In this new Q&A style episode of the Marketing Mentor Podcast, you’ll learn:

• What to do (and say) when a prospect “rejects” you
• How to stay motivated to do your marketing
• Whether you can have more than one LinkedIn profile and more...

So listen here (and below):

And if you like what you hear, we’d love it if you write a review, subscribe here and sign up for Quick Tips from Marketing Mentor.

Here's an abridged version of the transcript for #511 below:

Question #1: Can I have more than 1 LinkedIn profile?

The short answer is: No.

Here's what ChatGPT said: 

LinkedIn's policy technically allows only one personal profile per user. Creating multiple profiles violates their Terms of Service, and they may suspend or delete duplicate profiles if discovered.

However, there are a few workarounds if you need to manage different professional identities:

LinkedIn Company Pages: If you need a separate presence for a business or brand, you can create a Company Page linked to your personal profile. This allows you to showcase different business aspects without needing another personal profile.

Showcase Pages: For brands or specific initiatives under a larger organization, you can create Showcase Pages. They’re great for highlighting different projects or business divisions.

Question #2: Once I find a company that looks like a good fit … how do I know if they need my services, and how do I decide if they’re the right size?

You won’t know for sure until you make contact but there are signs. For example, if you want to write case studies, look for companies that already have case studies on their web sites or are promoting them on LinkedIn. Those companies are more likely to need more written and you won’t have to convince them of the value of case studies since they clearly already know. In fact, a content writer recently wrote to me about how she is using AI to find companies that need case study copywriters, “Per your Quick Tips, I’ve been playing around with Perplexity to find prospects that publish case studies. I explain (to the AI) who I am, what type of companies I like working with, and what type of content they should have on their websites. Then I ask for a list of 10 organizations that may be a good fit (including their urls). It works!”

What is the right size for you? Who is a good fit for you? You may not know yet, which is another reason “practice” prospects can be very useful. If you're a new business owner, you may feel more comfortable starting with small companies – fewer than 5 employees. However, if you have a history of working for large corporations, that means you understand how they work and probably feel more comfortable with them. Each company size has different needs and as you build your business you’ll learn the pros and cons – for you! – of each type of client. That’s how you’ll discover which is the best fit for you. Either way, think of everyone and everything as practice and learning – you are practicing on real people and learning what works best for you and for them.

Question #3: When do I know that I’m ready to launch?
Well, what does it mean to “launch?” what happens before and after that moment?

Here’s what the SMP community said:

• Never ready, just have to do it
• Just jump in imperfectly!
• It's best to try not to know and just do it.
• Do it before you’re ready
• You’re never ready!
• You don’t know when you’re ready!
• Have a client
• When you see a gap in what you are doing and a need. And It just feels right!
• Feel the fear and do it anyway. Just do it.
• It’s like having a baby, you will never be ready, just do as much as you can and DO IT

Question #4: When one of my prospects says, “No thanks, we don’t need your help,” I feel rejected and don’t want to do any more outreach.

One designer was doing the SMP 4 step outreach campaign – she was on her 2nd message to a batch of 13 prospects in education (that’s the ICYMI message). On the same day, she got 2 responses which she categorized as “rejections” – “no thanks” and “no need.” She felt dejected and didn’t want to do more.

I tried to reframe these responses for her and shared this tips to avoid feeling rejected:

• Decide not to see it as a “rejection.”
• The fact that they responded at all speaks volumes about the message = it was worth the time to respond.
• It says the message was clear, sincere and real.
• Hold everything very lightly.

How to respond when someone says "no thanks."
👉 Thanks so much for responding – it means a lot to me. Please keep me in mind if anything changes. Do you want me to keep in touch so you don’t forget I exist?

Question #5: How to stay motivated to regularly send an email newsletter

Another creative sent her first newsletter on Oct 1 and here's what she posted in our Slack channel: 
“Just sent my first newsletter - I had so much anxiety around it, I had to walk away from my computer after I pushed "send." But it's done!”

Then on Oct 9 she posted this:
"Sharing for motivation: I just got off a call with two clients who both said they loved getting my newsletter and seeing the content I've been posting on LinkedIn. They said it made them feel like they had a design friend in their back pocket :grinning: This was such terrific feedback, particularly because I'd been so hesitant to start content marketing! Neither of them had responded to my newsletter or had "liked" a post - so it's nice to know that even without "proof" that folks are seeing my content, they obviously are.

Tips:

• Hold everything very lightly.
• We can’t seek motivation from the outside. Instead let everything you are doing feed the next thing.
• We can’t focus on likes or clicks or comments.
• We have to put something out there and then use the power of forgetting to move on to the next thing.

Question #6: I need new names to send [my newsletter] to, my list gets very few responses.

Tips:

• It’s not about quantity
• Everyone you know should be on your list.
• The way to build the list slowly with high quality people is by doing outreach.

Question #7: I stress over crafting a message that can also translate well to all my LinkedIn people on the LinkedIn newsletter.

Her LinkedIn network is broader and wider than those who get her email newsletter. That’s ok – if that’s the work you want more of, that’s what you should put out there. You can’t please everyone and sometimes trying to will stress you out. I would simply repurpose the email to LinkedIn and not worry about everyone else. 

Comment on Episode #510 (a.k.a. the bots episode)

Some listeners were confused – Who are these people? Where's Ilise?

I could have teed it up differently but I didn’t want to say too much.
It was mostly just to share this new tool I’m loving, NotebookLM.google