Diana Alt [00:00:04]:
Hey, Diana Alt here. And this is Work Should Feel Good, the podcast where your career growth meets your real life. Each week I share stories, strategies and mindset shifts to help you build a work life that works for you on your terms. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Work Should Feel Good, the show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Alt, and today my guest Liam Darmody and I will be talking about how building a solid brand or if you prefer online reputation through LinkedIn, can help elevate your career and how to do it without getting the ick. Liam is a personal brand strategist, a networking coach who helps entrepreneurs and corporate leaders attract clients, opportunity and talent through a great online brand. He's a super connector, a proud family man, an AI geek, and a hot sauce aficionado. Welcome to the show, Liam.

Diana Alt [00:01:07]:
I'm so excited.

Liam Darmody [00:01:08]:
Thank you for having me, Diana. I'm super excited as well. Really looking forward to chopping it up with you.

Diana Alt [00:01:14]:
I am too. I feel like it's going to be interesting to try to keep this to an hour because I'm pretty sure you guys, you and I could do this like Joe Rogan all day style days. We can do that another time. So here's a question I have for you. You talk to a lot of people presumably who want to do exactly what I said in the intro. They want to build a brand with, but they don't want to have the ick. What are the leading causes of people feeling the ick? Why do they feel the ick? What do they tell you?

Liam Darmody [00:01:46]:
It's interesting. You know, I think the ick is pro. The ick probably comes from the fact that, that people feel a little bit like imposters, a little bit like they don't want to pester people and a little bit like they have to take the time to reach out to somebody, which is not natural. Right. When you're networking, you go to a networking event, you're there to network, everyone's there to network. And so you're a little bit more open to just random serendipitous introductions because you're in the same spot. Right. But the downside to networking is that you're limited by who's in the room, who's in your geography.

Liam Darmody [00:02:25]:
And when you compare that to the LinkedIn landscape, it's very limiting. So, you know, you have a choice. You can say, I'm going to stick with networking in my locale and I'm going to meet people in person. And I might have five or 10 conversations in a networking event and two or three of those might be fruitful and I might go back and connect with those people on LinkedIn and then start conversations that are more direct and business related. Or you can just hang out on LinkedIn and you can make friends on LinkedIn and build networks that way. And it's a lot more time efficient than it would be otherwise. And so I think that's the challenge, though, because it puts the onus on the individual to reach out to somebody else and then come up with a reason for them to be connected. And you just did.

Diana Alt [00:03:08]:
I love.

Liam Darmody [00:03:09]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:03:10]:
So I, like, was thinking of the direction of, like, personal branding, the way most people think of it, as I made my profile pretty and I started doing content.

Liam Darmody [00:03:21]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:03:22]:
You immediately jumped to the networking side of it. Because all of it gives my people the ick. A lot of them when they say they have the ick, they don't want to sound braggy, which I say. I mean, I know for a lot of people Kid Rock is problematic now, but he was not wrong when he said, if it ain't cocky, it ain't cocky if you can back it up. Right?

Liam Darmody [00:03:45]:
Yep. Yep.

Diana Alt [00:03:46]:
So you immediately went to networking. So when you think about these different components of a brand, you have the content, you have the profile, you have the networking, you have thought leadership that you do, like wherever.

Liam Darmody [00:04:02]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:04:04]:
How much of the brand building do you think is the networking or relationship building, as I prefer to call it?

Liam Darmody [00:04:13]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:04:13]:
To the rest of it, I'd say.

Liam Darmody [00:04:15]:
It's at least 50%, if not more. So you have to be proactive about building relationships with people if you actually want to get the most out of building a personal brand. A lot of people, I think, make the mistake of thinking you show up to LinkedIn, you get your profile in order, you create a post once or twice a week maybe, and you have a couple comments and you talk to some people and then you think that that's going to turn you into Gary Vaynerchuk or, you know, somebody of similar stature. And truth of the matter is there's a lot of noise out there and people are very busy. And as anybody who grows on LinkedIn will tell you, it's a slog. I mean, they, you know, LinkedIn makes you work for it. And so a lot of it is making sure that you are finding the right people for your, your brand, for your content, so that they're seeing what you put out there. Right.

Liam Darmody [00:05:08]:
And all of them are there. Right. A billion people on LinkedIn obviously only a single digit percentage of those folks are probably actively posting on a regular basis. But people love to lurk on LinkedIn. People love to read, you know, content on LinkedIn. And so taking that time to really build out your audience, it's the only platform on earth really where you can, you can reliably build an audience that is specific to your function and your niche without second guessing. Right. Every everywhere else is just like pseudonyms and you don't know if they're real or they're not.

Liam Darmody [00:05:45]:
You don't know what they do for a living. But here you have it all. So you can build a very targeted network of people. And that to me is the biggest value proposition and the toughest thing to do, but the most worthwhile.

Diana Alt [00:05:58]:
Yeah. One thing I like about LinkedIn is that you can get verified on LinkedIn for free. And a lot of the other platforms are. You either have to be huge and then they'll give you the blue check mark, which cracks me up. That's like the universal across every platform. Blue sky just announced that they are blue check marking people now.

Liam Darmody [00:06:18]:
I saw that.

Diana Alt [00:06:19]:
But you don't have to do that on LinkedIn. You can use Clear or I think there's a couple other ways if you don't have access to Clear. Yep, that's pretty cool. So something, you know, I announced on the intro several things that are like real deal about you. Like, you are, Liam, you are a personal brand strategist. However, I brought up the hot sauce aficionado. Like things. What role do you feel like the personal aspects of your personal brand have had in helping you be successful? Because we hear so much like LinkedIn is turning into Facebook.

Diana Alt [00:06:59]:
It's not business. And I'm like, I'm on the. The more personal it is, the better side. Within reason.

Liam Darmody [00:07:08]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:07:08]:
But tell me about that.

Liam Darmody [00:07:11]:
So the way that I think about this, and it's funny that people are still talking about it because in my mind, Facebook is just a distant memory. Right. I don't spend a lot of time there. If it weren't for my neighborhood, communicating everything that happens in the neighborhood here, I would not be on Facebook. So that's an interesting thing. Cause I think it's seen its day, the part about the person. Huh.

Diana Alt [00:07:34]:
I still love Facebook.

Liam Darmody [00:07:36]:
I don't spend a ton of time there. I mean, Instagram, I sometimes will scroll, but like, I'm very rarely on it on Facebook itself, it's usually just because I put out a reel on Instagram and it went to Facebook and Then they pulled me in. But the whole point of the personal. In personal branding is that business is no longer just about business. It's, you know, professionals are people. People have personality. Companies hire people because their personality meshes well with their culture or it's an additive to their culture. And I think a lot of people second guess or misunderstand the value of the personality coming across.

Liam Darmody [00:08:14]:
So. And the other thing is that once you. Once you get a job and you start working with somebody or your teams, you start sharing things about your personal life. Every Monday morning, you ask, how was your weekend? I've never had anybody respond to that question and say, well, I'm not answering that. This is a professional environment. Right. You get to know the people that you work with as people, as humans, and humans have special interests. Right.

Liam Darmody [00:08:41]:
And so there's no reason not to carry that over, in my opinion, to LinkedIn. I think a lot of people have a scarcity mindset when they think about LinkedIn. They think, if I share my personal interests on this platform, opportunities will judge me for being too personal and unprofessional, and therefore, I will miss out on opportunities. But the flip side of that, in my opinion, is I don't want to work somewhere that gives me shit for talking about hot sauce. That's not my place. So an effective personal brand attracts the right audience, detracts the wrong one. And if you can come to terms with that fact, then you become liberated to be yourself and talk about all of your special interests. And then that gets people interested in who you are as a person, and then they want to know what you do for a living.

