about the things that can make

your business better. And I have a fabulous guest for you today,

and she's going to share how a smaller, unexpected

decision sparked a remarkable transformation and growth

in her personal and professional life. And Sophie

Lechner is the person who is going to do that for you today.

I am so glad that you took time to do this, Sophie, for my people.

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Yvonne. It's really fun to

be here. It's gonna be fun. So, Sophie, tell us

what you do, and tell us what was the thing that made you, you know,

the change that brought about this change that makes you particularly good at what

you do? Yeah. So 20 years

ago, when LinkedIn first came out, I started using

it and fell in love with it because it was a way for me to

continue doing what I had loved doing all my life, which

was to connect with people all over the world

and get to know new people and connect with them and, you know, build

relationships. So I started using it 20 years ago. And

what happened? There's a long, you know, story, but

I'm sorry, Yvonne, I am hearing some weird sounds. Are you as

well? No. Okay, so sorry. Did

you hear a beep? No, I. I'm hearing some

sort of a weird, echoey sounds, but I'll

ignore it if you don't hear it. I apologize. Now you'll have to cut that

out. No, but it. We're live, and it is what it is. Oh, it

is what it is. Okay. All right.

So I got to a point I was.

I had a business, and I got to a point where

the pandemic happened, and my business didn't, you know, was. Did

not really survive that. And in that moment, I

said, well, you know, we're all stuck and frozen in time. What can I do?

And there were a lot of entrepreneurs around me who were just really

panicking and not sure what to do for their, you know, business

development. And I kept telling them, well, you can use LinkedIn.

And that's when I realized that a lot of people didn't know how to use

LinkedIn. Were just really in the dark about

how amazing a tool it is. And I

started offering free coaching on how to use

LinkedIn just to everybody around me as a thing to,

to help out. And, and, you know, I was, I was not able to do

anything in my business at that moment, so it felt like the right thing to

do. And lo and behold, I had a lot of demand. A lot of

people kept coming back and saying, that was so helpful. I want more.

And from that evolved my current business,

which is now actually broader than

LinkedIn. It's really grown into marketing coaching.

But that's the little decision that I made that one day that

actually really grew into the business I have today. And,

and I have to tell you, my story is somewhat similar that, you know,

I was working with nonprofits, and on a Monday I had a business, and on

a Friday I didn't. And so, you know, the part that I

think is really important for entrepreneurs to take a look at is,

is that the flip side of failure or

chaos is opportunity. Right. If you

take a minute to take a look at it and see what's going on, if

you know that as a, as a, an entrepreneur,

everything is constantly changing, and so you have to be agile and look for

opportunities. And you did that because I think when I first

met you, you were doing something with

overseas companies, trying to get people. Yeah, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Companies from abroad to enter the

US Market. So, you know, at that moment of the

pandemic, it just, it was just not. Yeah. Conducive. Let's put

it this way. So, so, so, you know, it, it may not look

like a straight line, you know, because this is something totally different.

So tell us about what it was that you found so amazing

about LinkedIn. Oh, well,

I think it's a platform where you can just have

really authentic relationships and authentic

conversations, like Facebook, Instagram,

the other ones. You know, it feels to me very

superficial. There's not the same

ability to really go straight to the crux of the matter and have

a conversation about, you know, any topic that you're writing

about or commenting about. So it, it, there's.

That there's real people behind it that you can really

have connections with that can bring you business and

connect you with other people. And the, and the platform

just has a lot of different functionalities,

searches, comments and dms and

a lot of ways to just find the kinds of people that you want to

talk to and the kinds of topics that you're interested in.

So I, I just really love it. And a lot of people that I

know love it too. Well, I know I came very late

to social media and for one of the reasons that you said, I didn't want

to dance and I didn't want to show people pictures of my food.

Right. So I, I am probably one of the people who,

having come late to all of it, not using LinkedIn

to the best of my ability. So maybe this is

a good place for me to ask you three things that people should definitely be

doing to get the most out of their LinkedIn.