Diana Alt [00:09:28]:
I think that's so important, too. Like, one of the things that I bring in a little bit, especially I do post on Facebook fairly often. That's kind of like. That's like my home where I talk to my friends on LinkedIn as my second home, I talk to my friends and every other platform. I'm kind of figuring out what I want it to be. But I believe for my religious day of the week is Taco Tuesday.

Liam Darmody [00:09:53]:
Nice.

Diana Alt [00:09:54]:
Yeah.

Liam Darmody [00:09:55]:
Tuesday.

Diana Alt [00:09:56]:
My friend Cabrina, who is Also a huge LinkedIn nerd, I think I've tried to introduce you guys. You should definitely meet up.

Liam Darmody [00:10:02]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [00:10:03]:
But she's like, you need to be talking about Taco Tuesday morning. And so I started in 2025, just a little bit more talking about Taco Tuesday. And now people are like, here for it.

Liam Darmody [00:10:14]:
Boom.

Diana Alt [00:10:15]:
I think when I. The next time I do my. My headline up, I'm gonna, like, bring Up Taco Tuesday. I'm on this platform on the podcast with a Buc ee's mug. Today I'm a St. Louis Cardinals mug.

Liam Darmody [00:10:30]:
I have a Buc ee's mug like that.

Diana Alt [00:10:32]:
I have the bread, Bucky's mugs in the dishwasher.

Liam Darmody [00:10:34]:
Yeah, me too. It's good. It's quality.

Diana Alt [00:10:37]:
You know, like, these are just the things that make us us. And then we also happen to be amazing at some things. How often does someone hit you in the DMS to ask about hot sauce?

Liam Darmody [00:10:47]:
At least once a week.

Diana Alt [00:10:49]:
Strangers.

Liam Darmody [00:10:50]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:10:51]:
About hot sauce.

Liam Darmody [00:10:52]:
I love perfect strangers. And sometimes perfect strangers tag me in posts about hot sauce that are elsewhere on the platform because they associate the chili pepper with me. And that is exactly what I want it to be. Right. It's. It's. I want people building an effective personal brand means people are talking about you when you're not in the room.

Diana Alt [00:11:17]:
Yes. Wait, can you say that again? Because people are often unclear on what a brand is even for or about.

Liam Darmody [00:11:25]:
Sure. So I always say to people, your personal brand is not who you are online. Your personal brand is who you are online. Yes. Right. One simple change. One simple change to grammar. Massive difference in meaning.

Liam Darmody [00:11:39]:
And I think people tend to view a platform like LinkedIn and just career searching and job seeking in general as this. There's a requirement to sort of put on airs or to put your best foot forward and not let your personality shine through too much. Because what if somebody doesn't like it? Well, what I learned is that if somebody doesn't like my personality, that's fine. They can go and find other people to work with. I want to focus on attracting the people who do find what I'm talking about valuable and useful and interesting or entertaining or funny or whatever, and build relationships with those people, because that is where opportunity starts to form.

Diana Alt [00:12:22]:
Yeah. And, yeah, there's a billion people on LinkedIn.

Liam Darmody [00:12:25]:
Right. And I mean, not even that. Right. There's only like 25% of them are monthly active users, apparently.

Diana Alt [00:12:32]:
How many? What? 25.

Liam Darmody [00:12:34]:
Supposedly 25% of LinkedIn members are monthly active users. So it's still such early days.

Diana Alt [00:12:40]:
Yeah. Well, and also, people don't know what the platform can do. Right. I think I've seen a number of people that were inactive. Like my friend Shelby is an example of this. So Shelby and I worked together like 12 years ago or something. She was like my work wife when I took a little detour through digital marketing agency.

Liam Darmody [00:13:03]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:13:07]:
But she and I hadn't been in contact for a Very long time, outside of an occasional comment on either LinkedIn or, you know, Facebook typically. But she and I connected because she left a job last year. We did a very short, concentrated coaching engagement. And in that, I suggested to her, because she's VP level in client experience. Client really? Client retention experience. And I said, you need to talk about this. Like, she's a rich font of information. And she was scared, very scared to do it.

Diana Alt [00:13:43]:
I did a whole episode with her on the show talking about how to go, how she went from like a LinkedIn quiet cobwebs on the profile person into creating content regularly and discovering that she liked writing. So what I'm seeing is sometimes people are coming back 5, 10, however many years later when they need the platform again and they're discovering what it is. And some people are like, it feels like Facebook. I hate that. Which is not the right way to think about it, in my opinion. But they're starting to use it differently than they did the last time. Are you seeing the same thing?

Liam Darmody [00:14:23]:
Yeah, I'm seeing a lot more people spending time here, a lot more people realizing that, you know, there's a conversation and a community happening on LinkedIn. I think most people don't think about LinkedIn that way. They think about it as a utility to store your existing network. Find a job every couple years and just, you know, share your company's press releases and congratulate your network on new jobs that they have. Then you just wait until the next time you want to find a job to come back here. And that's not what LinkedIn wants to be, I don't think. I think LinkedIn is. I think LinkedIn is evolving into a personal brand platform, and that will create opportunity for job seekers.

Liam Darmody [00:15:07]:
It will create opportunity for entrepreneurs, founders, companies, et cetera. It's high time that businesses started to be more social about their brand and career professionals as well. So I think that that is an evolution that has been in the works now for a while. LinkedIn has sort of dipped its toes into the creator waters multiple times over the last eight years, including, you know, a creator program and all that good stuff. And it's just old habits die hard. I think LinkedIn is the oldest social network, right? It's been around since 2003, 2004, if you think about it, right? Facebook was not. Facebook was not a thing yet. Twitter was not a thing yet.

Liam Darmody [00:15:47]:
Instagram, none of that was there. And so old habits die hard, right? Everybody thinks of this place as just a storage facility for your existing network. They're not thinking of it as a place to go and build new network relationships.

Diana Alt [00:16:02]:
It started in the age where Dice and Monster.

Liam Darmody [00:16:05]:
That's right.

Diana Alt [00:16:06]:
Were the top places to go. And so a lot of the initial functionality was like, that's where, you know, in the early 2000s, I was looking. Dice was my BFF during the tech wreck era.

Liam Darmody [00:16:20]:
I remember Dice. I was using it all the time.

Diana Alt [00:16:23]:
So I want to. Let's go to the Wayback Machine for a little bit.

Liam Darmody [00:16:26]:
Sure.

Diana Alt [00:16:27]:
You started messing around on LinkedIn long before you started Liam's brand stand.

Liam Darmody [00:16:33]:
Oh, yeah.

Diana Alt [00:16:34]:
And so talk to me about what state you were in, kind of in your corporate career.

Liam Darmody [00:16:42]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:16:42]:
And you started being active on LinkedIn, and what first led you to do that, what you were first talking about and then how that evolved into what you're doing today.

Liam Darmody [00:16:53]:
Sure. So, you know, I started spending time on LinkedIn more intentionally, you know, in 2015 timeframe. 2014. 2015. That was actually a very interesting time in my life because I had spent six years at Living Social, which, for those who don't remember, Living Social was a social selling site. It was sort of like a deal of the day site. It was a big craze. In 2009, 2010, I was the 20th employee there.

Liam Darmody [00:17:21]:
We grew to 5,000 employees in six years. We raised a billion dollars. You know, time of my life. Right. Like, I feel like I got a mini MBA working there. I wore all sorts of different hats. It was just an exhilarating experience. But it didn't end up going the way we thought.

Liam Darmody [00:17:39]:
Right. You know, we, like many of the businesses that there were at one point, like 450 different businesses in that space. And there ended up being sort of two that made it to the finish line. And Groupon was one of them. They went public and Living Social did not. And Living Social ended up getting acquired by Groupon for immaterial amounts. And I started creating content on LinkedIn that year because of how downtrodden and dejected I was after that experience. So I wrote a few articles on LinkedIn because back then the feed wasn't really a big thing.

Liam Darmody [00:18:10]:
And those articles were. I think I maybe had written them after I had, you know, a couple too many one night. And they're very vulnerable, very raw. Right. Woke up the next morning, was like, shit, I should. I should. I should delete that post. You know, what are people gonna think about it? It's too long.

Liam Darmody [00:18:26]:
It's too vulnerable. It's. And I woke up and I checked LinkedIn and I had messages in my inbox from tons of people who had read the article. And they were like, holy shit, I cannot believe that you wrote that. It's amazing. It summarizes exactly how I feel about this. And they were like, it's so vulnerable. It's so raw.

Liam Darmody [00:18:47]:
It just speaks to me so much. And that's when I sort of realized, like, there's an untapped potential here, it seems, because people are paying attention to the content that's being created on this platform. But I didn't really do much with it for another few years. I just kind of continued to use it as an app that I consumed news and information from while I was on my commute to and from work and things like that. And then by 2019, I was using it every day to consume content, but I wasn't spending a lot of time creating content. And I had the same fears that everybody has, which is, what am I going to say? I'm not an expert. There's no reason for me to create content. Nobody cares what I think about business or anything else, which is a very common insecurity that people have.

Liam Darmody [00:19:34]:
And I just said, you know what? My daughter just was born. I'm on paternity leave for a month. I'm just going to start creating content, throw all caution to the wind, stop worrying about it and just go. And so I did. And funnily enough, my announcement sort of to my network that I was going to be creating content was a news article called why LinkedIn is the place to be in 2020. And I wrote that then and during the pandemic.

Diana Alt [00:20:03]:
Had the pandemic started already?

Liam Darmody [00:20:05]:
Not yet. It was like a month and a half before the pandemic started.

Diana Alt [00:20:08]:
Okay.

Liam Darmody [00:20:09]:
And I think, you know, that was one of the reasons that it was a place that I loved so much, because I was cooped up in a small house with an infant and toddler and my wife, who I love dearly. But I definitely missed having those water cooler chats, the coffee chats in the kitchen, the lunches with colleagues and co workers. And LinkedIn sort of replaced that LinkedIn and Clubhouse combined to sort of be my outlet for having conversations with other business folks and ultimately just cemented LinkedIn as my platform of choice for sharing content. So for the better part of four years, I basically just posted whatever I liked. And it was funny, because I didn't really understand that LinkedIn was very heavily used by entrepreneurs to build business and to sell business and to do business development. I kind of just thought it was Another platform and people were posting. So a lot of the people that I was, yeah, I had the same.

Diana Alt [00:21:07]:
Thing when I first started posting, it was around the same time and I didn't post every day. But like I posted a lot about agile software development and workplace culture because those two things were tied together for me. And then over time I started morphing more into talking about job search and whatnot. I had a little identity crisis for a while because I was trying to get the faith to actually focus full time on coaching. When I first left my corporate job in 2019, I was going to do technology consulting. Then I had some, some clients in that and whatnot. By the end of 2020 I'd given that up because I realized that I was sick of technology. So.

Diana Alt [00:21:55]:
But yeah, same thing. I just thought for like the first five plus years I posted that this is just what we did. And then I started discovering about how people were building brands there. And I think I found you pretty early. Like you and I didn't really necessarily like become buddies like we are now, right last year, but I feel like I found you in 2020.

Liam Darmody [00:22:20]:
We connected in on January 16, 2021.

Diana Alt [00:22:24]:
Well, there you go. Yeah, following you.

Liam Darmody [00:22:27]:
Yeah, and so, and yeah, so, so same same thing. Like I had people who I was following who had very specific niches and they had been on the platform for a while for business development purposes and they were kind of like, you're, what do you do here? Like your content's all over the place. And I was like, what do you mean what do I do? Like, I'm like talking on LinkedIn, I work in operations and I geek out about business stuff. So I'd post here. But it, what it really sort of the catalyst for the change for me was in, you know, 2021 when we moved here to North Carolina, a company had reached out to me. The CMO reached out to me and said, hey, I'm, I'm building a employer, brand and talent marketing team. And I really think that your experience in sales, operations and brand marketing makes you the perfect candidate for the job. He's like, I don't have a job description yet, but you can help me write it.

Liam Darmody [00:23:21]:
And I just think you're the perfect fit. And I responded to him. I was like, I'm flattered by that, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't have the word brand or marketing on my resume. So I almost like self selected out of the process because I was like, what are you talking about? You know, and that's another example of to me, you know, so many people will shoot themselves down because they don't think they're good enough to apply for that job or they don't think that they have enough experience for that. One bullet on the job description that, you know, excludes them from even considered being considered. But they have no idea what the other side is looking for, truly. So that for me was mass, a massive.

Diana Alt [00:24:04]:
No. They needed people. Half the time the other side doesn't know, especially when it's for a brand new role. They need to talk to people to figure out what they're doing.

Liam Darmody [00:24:13]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:24:14]:
It all brings to the point that the words that we use are not necessarily the words that other people understand, which can be good and bad, which is, and that's why, you know, there's a lot of people I work with, I work with a lot of people that are in tech and tech adjacency stuff Y program managers, project managers, engineers, VPs of whatever product. Tons of product people.

Liam Darmody [00:24:37]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:24:38]:
It's got product people get it a little bit better than a lot of the other roles. But the term personal branding just makes them feel gross.

Liam Darmody [00:24:46]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:24:46]:
Because a lot of the people that are talking about personal branding the most are number one, clearly not actually writing their own content. And I don't just mean like AI, I mean like they just are the face of something that we don't even understand what's going on.

Liam Darmody [00:25:05]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:25:05]:
They don't want to be a brand, they want to be a person.

Liam Darmody [00:25:09]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:25:09]:
And they, So I often use the term online reputation. I sometimes use terms like we just need to help you figure out how to talk about yourself online on paper and out of your mouth.

Liam Darmody [00:25:22]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:25:23]:
You can do it anywhere.

Liam Darmody [00:25:25]:
So I love that I, I use, I use reputation as well. I also use professional legacy. Right. I, I, I view LinkedIn as a legacy platform. So, you know, yeah, the work that I'm doing on LinkedIn now, the content I'm creating, the conversations I'm having, my kids are going to see that when they get older. Right. When my kid goes to college or if, I mean, who knows what college looks like 10 years from now. But you know, once my kid gets older and starts thinking more about the business world, like I want to be able to look back and see the way that I think and how I relate to people and all that good stuff, I think there's lessons there.

Liam Darmody [00:26:00]:
I also think everybody has a journey and that is what LinkedIn for me has become. It's a place to share My journey professionally, but that also means personally. Right. You can't have a professional journey without the personal being impacted. And the lines between personal and professional blur are blurring closer and closer and closer together with every year that passes. Right. I think that's one of the silver linings of that period of time, the pandemic. Right.

Liam Darmody [00:26:27]:
People were basically like, I'm not just going all in on work anymore and separating the two. Like, you have to have some balance. And so it was back to that story. I, I took, I, I said to him, I don't know what you're talking about. You know, I don't have any of that experience in my resume. And he said, I've been following you on LinkedIn for six months. I've seen all I need to see. He's like, with your sales ops background, I'm sure that you understand how to set, up, you know, automated campaigns and use tools and set up robust processes.

Liam Darmody [00:26:54]:
And with your brand marketing voice and your personality, it's a perfect fit. So I took the job. We got acquired two years later. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to go out and do this and build my business. Because more people need to understand the opportunity that lies on this platform if you just embrace it and put yourself out there.

Diana Alt [00:27:15]:
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that story. I think it's so important because all you're doing is just talking about stuff you cared about.

Liam Darmody [00:27:21]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:27:22]:
And a lot of people, like many people, will say, I want to build a business, but I don't really know what.