Sure. So the first thing, and this is,

regardless whether you are going to use LinkedIn for your business

or not, you should definitely have a very

well completed profile that really captures

the essence of who you are, who you can help,

how you can help them. And then I always say add

your mission, your vision and your passion, which is very

much missing. So a lot of people have a LinkedIn profile that's a, that's a,

a resume, you know, at best, or just a bio in

the third person. It's very dry. And what you want to do is really

make it come alive and look at your

profile as a. Imagine it's a shop

window. Right. So anybody walking past, you really want them to

stop and really come in and explore and

see everything they could possibly want to check out to get

to know you better and know like, and trust you. So

definitely have a profile. So can I just

say one thing and that is, and I say this for

me, because I did this and it's once you put

it up there, check it regularly to see if it's still

relevant. Because, like, somebody had me put on a LinkedIn

profile, which I put in, and then, you know, a year later I was doing

something totally different and never had, never went back to update

it. Yes,

definitely go back and make sure it's up to date. You

should know that when people Google your name, the first thing that comes

up is your LinkedIn profile. So if you have, you know,

tumbleweeds on there, it just, it gives a very negative

impression. It's not just, you know, neutral,

it gives a bad impression. So make sure that you have a really good

profile. The other thing I would say is

really use LinkedIn as a way to, to build

relationships. A lot of people say, oh, I need to post, I

need to post. And it's a drag, you know, and they go ahead and they

throw stuff over the wall and, you know, post, post, post. And

if you're not engaging with your content and you're not, you know,

getting into conversations with people who are commenting

then, or comment on other people's content,

then it's just, you may as well just do nothing. You know, have your, have

your profile and just go do something else. The power of LinkedIn

is in those exchanges, in those conversations

that lead to, you know, DM exchanges,

a couple of which, after which you say, let's get on a

call. Right? So it's the relationships that you build that

really are the core. And it's just business overall, Right?

That's how you do business, is you build relationships. So it's the same thing on

LinkedIn. So those. Yeah, so let

me, let me, you know, I've heard lots of things about comments. You know, some

people say,

you know, it's not enough just to put a reaction, you need to put a

comment. The comment needs to be, you know, six, at least

six words or longer. I mean,

they're just a whole lot of things that, and, and I don't know what's

true and what's not true. Yeah, so the thing about,

yeah, the likes don't do much, but the thing about the comments, you want to

have more than six words, that's simply an algorithm

thing rule that you want to follow. If it's less than,

it won't be counted by the algorithm as a comment, and

so it won't promote the,

the post as much in the algorithm.

I'm not crazy about having conversations about the algorithm. There's a couple of things

to know, but other than that, I don't think it's worth really researching.

Some people put out these hundred plus pages, you

know, guides to the algorithm. In my mind, that's

a waste of time because you really should be spending your time

having real conversations. And so when you're putting

a comment, if you say anything of any substance at all, even if

it's just, just really basic, it's going to be more than six

words, right? So the point is to start a conversation

and if you're commenting on other people's content, in order to

begin that relationship, if you just say, nice

post, it's not going to start a conversation.

Right? So you need to say something, ask a question, make a comment, say

something you disagree with or agree with, or you know, give

an example, whatever that might be. So

I don't know if this is an algorithm question or not, but I know people

have LinkedIn posting parties.

Does that actually help you or is that.

Yeah, so, so there's, you have to be

careful if you're doing posting parties

that, that they,

that they really are with people who will have

an actual relationship and, and actually make

real good comments. What I mean by that is there was one

point in time where everybody was doing posting parties and,

you know, they would send like 60 or 100 links

and everybody would go and say, nice post, nice post, nice post. And, you know,

and LinkedIn cotton onto that. And so really cracked down

on some people that were doing that. If you have a real community

and people are really making actual

authentic comments in there, in my mind, it's fine.

And it does help a lot because again, the

algorithm will see that there's activity on a post

and will give it more visibility than it would otherwise.