Liam Darmody [00:27:28]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:27:29]:
The same as I want to switch my career around, I just really don't know what. They're exactly the same. It's just a matter of who's paying you. So I think that, like, one of the really good questions if people are trying to discover, like, what should I write about is what were. What did you rant to your work bestie about?

Liam Darmody [00:27:49]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:27:50]:
Like. And you don't have to say, like, maybe it was Jane, the project manager that's always up your ass about whatever.

Liam Darmody [00:27:58]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:27:58]:
And it's not fair because she's not paying attention to you and what you need, you know, what you told her you need or what risks are being realized. You don't have to name Janet or Jane or whoever. You don't have to get that specific. But you can say, like, hey, you know what? I'm a software engineer. And something I really wish the project managers understood about software engineers is abc. What do y' all think? Any other software engineers, project managers? What Am I not seeing from your side you should start a conversation.

Liam Darmody [00:28:33]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:28:33]:
About things. It doesn't have to be any different than that. In fact, sometimes the, sometimes the content that I have that performs the best on LinkedIn is when I had a low key rant on Facebook.

Liam Darmody [00:28:48]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:28:48]:
And then I pull it over and you gotta, you know, I change it a little bit, but not very much.

Liam Darmody [00:28:53]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:28:54]:
Because like, if the discussion was good over there and people are like, hell yeah, my boss does that too. Whatever. Like, why would I not be able to put that in front of people? A different set of people over there. So I want to switch to something, though. A lot of people. There's the whole what do I post thing. And so we want to talk a little bit about what and a little bit about how. So, like what? And then the process.

Diana Alt [00:29:20]:
I want to make sure that we get there. Sure. Yourself in the mindset of you back when you just started, you know, you wanted to start being active on LinkedIn. If people want to be purposeful.

Liam Darmody [00:29:33]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:29:33]:
Talk through that. What and how it applies to you. So I know you've talked about, like fascination and behind the scenes and like, what, you know.

Liam Darmody [00:29:42]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:29:43]:
Angie Cowan had same things, but I can't remember which label is which person. Tell your version.

Liam Darmody [00:29:49]:
Yeah. So. So my, my perspective is that you should basically treat LinkedIn like a, like a journal for your professional experience and your lived experience that you would feel comfortable sharing with family, friends and colleagues, including your boss. Right. And not either of those groups. That group in totality. Right. So you want to establish some guardrails for yourself mentally, where it's like, okay, well, I'm not going to sort of go too far out of the realm of, of.

Liam Darmody [00:30:22]:
Of topics that are palatable. Right. Not that you don't want to have conversations that might be controversial, because you may. But generally speaking, you want to avoid controversial topics. You want to avoid politics and things like that on LinkedIn because you just want to kind of keep it business. Right.

Diana Alt [00:30:36]:
Or going there. You just need to be respectful.

Liam Darmody [00:30:41]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:30:41]:
Like if you want, you can be controversial without being disrespectful.

Liam Darmody [00:30:45]:
100%. You can have a hot take and you can, you know, put it out there. And as a matter of fact, hot takes do really well on LinkedIn because they spark conversation and conversation sparks the algorithm to get more distribution and then it gets far and wide and then you start to build new relationships with people based on what they think. So that is a great point. I tell people to put their content in three buckets Bucket one and I stole this from Angie is scope of genius. That bucket is by and large your sales and marketing posts. They should be like 60% of your posts. That's typically how I recommend people think about it.

Liam Darmody [00:31:19]:
And those are the things that talk about what you do, why you do it, how you do it, who you do it for. It shows your knowledge, puts your knowledge on display, makes people think about the industry that you're in, the function that you're in collaboration that you're engaged in with other teams and it really speaks to your professional experience, what you're good at. Right. Then second bucket is fascination. There will be people in your network who may never hire you, you may never work with them, right? But they're still in your network and they still have a network of their own. And you never know who in their network might be paying attention to the content that you create. Because unlike many other platforms, when you react or engage with something on LinkedIn, your network sees that you did that. And so you might end up getting your post in the feed of somebody else who's, you know, in your network, but not necessarily the same industry or opportunity.

Liam Darmody [00:32:19]:
You have to give those people something to latch onto. Right? People need to have a reason to follow you besides just hiring you. And so fascination is that, that area of what are the things that you're thinking about when you're not at work? What are the things that you could talk about with people till you're blue in the face because you're just so passionate about those topics. So for me, you know, I talk a lot about my scope of genius posts are personal branding, branding, business operations, strategy, you know, social selling, things like that. My fascination is things like artificial intelligence, web3, tech startups, business innovation. You know, I'm always thinking in, in through that lens. That's, that's the stuff that I read for fun. And then my third whip bucket is what I call window into your personal world.

Liam Darmody [00:33:10]:
And these are the posts that are a little bit harder to press publish on, right? They're a little bit more emotionally raw, they're a little bit more vulnerable, but they're human and humans relate to humans. And on LinkedIn especially humans want to lift other humans up. It's one of my favorite things about the platform is people want to naturally lift other people up. You have a bit of a self policing mechanism built into this platform because nobody wants their boss or their clients or their customers to see them acting like a jackass. So they save that for other platforms and they hang out here and they're the best version of themselves here. And that is one of the reasons that I suggest people post those more vulnerable things every now and then, because then you're really letting people get to know who you are, what makes you tick. Right. And my posts about that are, you know, my weight loss journey, what it's like to be a first time founder, what it's like to be a working parent.

Liam Darmody [00:34:04]:
Right. And balancing all of that together. And those are things that are deeply personal. But I want to be deeply personal with my network. I want people to understand what I'm going through at any moment in time and get to know that I'm not just one way, I'm a human and I'm fallible. And I have all sorts of different things.

Diana Alt [00:34:24]:
Really important to think about that too because I've been you and I talked about this and I'll get into something that I'm doing. I'll talk about like my pillars. Maybe you can critique my pillars live.

Liam Darmody [00:34:35]:
Sure.

Diana Alt [00:34:37]:
But that human stuff, a lot of times when we hear vulnerable, we think of like, oh my gosh, my baby broke her leg and had to go to the ER or like stuff like that. It can be the funny stuff.

Liam Darmody [00:34:51]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:34:51]:
So tell the people how you ended up on LinkedIn lunatics first off, tell them what link.

Liam Darmody [00:34:58]:
So LinkedIn lunatics is a very special corner of the Internet on Reddit where people basically just annihilate posts that were posted on LinkedIn and they will take posts that they think are cringe and they'll publish it to LinkedIn lunatics and then a bunch of people will talk smack on it. And that's how they have fun, which is good for them. Different strokes for different folks. That's not how I roll. But you know you want to do that, fine. There's an Instagram page that called best of LinkedIn that does the same thing. And I posted a random picture on Halloween. This is the best performing post of the year for me.

Liam Darmody [00:35:38]:
And it's a picture of me dressed as a s' more for Halloween. I have two pieces of cardboard and a bunch of Hershey's chocolates taped to them and then a white shirt as the marshmallow. And I got a pretty big belly. I'm a 300 pound guy. So like I'm not small. And I just posted a very simple post that said, here's my value based Halloween tip, don't dress like a s'. More. And it blew up.

Liam Darmody [00:36:02]:
I got half a million impressions, I had 3,000 engagements and I think that the reason that that worked is because it was as authentic as possible. It was just a random thought off the cuff. It was humorous and it was vulnerable. Right. There aren't many 300 pound men who are like, yeah, take a look at me. Right. You're usually a little bit more self conscious.

Diana Alt [00:36:26]:
Yes.

Liam Darmody [00:36:27]:
But I tie some of that. Some of the reason that I think I was able to do that is because I'm more self confident and self assured now than I ever have been. And I attribute that to the fact that I Show people on LinkedIn who I really am and people have shown me that they appreciate that. So I don't have to necessarily worry about the people who are going to mock me. I don't worry about the LinkedIn lunatics. And as a matter of fact, one of the most beautiful things about that specific story and moment is that there were people in the comments on LinkedIn lunatics being like, no, no, no, he's a good one. We like him. Yeah, we like him.