So it does help. So one of the things that I think I want to

bring up is what you said in the beginning, and

that is you want to treat LinkedIn as

a place to develop relationships and not just make it

a mechanical thing that you're just doing, because otherwise you're

not going to get the most out of it. And so it's not about

quantity as much as it is about

intentionality and connection. And I

think that's where a lot of people get it wrong. I mean, and I think

that's why a lot of people go, I don't want to do this because there

just, you know, too much going on. Yes. One more question. And this

is just for me. And that is,

as I have been posting more and making more comments for other people

and stuff, I am getting more impressions on

my post, and I have no idea what that means.

Yep. So an impression basically means that your

post has, you know, when you scroll

like crazy, you go fast and you're scrolling. Anything

that has entered your field of vision really fast within that

moment is counted as an impression for that person's post.

So it just means an opportunity for somebody to have

seen your post, whether they flicked through it really fast

or whether they stopped and, and read it. So the

value of impressions is questionable.

Questionable. On the other hand, the more

impressions you have, the more chances you do have of people

actually stopping and actually reading and actually leaving a comment.

So if you get very few in impressions,

it's not going to lead you to a lot of people who see it. But

if you get a lot of impressions doesn't mean, if you have a thousand, doesn't

mean a thousand people saw your post. That's, that's because I know for me, when

I first started, it was, you know, around 100, 150, and

now it's like 400, which is like, you know,

in my brain I'm like, this has got to be good, because it's going up.

Don't know what it means, but something is happening. Yeah,

it's definitely good. And it continues to grow. And you're right.

The. The thing to take into account is the growth

from where you are now to where you were before.

So we got. I've interrupted you a lot, so I want to make sure you

stay. I'm. I let you stay. So we talked about your profile,

talked about. Posting content.

Yeah. And relationships. Yeah, relationships.

Yeah. And you mentioned something about, you know, a lot of people will get

discouraged and they don't want to. They think it's too much work and, you know,

it's quality over quantity, you said. And you're

absolutely right. And one of the key things that I say to people that

surprises them a lot and sometimes gets them over From

Instagram to LinkedIn is I say, you only need to post once a

week. They're like, what, Once a week? I thought you had to do it

every day, several times a day. No, that's Instagram, which. I don't know how

anybody does it. But if you post once

a week, that's enough for you to have content that is valuable.

And that's the next thing I like to talk about. So

you should spend some time commenting and, you know,

so you post once a week, and the other days of the week you could

be commenting and just making sure you're building relationships, basically. Because

if somebody is posting every day, you know, then it's just

too much time. You don't have time left to do commenting and all of that

unless you spend two hours a day on LinkedIn, which is not realistic.

So the third thing I want to talk about is really the quality

of what it is that you're posting. Posting. If you're going to be posting,

you don't want to be doing promotion all the time. I like to

have 80, 20. So 20% of the time, you may be

promoting a lead magnet or saying, get on a call

with me, or promoting a workshop. You're doing something like that. The rest of the

time, you want to be educating your audience

and you want to make sure. I find a lot of people are

dressing only the clients that are ready to

choose a provider. Right. And we

really tend to forget the whole

huge part of the population that is unaware.

Unaware that they have a problem, unaware of what their symptoms

might look like, unaware of the fact that it's fixable,

what kinds of solutions are out there. And all of that

content is what is going to

make people open their eyes to the fact that they could come to

you and you could be

marketing and posting up the wazoo.

If those people don't understand that they have a problem,

you're going to be speaking in the void. So that's one of the

big, you know, misconceptions I want to bust. So

I, you know, you're talking my language because what

we're talking about is the client journey. And I call

that, you know, when I talk to people, I talk to them about what I

call the elephant in the room. You wake, you know, if your

client doesn't wake up in the morning and go, I am cited to

look for this, that they need it,

right? So, you know, what I try to do and when

I use AI and I, you know, I usually have something that I want to

talk about for the month. And I say to AI, this is what my,

my topic that I, you know, that I want to talk about. You know, this

is the tone that I want to take. Give me eight titles

for two posts a week that will take me from

curious and, you know, educate to up

to my workshop that I absolutely, you know, compelling and I need to

attend. So the idea is, you know, if

you don't know that you have a problem, that's part of what you have

to do. And you start to plant those seeds. They may not come

to you right at that first pose, but, you know,

consistency, I think that's where consistency

really plays a really big part in

developing the momentum in your business. Because one,

people see that you are, I think, reliable and

consistent. You show up every week, right,

that you're not going to disappear, that your message is something

that, especially if you speak the

language that they speak. And by that I mean,

you know, one of the things I say is I can relate to

most women because we have got. There's a certain

thing that as women we go through, right?

I mean, and it's somewhat applicable to men, too. But,

you know, I think at someplace at the end of your

40s or so, going on to your 50s, I think most

women go, is this where I thought I would be? Or I'm

halfway there and, you know, there's got to be more,

right? And so I know that that's something that I can talk about,

having gone through it and gone through it, right. That

I can use when I'm talking to the people that I'm trying to attract.

And, you know, I think the other part to that is

making it so.

This is terrible. Anytime somebody says it's not your fault.

I'm in. And there's

reasons why, you know, when you have a problem, it's not your fault.

Not that you shouldn't take responsibility, but, you know, the

expectations of you, you know, 20 years earlier is

different than what you want now. And so the world has changed and that, you

know, But I think what you're saying is absolutely,

absolutely correct. And I think people forget that a lot. I mean, when you

look at people, you shouldn't see a dollar sign on their forehead.

Yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of beliefs that get in the way. And

when you say, you know, it's not your fault. Yes. And you know, especially

using Chat GPT, a lot of people will put in their posts, you know, it's

not your fault. It's not your fault. That's great. It's important

to share, but also explaining what,

why somebody might think it's their fault and then

what it is that makes it not their fault. So it's like, you

know, go a level deeper. So, so you could really

have content that resonates for people. And I think,

you know, that's why I try to get people to focus and, you know, do

less, but so they can go deeper. And, you know,

I just sent out an email that said, I know, I said,

I've, you know, I'm, I'm so excited this time to do my

workshop, but I find that each time I do it, I come up with something

else and go a little bit deeper. And so it's like, oh,

I can't wait to, I can't wait to do this. So.

Yes, yes. You know what? What? I love this enthusiasm that

you have. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, as we

know, are not, do not have this enthusiasm for their marketing and

they just do it and it's drag. And I think that's

in large part because of the way that marketing has been taught to a lot

of us, which is a lot of you need to do this formula, that

formula. And I know the reason you have this enthusiasm

is because you have gone back and looked at what do

you enjoy doing and then match that to what your

clients need. And that's a key. And that's what I talk about in my

book, unlock your impact. It's that you need to go and find

the things that your clients need, but also that bring you

joy and that are the things you're good at. And, you know,

really go and find the marketing tools

that you love and that are going to work for you. Not

the formulas that everybody is. And that's. I think that's one

of the things that we now have in common. We didn't years ago, I don't

think, but we do. And that's what I talk about with your

unique. Power is the thing. People don't realize how

gifted they are. And it's something that. Yeah, part of it is that they,

they started with it as a child. And I talk

about how it gets educated out of you. Yeah. You

take the thing that you're really good at and you look for the

people who need that. Yep. Right. And so

that is the thing that you know. And when you do that, it. What I

find the most amazing is when that

clicks like, oh my God. This.

You see the person's. I see my clients energy

like automatically come up a level because it's like

now I see it and it's, it is like the most

amazing thing. And you know, it was funny because I was

talking to somebody and one lady said to me, she goes,

I'm sorry, we're live. This is,

that's. That's my big brown lab. Oh, I didn't see anything.

I don't know if you can hear, hear her. Oh yeah, Zoom's got good with

that. When I have an earthquake, that's her coming out from under my desk. She

fits when she's a puppy, but now that she's 90

pounds, you know, it's like, you know, but you

know, she goes, I can't, I can't be as energetic as you are.

And I said, but the population that you're working with

doesn't need you to be. They need you to be calm.