Liam Darmody [00:37:00]:
He's awesome. We like him. And so there were people sticking up for me when I wasn't in the room and of course I don't know who they are because it's all a pseudonym. Right. So I messaged some of them and I was like, hey, I'd love to know who you are. And I had people respond to me being like, I'm not doxing myself, but I just wanted you to know you're awesome.

Diana Alt [00:37:16]:
Yeah, I am. This is. I'm a real boy.

Liam Darmody [00:37:19]:
And that was, that was for me a really interesting experience.

Diana Alt [00:37:23]:
But that's whimsical. Humorous example.

Liam Darmody [00:37:27]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:37:27]:
Window to your world. Because you kind of mix dadding and the holiday.

Liam Darmody [00:37:32]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:37:33]:
And you know, it's like, it's a glimpse into where you're at.

Liam Darmody [00:37:37]:
It's my lived experience. Right. It's. It's my lived experience.

Diana Alt [00:37:41]:
And how do you not love that? But I love your attitude about it too, because so many people are afraid to be seen and like, it's really hard. Like, I have to, I have to. The thing on TikTok right now is like, I'm going to hold your hand while I say this. Right. If you have COBwebs on your LinkedIn profile and the only thing that you've done this year is update the profile, like with, you know, your job search target or your business target and like, finally got rid of the 10 year old headshot and all that crap, like if that's all that you've done and then you start to post Content. It's going to take a while before people see it.

Liam Darmody [00:38:22]:
Oh, yeah.

Diana Alt [00:38:23]:
If you have 438 connections and you post something that, you know, as an example, that thing I was saying, like, here's the engineer that wants the project managers to understand this. Like, not very many people are going to see that. It's great that it's on your profile because it shows how you think about things. And in particular, if you're in a job search or maybe you're pursuing like an internal transfer or something like that, somebody is going to go see it and be like, oh, well, this person cares about working well with the project managers and this is how they think about things. And that's good. But they're all afraid that they're going to end up on whatever the equivalent of LinkedIn lunatics is.

Liam Darmody [00:39:04]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:39:04]:
Why? They haven't done it. So, you know, it takes. It takes some time for the traction to build and it all depends on how important it is. I'm a big believer that even if a person isn't trying to grow, like, followers and revenue and all that kind of stuff like you and I need to do, because this is how we eat and live indoors. Still having a portfolio of posts, even if all you did was come up with, here's eight topics and I'm gonna post one one a week and, you know, that's it. I had two months that I did that and I'm not gonna do anything for a while. It's there on your profile for people to look at and understand you better.

Liam Darmody [00:39:44]:
So, yeah, I mean, I think two things. One is people vastly overestimate how much people pay attention and care about things.

Diana Alt [00:39:52]:
Yes.

Liam Darmody [00:39:52]:
They think that if they post something on LinkedIn, their co workers are gonna be talking about it for weeks. They're not. They're going to look at it. They're going to either engage with it or they're not, and they're going to get on with their day. There's a lot of other stuff happening. There's a lot of things that are grasping for our attention. So don't. And I hesitate to use the term self importance, because that sort of has a negative connotation.

Liam Darmody [00:40:11]:
But my recommendation to people is not to overthink it. Right. People are busy. You have a split second, they'll like what they like, they'll move on if they don't, and then it's the end of it. They're not going to be like, can you believe that Diana posted that on LinkedIn? Like, they're just not thinking that much about it. And the second thing is, that's why I call it journaling, because journaling is cathartic. Journaling is a feeling of getting your thoughts out of here, out of here and into the world. And when you.

Liam Darmody [00:40:41]:
When you use LinkedIn to share the things that you think and the things that you feel, you're making the world a little bit of a better place in your own way.

Diana Alt [00:40:52]:
And it's really interesting that people don't want to do that whenever they're dying for their boss to appreciate them as a human.

Liam Darmody [00:41:00]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:41:01]:
Like, maybe you're not sharing the human side of yourself. And I get that there's, like, trust dynamics and all of that stuff, but you can't lock everything away forever and then expect people to see you as an individual human. I do think people need to respect that. Like, as any human, we should treat people with a certain level of dignity, like that everyone deserves, no matter what. But if you don't crack open the shell a little bit, like, why. Why is anyone going to remember you?

Liam Darmody [00:41:33]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:41:34]:
The biggest part of branding is, is are you memorable?

Liam Darmody [00:41:38]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:41:39]:
Because the worst brand to have is the one where you say, oh, do you know Liam Darmoti? And they're like, I don't know who the hell that is. Or they go, look, even if someone sends you a link, like, I refer a lot of people to you to follow if they want to do LinkedIn in an authentic way. And if they were to go to your profile and be like, I can't tell, like, is he a LinkedIn? What is this guy like?

Liam Darmody [00:42:03]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:42:04]:
Just. Just saying hot sauce is not enough to detract from an otherwise strong brand. Question that I want to get into is the top mistakes people are making in networking via LinkedIn and this a little bit into the how side of this.

Liam Darmody [00:42:22]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:42:23]:
So, of course, the top mistake is doing nothing.

Liam Darmody [00:42:26]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:42:26]:
But once people break free of doing nothing, what are the top couple of things that they are doing wrong and how do they correct them?

Liam Darmody [00:42:40]:
So, first thing is, you're not treating your LinkedIn profile like a landing page. Right. I think everybody needs to think of themselves through the lens of a marketer. Whether you're an accountant or an engineer or a product manager or a marketer, you are in marketing. Right. We are all living online. There are a lot of people who are looking at what you're doing potentially. Um, you want to make sure that your LinkedIn profile accurately reflects what you're good at, what you do, why you do it.

Liam Darmody [00:43:09]:
I tell people that Your resume is a very good representation of what you do, when you've done it, and where LinkedIn is a great opportunity for you to show people who you are, why you do what you do and how. And those two things are complementary. And when you add them up, they're. They make for a robust personal brand.

Diana Alt [00:43:28]:
Right.

Liam Darmody [00:43:29]:
And you want to give people the ability to learn more about what you know and what you think and how you interact in the world of business when you're not looking for a job, because that means that opportunity could present itself when you're not necessarily looking for it. Right. The best jobs, and a lot of the best companies always say they hire people. They want to hire people who are gainfully employed, who are already, you know, doing a job because they've assumed that that's, you know, the right way to go, go about it. And I don't necessarily, I'm not here to debate that, but my, my perspective is give people an ability to see who you are, why you do what you do and how you do it, because you never know what opportunity might lie on the other side of it. So your profile has to be like a landing page. Right. Make sure all the bells and whistles are turned on.

Liam Darmody [00:44:23]:
Make sure that, you know, it's a good representation of what you do think about. I mean, resumes are so one dimensional. Right. You've got some white text and bullets on a piece of paper that's no more than two pages long or whatever, depending on how much experience you have. You are so much more than your resume. And that's where LinkedIn, I think, fills the gap. So that's. One second is, are you building a network? Are you building relationships with people in the industry that you're in?

Diana Alt [00:44:50]:
Yeah. And this is where I want to go a little deeper.

Liam Darmody [00:44:52]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:44:53]:
Because like saying build a network is where people get stuck. And like. And one of my guests, I was supposed to have him last week, but I was sick. Like, one of my guests, David Hannon.

Liam Darmody [00:45:04]:
I love David, he's awesome.

Diana Alt [00:45:05]:
He's so cool. Like, I followed him for a long time and he basically is trying to help people with a job search strategy, including networking strategy for people that have adhd. Most people, especially people that have adhd, if you just tell them you need a network, they're like, what the hell? I don't know what that means. So let's, let's pretend we're dealing with a product manager.