Should it be me? No. Be yourself. Yeah.

So you know my be found framework, the first part of it is

be yourself. Enjoy it,

relax in it, revel in it, you know, and, and it

will make all the difference in the world about the things that you talk about

and the things that you, the people that you attract.

And what I'm finding is people. So since I made

this shift, people are going, I love

your energy. Which means the people that don't like my energy

are self selecting out. Yes. And that's the best thing that could happen.

It's the best thing that can happen. Okay. I don't want to run out of

time, so I want to make sure we talk about your free gift. This has

been great. Yes. So I

find that as entrepreneurs we are often working in

a silo all by ourself. And so I've started doing

monthly co working sessions for Two hours. It's the, I think

it's the third Wednesday of the month and that's

what I'd like to invite everybody into because you can come do your

work and there will be 15, 20 minutes where you can ask any

questions you want about LinkedIn, about marketing, anything

else in your entrepreneurial life and you get to meet

other like minded professionals and, and entrepreneurs who are

mission driven. So that's what I'd like to invite everybody

to. And you can find that@the

magnetmodel.com coworking

no-no hyphen. And you will find that in the notes as well.

And believe it or not, there is an incredible

amount of power in co working, especially when you can

work on something and get some questions answered it. That is a

fabulous gift, Sophie. I appreciate that so much. And you

know what? At for at each co working I also give you a

prompt which is very thought provoking and you can

write probably 5 to 10 posts

just based on that prompt every time. That is also

fabulous. So, okay, here's the question. When was

the last time you did something new for the first time?

Okay, so this is going to sound pretty pathetic, but

I have been wanting to go to the beach for a long time.

Many, many, many years. I had not gone to a beach.

I had gone when I was young, but that was it. So this summer,

finally I went to the beach and I sat all

day long on the beach doing nothing but read my book.

And yeah, that doesn't sound very creative or inventive, but hey,

actually I find. That if I don't go to the beach at least once a

year to like refresh, reset, my year

does not go nearly go nearly as well. So hey, I think

going to the beach is great. The first time somebody asked me that question,

my answer was I took, I took my dog

swimming. Like I paid to go to the vet hospital

where they had a pool or not. And we might,

because I, it's like I have a lab that never gets to swim.

So that was my answer at the time. So that,

so it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter as long as we stay

curious and try a lot of different things. So. All right, so here comes the

commercial. Guys, you know, if you haven't done this yet, please

take a minute and subscribe and share and engage with, you know, know on social

media about the podcast because hopefully if you found value,

you're willing to share it so other people will too. And the reason that

I'm doing this is I'm hoping to expand the people and the

ideas that you can get exposed to and fuel your quest for

growth and impact. So I hope you'll continue to join me on the one

small change. And one of the things that I want you to look at and

we talked about in this episode is being relevant and agile. So.

So that you will look at small changes that will help you in your business

and help you to grow in ways that you never thought possible.

So Sophie, what, what's your last words? What's your words of wisdom you want

to leave us with? Well, you know, I recently wrote

a whole series of articles on spaciousness and

I think that is something that we forget is we

are so busy, there's so much noise around us, right.

I think we need to step back and give ourselves, starting with a small

little bit of time, but then more and more, give ourselves

time. Time to stop listening to the noise,

time to recenter time to remember why

we started doing what we're doing. And by reminding

ourselves of that, everything else can fall into place so much

more easily. Oh, I like that. I like that a lot.

I heard someone say, say, drink your coffee hot. And I was like, oh my

God, how many times have I had my morning coffee still in the afternoon?

So, yes. Okay, guys, this has been amazing

and I want to thank you, Sophie, and for everybody else.

Remember, change is simple, but it's not always easy. And it requires

a certain amount of courage and resilience. And it definitely

means that you need to step out of your comfort zone because if you're

comfortable, it means you're still doing the stuff that you've always done. So

I hope you will continue to join me on the one small change. And

until the next time, please stay very curious.

Thank you, Sophie. Thank you, Yvonne. Bye

bye.