Liam Darmody [00:45:33]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:45:34]:
Like that, that would have been me a few years ago. Who wants to start networking LinkedIn is open to doing it, but does not really know where to start. What are the first three things you tell that person to do? Assume that their LinkedIn profile is. Okay, let's talk about the connection side.

Liam Darmody [00:45:55]:
First step is identifying your ideal contact profile. So there's, you know, I say ideal client profile for entrepreneurs, I say ideal contact profile for job seekers. And you want to make sure that you're thinking about the types of people that you want to be networking with on the platform. So if I'm a product manager or a director of product management, I probably want to be connected to VPs of product management, SVPs of project product Management, Chief Product officers. And I want to find those people and I want to think about how to get connected to them. The second thing is what industries, what companies are you fascinated with? Right. What are, I mean, what are companies that you would love to work at someday, whether they have a job now or not? Whether you're looking for a job now or not is irrelevant. What you're doing is really honing in on the profile of the person that you want to be connected with, the companies that you want to be connected to.

Liam Darmody [00:46:51]:
And then you go into LinkedIn search and you find people that match those descriptions. Right. So VP of product at such and such companies and you just start reaching out to them and introducing yourself and you just connect.

Diana Alt [00:47:05]:
Introduction look like.

Liam Darmody [00:47:07]:
So to me, the right.

Diana Alt [00:47:09]:
What they're doing is there. There's a lot of noise.

Liam Darmody [00:47:13]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:47:13]:
Especially from not. I'm going to call them not very nuanced career coaches saying just reach out to the recruiter or just reach out to the hiring manager after you apply or whatever.

Liam Darmody [00:47:26]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:47:26]:
And I don't think that's that effective, especially now since everybody's preaching it. So what should that outreach say?

Liam Darmody [00:47:36]:
So what I'm talking about is building the network before you need the network.

Diana Alt [00:47:42]:
If you're in the middle of it, it doesn't matter. You use kind of the same.

Liam Darmody [00:47:47]:
Yeah, right.

Diana Alt [00:47:48]:
I am a stranger, give me a job.

Liam Darmody [00:47:50]:
Right, right.

Diana Alt [00:47:52]:
What am I saying when I DM the VP of Product at Nvidia?

Liam Darmody [00:47:57]:
Yeah, right. No, so I mean, I think from my perspective, honesty is the best policy. And so if you know you are actively trying to build your network on LinkedIn, you want to build your network with seasoned product folks that work at certain types of companies. You say that you introduce yourself to somebody, you have 300 characters in a connection request and you say, hey, you know, I'm intentionally working on building my product management network here on LinkedIn. This year, it's. It's a goal of mine. Really passionate about the industry. Really love your company.

Liam Darmody [00:48:33]:
Would love to connect and just make the world a little smaller.

Diana Alt [00:48:37]:
I love that. I love that. Just make the world a little smaller.

Liam Darmody [00:48:40]:
Me too. Somebody said it to me once and I poached it. I can't remember who it was, but it's. It's not, you know, there's no ulterior motive there. It's just. It's just me wanting to get to know new people in the space. We have common skills. We're interested in the same types of companies.

Liam Darmody [00:48:56]:
Why not grab a virtual coffee or just at the very least, see each other's content and have some good conversation on the platform. That, in essence, is, I think, the perfect way to reach out to somebody you want to network with.

Diana Alt [00:49:07]:
Okay, so I'm going to add on something for my product managers or for anybody that's listening. Number one, for that product example, what Liam said, Find peers, find people. A layer two above the food chain is exceptional. I would add a couple of things. Number one, don't be afraid to talk to people that are a little bit below you, because sometimes a director gets a job because a person that would be reporting to that open says, this person seems awesome from LinkedIn or wherever other places. The other thing is look at adjacent roles. So speaking specifically from the product manager perspective, it's wonderful if product people know you've got your chops and they know you. But it's also amazing if.

Diana Alt [00:49:55]:
If engineering leaders think a product manager is great to work with, that is like double bonus. So who else do I have to influence? Who else do I have to work a lot? So for a product manager, I look often at engineering or I might look at, say, product marketing or marketing, because they're two of the areas that you work with quite a bit. Just a little added extra.

Liam Darmody [00:50:22]:
That's a. That's a really great point. I think I would consider that almost like a next level of networking skill, right? You're thinking about the adjacent skills that are complementary to what you're doing. And so you want to build your network as a sort of second layer, right? Because you can. I mean, you can add 100 people per week to your network. So, you know, in week one, add 100 product managers, and week two, add some directors of engineering who work at that same company. If you do that every month for a year, you've potentially got 4,000 new connections who are all in the industries or adjacent to the industry. You want to be in who all work at the companies that you're potentially interested in working at someday.

Liam Darmody [00:51:04]:
That's a pretty solid. That's a pretty solid gain for the year. And that's if you don't do anything right? Like, that's if you don't get any organic followers or any organic invitations to.

Diana Alt [00:51:12]:
Connect, which if you do that. If I first got started being super regular online, whenever. Do you know who J.T. o' Donnell is?

Liam Darmody [00:51:22]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:51:22]:
Okay, so J.T. came and spoke. She was a keynote speaker at the PMI conference in Kansas City several years ago. And I saw her speak. She actually roasted my LinkedIn profile.

Liam Darmody [00:51:34]:
Oh, no way. Cool.

Diana Alt [00:51:35]:
Interesting. Yeah, that was fun. It wasn't as good as I thought. And I went home and made changes and found out she was right. But she said, take 15 minutes of your Instagram time. Yeah, I'd probably say 15 minutes of your TikTok time, whatever it is.

Liam Darmody [00:51:51]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:51:52]:
Supply it to LinkedIn. And she's like. And she wasn't even talking about making content. She was talking about being in the comments, keeping up on your network connections and keeping up in your DMs.

Liam Darmody [00:52:01]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:52:01]:
That's all you do for 15 minutes a week. And you can make yourself do that for a month or two. You are on your way to having built a habit. And then you can start doing things like, okay, now I'm gonna try to maybe not 100, but maybe 10 product managers a week or month. So is premium really necessary? I get asked this a lot. Like, there's 48 levels of premium, and I have a lot of people, and I'm sure a lot of other career coaches, people listening, are they're just gonna be like, do I really need to spend that money? What is the benefit of buying premium for a career person? Or is there not really any?

Liam Darmody [00:52:45]:
I think it depends on the individual. I think, you know, LinkedIn is clearly investing in making premium a thing, Right? Like, they're creating programming that's specific to folks that are in premium. Premium gives you access to LinkedIn learning courses, which. There's 15,000 of those. And you can add credentials to your website or to your profile, which only further cement your, you know, your. Your brand and what you do. And so I would say it is worth it. And I know it's expensive, and I know it's different, but LinkedIn is not your typical social platform.

Liam Darmody [00:53:25]:
Right. It's an opportunity platform. And if you take your career seriously, if you take your business seriously, you should be investing some money in having access to the bells and whistles that LinkedIn includes in premium. Personally, I love. If I'm a job seeker, there's one unlock with LinkedIn business that I love in particular, Premium that I loved in particular. And that's being able to see how the company's growing. Right. If I'm looking at a company that I'm considering applying to and I notice that their employment is on the decline, maybe that Questions? Yeah.

Liam Darmody [00:53:59]:
Like what's going on with the revenue there? Right. Like, what's the longevity of a role there? What's the safety of a role there? Conversely, if I see something that's going up and to the right, you know, that tells me that they're growing and that there's. They're on the right track. So I want to know that for sure. You can see new hires, right. You can see like it's like new executive hires or leaders, decision makers that have been hired in that role at those organizations. When you have Premium, you can include. You have unlimited access to sending connection requests that are personalized invites.

Liam Darmody [00:54:35]:
That's very important if you're networking. Right. You know, I think that to me.

Diana Alt [00:54:38]:
Right there and like, I don't know, you have. LinkedIn is constantly changing. Like what is and what plans guys go look at whatever their pricing chart is. But what I would say personally is a high value is that personalized connection request. I don't use it for every request. I go through every. You had suggested in a class. I took your class that you now have.

Diana Alt [00:55:01]:
We'll talk about that in a minute. But I had taken your class and you had suggested like just go a couple times a week to your. Who viewed you.

Liam Darmody [00:55:10]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:55:11]:
If there's anybody that meets like the profile that you'd want to connect with, just click connect.

Liam Darmody [00:55:16]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:55:17]:
You don't have to. They already said they're interested because they you. So you can, you can save the note for that one probably. But if you're proactively looking through search and saying, oh well, I want to find like startups in the UK that you know would hire directors of engineering or be my peer as a head of engineering, then those you would want to be able to send the personalized request for. Yeah, this is amazing. We, we could go all day, but I'm going to do the lightning round that often isn't really lightning. Ish. Because I don't know how to shut up.

Diana Alt [00:55:54]:
And then we'll talk about what else you're working on. I definitely touch on your course. So the first one, my first question is what is the worst piece of career advice you've ever received.

Liam Darmody [00:56:05]:
That's a great question.

Diana Alt [00:56:06]:
It's so good. I ask it every time.

Liam Darmody [00:56:09]:
I think the worst piece of career advice that I've ever received is that you have to sort of climb the ladder, you know, in steps, and you have to pursue a path. You know, you hear the CEO of LinkedIn talking a lot about how career growth is not linear and there is no real straight line to success. I think that's a very outdated way of looking at things. I believe that people evolve, people change. People's passions and people's interests evolve and change. And you have to pay attention to that, and you have to listen to that and realize that your passion for something sometimes will supersede your experience levels. And I'm a perfect example of that. Right.

Liam Darmody [00:56:53]:
You look at my background, you're like, this guy's not a brand marketer. What is this? He's an operations guy. But I'm really passionate about what I do, and I love human beings, and I love building relationships, and I love helping people find their voice and become comfortable sharing that with the world. And so I think that comes across when people think of me. And, you know, I just think there's so many people out there who are like, well, I've been doing this all, like. I mean, I even fell trapped to it. I was like, I was in Ops for 20 years. What, I can't go and do brand marketing now?

Diana Alt [00:57:23]:
Yeah, right.

Liam Darmody [00:57:24]:
And that was a limitation limiting belief.

Diana Alt [00:57:26]:
My question says who? Like, a couple of the things that come to mind are, like, I wrote a blog post about how the courier ladder is dead, and I think it's either a jungle gym or like a game of shoots and ladders.

Liam Darmody [00:57:41]:
Yeah, I love that.

Diana Alt [00:57:43]:
Shoots and ladders is a fun image because you do go back. And the thing that I. A rock wall is a really good analogy, actually, because on a rock wall, if you do competitive rock climbing, which I have never done and will never do, but I've learned stuff about it. And the thing that drew me in the most about it is that they call. In competitive rock climbing, they call whatever your thing is, I think they call it the problem. I've heard that, at least for some, they will deliberately build those so that you have to go down in order to be successful sometimes. And if you're just out hanging out in Colorado or Moab or like, wherever you find a rock wall, that happens in real life, too, is sometimes you cannot go straight up. You have to go down or you have to go sideways.

Diana Alt [00:58:32]:
And then you can go up.

Liam Darmody [00:58:33]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:58:34]:
And so, yeah, I agree with you on the clear.

Liam Darmody [00:58:37]:
I think the other thing is people have this mindset that you can only go up and forward.

Diana Alt [00:58:44]:
Right.

Liam Darmody [00:58:45]:
And. And a lot of that stems from what other people think of you. People are like, well, I can't go from VP to director because that's a step down. And then people will think that I got demoted or people will think that I suck at my job. All of that is a mental construct in your head. Nobody actually pays that close attention to it. Right. And, you know, if you are in a role that you don't love and you have an opportunity to go to something that you think you're going to really love, do it.

Liam Darmody [00:59:11]:
Because work is not work if you really love it. I mean, it is work, but it doesn't feel like it, you know? And I mean, I. Yeah, I also.

Diana Alt [00:59:18]:
Hear a lot of. See what I mean about the lightning round. That's not lightning around. I also hear a lot of people like, this happened. I'm in a. I'm in a group on Facebook called Women in Production. And I see people go in there all the time saying, I have an opportunity to go do X. They're asking me at my company about doing X, but I'm afraid to go take this opportunity because what if I can never get back into product? And every single time.

Diana Alt [00:59:41]:
Well, maybe not always a never dangerous world. The vast majority of the time, it's actually a role that would make them a better product manager. I've seen it about customer success, and I'm like, there are zero things about being in customer success for a couple of years that would be detrimental to you if you wanted to go back into product. So that's important. Here's my next question. What is a personal habit that's helped you be more successful?

Liam Darmody [01:00:09]:
Making friends, meeting people and having conversations, getting to know people, being curious about other people. I have a funny story. When I was. When I was. I think I was 11 or 12, and my dad and I were out driving. We were living in California at the time. I had been bullied a lot at school because I'd moved from Canada to Beverly Hills, which is a crazy culture shock. So my dad and I spent a lot of time together.

Diana Alt [01:00:33]:
Calm, waiting to happen.

Liam Darmody [01:00:34]:
Yeah. And I'm an only child, so I didn't have a brother or sister growing up. So, you know, pretty lonely as a kid. And I just am such an extrovert, and I crave human connection and relationships. My dad asked me on this Drive. We were on one day, he's like, what? What's the most important thing in your life? And I said, human relationships. And he to this day jokes. He's like, almost drove off the road.

Liam Darmody [01:00:55]:
I was expecting you to say an Xbox or football or whatever. And here you are dropping philosophies like human relationships are the most valuable thing to you. But it's true. I love relating to human beings and getting to know people and understand what makes them tick and what they love and what they're passionate about. And oftentimes I think one of the reasons I love that so much is because sometimes it surprises them. Right. They'll end up talking to me about stuff. And they're like, I didn't even realize that.

Diana Alt [01:01:22]:
This morning I called on doctor's office to yell at them. Yeah, I'm trying to schedule a surgery which is behind the scenes content. Right now I'm having freaking pituitary tumor removed. But I called because I can't get it, like the scheduling process is not happening. Yes, I called to like lay into somebody and by the end of the call we're like best friends because she got curious with me when I was angry. And then I'm by nature usually curious. I had to put on. I just had to lay the smackdown on.

Diana Alt [01:01:55]:
But yeah, I got so distracted by our conversation that I didn't see this amazing question from Annalise Vance. Yeah, I'll make sure. We should. Definitely. LinkedIn too. But what if you're more passionate about your fascination than your scope of genius? I made my fascination into my scope of genius over time. So I personally found that I was talking to people about job search, career happiness, fulfillment, etc, more than I wanted to talk about my day job, the things that were in my day job. So ultimately I shifted and you know, like, Liam did the same.

Diana Alt [01:02:36]:
You did the same thing because you were fascinated by humans and connecting humans and making sure that they could use their network to be successful. So you made it your business.

Liam Darmody [01:02:45]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [01:02:47]:
I did the same thing in corporate though. So you don't have to do this and then just go into, you know, or starting your own business. You can do it as a career shift.

Liam Darmody [01:02:58]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [01:02:58]:
I know people that have been software engineers that were passionate about. They got really interested in like Scrum master stuff or project manager stuff or product whatever, or leadership. And they wanted to showcase their philosophy of leadership. So you can do that for any pivot. Whenever I met J.T. o' Donnell at that conference, I got to talk to her for a while and I was in the same boat because I was feeling like I enjoyed talking to people about their careers more than I enjoyed Scrum Mastering, which is what I was doing at the time.

Liam Darmody [01:03:37]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:03:37]:
And she said, I asked, how do you bridge the gap? Like, how do you get there? And she said, start thinking about having a hobby career. Love that hobby career.

Liam Darmody [01:03:50]:
She's like, so great.

Diana Alt [01:03:51]:
It's something that'll take the pressure off, but also take it seriously enough that you try to monetize it that you treat any. Even if you only have one client, you treat them well. So third question is, what is something you've changed your mind about recently?

Liam Darmody [01:04:10]:
What is something I've changed my mind about recently? Wow, that is super interesting. I don't think I could go back to an office, which for me, like I've always been that.

Diana Alt [01:04:22]:
You like the office, didn't you?

Liam Darmody [01:04:24]:
What's that?

Diana Alt [01:04:25]:
You kind of liked the office.

Liam Darmody [01:04:26]:
I love the office. I mean, startup cultures, like, there's nothing like it. You walk into a room, there's just a buzz and there's an energy and everybody knows each other and there's so much happening and there's so much socializing that happens that for me, you know, I always kind of, I almost kind of thought that me starting this business was going to be a temporary thing until I figured out what I wanted to go and do next. Because I, I thought that I would want to be in an office environment working with teams, you know, and to this day that's still, you know, one of the things that I struggle with is, you know, entrepreneurship is lonely and. But I fill that gap with people that I have in my community on LinkedIn. So it's helpful for me to have that sort of relationship in place. So I think that's, that's one of the things that, that I've changed my mind on. I, I would rather if you gave me the option to make twice as much money as I'm making now and work in an office five days a week or make what I'm making now and stay home, I would choose the latter.

Liam Darmody [01:05:19]:
And that's saying a lot about where I am and what I'm doing and how passionate.

Diana Alt [01:05:23]:
And I don't do much out of my home because I'm mostly B2C. But like I'm, I am super excited. I have, there's a couple in Kansas City that I'm friends with and one has his own consulting business and the other is like exploring kind of second act side hustle stuff. And I'm going to do like an in person VIP day with them. Like a whiteboard out. Like, she's business analyst, so she's got the whiteboard at her house.

Liam Darmody [01:05:49]:
So I'll just.

Diana Alt [01:05:50]:
Her house. But I like doing that every once in a while. But I like the autonomy and I have like autoimmune crap. So sometimes homegirl needs a nap.

Liam Darmody [01:06:00]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [01:06:00]:
But the last one is what is a common misconception people have about your work?

Liam Darmody [01:06:07]:
I think a common misconception about my work is that I just do LinkedIn profile writing and potentially ghost writing of content and not the other parts, which are the most important parts. Right. The NETWORKING, the leveraging. LinkedIn as this vast platform that many people underutilize. They don't know how many different ways you can use this platform to build relationships and connection. They think of it in a very transactional mindset. It's a big platform, there's a ton of features, there's a ton of stuff that they're building all the time. And unless you kind of live on the platform like I do, you don't always catch it, you know, and you don't always really think about what the practical application of that new feature they just rolled out is.

Liam Darmody [01:06:51]:
And so, you know, I think that for a long time that was my fault. I wasn't really talking about the fact that, you know, I spent 20 years teaching sales teams how to leverage relationships and connection to close business and how to use a platform like LinkedIn to build relationships and connection. And so that's on me. But I think that's one of the common misconceptions. Everybody lumps personal branding into content creation on LinkedIn.

Diana Alt [01:07:18]:
But that was my coaching moment for you.

Liam Darmody [01:07:21]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:07:21]:
Because the very, the very first time we talk, talked, I don't know, maybe it was even before we ever got on Zoom. It was. Leon, Pal, what do you mean you're in sales ops and you're not talking about it? Because everyone gets so tired of, like, make your. It's a lot of the content stuff that people talk about, you know, that a lot of the traditional person personal branding people talk about is as annoying as the people that a few years ago were saying that your Instagram grid had to be perfectly branded and matched, which now is not. So thanks for that. Well, we're almost done, but I want to ask, what are you working on? Like, what do you want people to know about and how would you like people to connect with you?

Liam Darmody [01:08:10]:
So I am working on the next evolution of my business, which is to essentially try and scale A little bit farther and wider. So I have always done one to one coaching. This year I launched group coaching. Right. In the form of cohorts. And so that's been really fun for me. That taps into my need for being around other people and having kind of a team to jam with and, you know, mind meld with. And that's been really, really fun for me.

Liam Darmody [01:08:38]:
So I do a monthly cohort on Maven. And then I think the next thing that I'm probably thinking about is community. Right. I think that there is. There is very much. I find myself connecting people all the time. I consider myself a super connector. I'm like, oh yeah, you have a really great conversation with so and so.

Liam Darmody [01:08:56]:
Do you know so and so. And a lot of times they're like, no. And I.

Diana Alt [01:09:00]:
It takes a lot of time to make those intros.

Liam Darmody [01:09:03]:
It takes time to make those intros. And I think that if you are somebody who is really good at matching people with other people for mutual benefit, you almost have a responsibility to create a place and a space for them to kind of build relationships together. And I think that that is kind of the next evolution of my business as well is the community piece. And then I think the other thing is, I think I don't really do any selling into companies, but I think that companies need to embrace the concept of employer branding and building a strategy for how to get your employees talking about them, their own personal brands.

Diana Alt [01:09:43]:
Sell that into minimum.

Liam Darmody [01:09:44]:
Like, what's that?

Diana Alt [01:09:45]:
There's two key areas to sell that into and it's sales and talent acquisition.

Liam Darmody [01:09:51]:
Right, Exactly.

Diana Alt [01:09:53]:
That a lot of people aren't thinking about. But like, I wish that there's a third. I don't know how to define it, but I'm gonna drop this on you and then we can nerd out and figure it out later. But there are a lot of people in product marketing we know in the executive suite that are not in sales, they're not in HR that are thinking about building programs, but they are the face of something in their company.

Liam Darmody [01:10:19]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [01:10:20]:
So like, product managers often are the face of whatever product line they're responsible for. Same thing can happen with product marketing. Sometimes the CTO or a head of engineering ends up being like a technical face of innovation, like that kind of thing.

Liam Darmody [01:10:37]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:10:38]:
That could be another cool angle to talk about.

Liam Darmody [01:10:41]:
Yeah, for sure.

Diana Alt [01:10:43]:
I am. I put your LinkedIn up at the top. So if you're interested in Liam's course on Maven that he runs once a month, I've actually been through it. It's very, very good. I got. I think I got the value of what I paid in, like, the first 15 minutes. And I.

Liam Darmody [01:11:03]:
Awesome. Thank you.

Diana Alt [01:11:05]:
I'm dead serious about that. You raised the price. It might take the whole first session to get it now, but reach out to him. He likes. He likes the DMs, so sometimes he has an autoresponder that says, please email me, just do what it says. But yeah, check that out. I think it's very, very good. I think it's a must for any entrepreneur that's trying to build new.

Diana Alt [01:11:28]:
Entrepreneur, consultant, freelancer, that's trying to build on LinkedIn. And it's a darn good idea for some other people, too. So thank you so much for joining me, sir.

Liam Darmody [01:11:36]:
You're very welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Diana Alt [01:11:38]:
I'm sure we'll end up doing this again. That'd be awesome in the future. All right, have a great day.

Liam Darmody [01:11:44]:
Take care. See you. Thanks again.

Diana Alt [01:11:47]:
Hey, are you sabotaging your job search without even realizing it? You might be. I break down the most common job search mistakes and how to fix them in my free [email protected] so go grab it today. And that's it for this episode of Work should feel good. If something made you you laugh, think, cry, or just want to yell yes at your phone, send it to a friend, hit follow, hit subscribe, do all the things, and even better, leave a review if you've got a sec. I'm not going to tell you to give it five stars. You get to decide if I earned them. Work should feel good. Let's make that your reality.