The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 77: Master Your LinkedIn With Ruby Lee

In today’s episode I’m joined by my friend Ruby Lee, a master of LinkedIn and expert entrepreneur. We go over what Ruby does and how she got to where she’s at. She also shares with us how she built her business with her husband. Ruby gives her advice on how to brand on LinkedIn and her strategies.

Master Your Linkedin with Ruby Lee

By: Melissa Lin

I had a special special guest with me, Miss. Ruby Lee, on my podcast this week. Ruby is a business coach that helps businesses scale to six figures. She is a sought-after LinkedIn coach and the owner of your hustle podcast. She is such a dear friend and sister of mine and spent time in the inner circle with me. She is currently traveling the world, and is literally over in Vietnam right now. She’s had her own Netflix special and so much more. Here are a few questions I asked her and her responses in her own words, enjoy!

Can you walk us through like how you got started how you got to where you are today where you are today?

I have been full-time in my business for just under two years. I was working in a corporation. I was a very classic “tick the boxes” type of gal straight out of University in Australia and straight into accounting jobs. I worked for a big firm. Then I made a little career switch into Human Resources, people and culture because I always loved being in that. I should have been a speaker. I was able to hire people, grow teams and really help startups, and really get their businesses off the ground with the right people and hiring strategies. I started out as a side hustle. So I had my little side passion and I started to monetize and this was a very practical step into business or my side hustle was helping people write their resumes, helping people with their LinkedIn profiles and hiring people. Oh my God people started to pay me money for it. I started to charge for it and soon enough, the wheels started turning. So I built a recruiting blog that started to get a lot of traction. I had my side hustle for almost three and a half years, it took me so long to let go of that Financial life raft from my employer. I was so scared.

I would love to hear more about that transition, so many of my girls and my audience are definitely still wanting to get out of the side hustle. What was that transition like in that moment? Was there a specific moment where you were sure?

I do remember that day because I was up for a promotion at my company that I worked for but they hired someone over the top of me without even giving me an opportunity to put my hat in the ring. It happens so much in leadership and to female leaders. I remember feeling, “what the hell?”, here I am working so hard and all of a sudden someone else gets the advancement. I was crying because of the rejection and my authority and worth all came up. I called my best friend and I was just like, oh my gosh, this just happened and what do you think I should do? Resign? She just started to break it down. She's not a business owner, but she might as well have been my business mentor at the time. Which is what I needed and she just said what are you doing? I just got in control and built up my financial runway giving me at least three months. I started to build the business from a place of power rather than building the business to replace the lack of money. That's how it all kind of came together, the bestie and building out my financial runway enough so that I could confidently step into my role as a full-time entrepreneur.

How do you handle adjusting your work schedule as you're traveling and grab the world's all the time differences?

I truly believe my business got to double and actually triple because of my travels. The universe will support me in this light quest to see the world as well as grow a business and give my family and opportunity to have these incredible experiences at the same time. So basically I slowly but surely started to get people messaging me on LinkedIn and they would say “Ruby, we can see you're traveling. Is there any way we can share what you are hiring at the moment.” We tried several calendars systems and found some of them work for us. Some of them did not but I'm very clear about the times that I'm not working. I don't work weekends. I typically don't work Monday mornings or Fridays at all outside of that. I'm quite flexible with time zones. I have clients who are in Asia or Europe or the UK, I will jump in at 7 a.m. Because I'm an early riser. I also don't mind doing calls at 8 p.m.

Did you know that LinkedIn was going to be so big for your business?

I had an inkling that LinkedIn was a platform where we could have a lot of fun when we can break a lot of rules and some contacts with LinkedIn because I was in headshot and recruitment. I had to use the platform for 10 years. So I'd actually grown up with it as my key social media platform, mostly from a work perspective, but also a lot of networking and I have a lot of friends on LinkedIn as well. So we've always used it as a place where I can connect with others. One of the features was we can finally post 90 second video content on the platform. I was already doing it and it came out and I thought oh my gosh, no one’s making video. Is it because they're not sure what to make and I thought I've got an opportunity here. I'm going to go for it. And I'm going to do it differently than what people would expect because a lot of people were using LinkedIn like step 1 step 2 etc. We use it very similar to that. Where I knew LinkedIn was going to want more organic engaging content. I was the user for 10 years. And the last thing I wanted to do was to sit down and watch a very stagnant video. I wanted to see life on the platform. I want to be at work and watch how other people will work. I wanted to say how entrepreneurs build their businesses. I wanted to say how brands were talking about the making of the next media. So I just started to create more content and in 2018, I decided I'd sit down and do videos. I made a pact with myself. If I was going to give this platform a try, I was going to all in and this is when I was still working full-time. Easy, but oh my goodness what a ride that changed my life.

What are some of the big like differences that you've noticed that you see between IG and LinkedIn?

I think because LinkedI is a professional platform and I say this very loosely guys, we get to break the rules. It's okay. I really took to LinkedIn as a platform where I was able to document my journey as an entrepreneur. My content strategy for LinkedIn was specifically to say “I’m here A Hundred Days on LinkedIn. I'm committing to this. I said this to my audience and over the next hundred days. You're going to watch me go from side hustle to full time employed into full-time entrepreneurship. I documented my first hundred days going all-in with my business because of my age and people's interest it took off. I had to hide followers like everyday if I miss a day, that'd be like what happened to day 67? 30 days in I was talking about how I was launching my stress program and how scared I was and I didnt know how it even works. I had a hundred and sixty people register. It was so beautiful. I’ve had clients now sign up for programs with me and they invest multiple 5 figures into working with me now and they said that they watched me from day one on LinkedIn. They saw me growing my business and watching me for the last 18 months, do the thing and stand on the real deal and now they're ready to work with me. LinkedIn is such a powerful platform where it's not about the finished product it’s about the journey. They know that you’re just being authentically and unapologetically yourself and the sales process for me and my business is so easy because of it.

What would you tell them if they want to get on LinkedIn, but maybe they're afraid to post about their side hustle on LinkedIn.

So funny, but I'm sure a lot of people are probably afraid to even talk about a side hustle. I mean, it comes back to how comfortable you are to be transparent with your employer and it's not easy. If they say no by the way, there's a crossroad. So the crossroads is, you know, your employers not supportive of your side hustle. Eventually. Something’s going to happen, it eventually does, like pent-up creativity will come to a head. You will want to just burst out on the platform and do stuff and just go for it. I just sat down with my manager and said I really want to take advantage of this and they knew that I had a side hustle. They knew that I wanted to eventually leave. So I was very upfront. I've also been on the flip side of it at the previous employer that I went with wasn't too happy with my presence on LinkedIn and had asked me to not post content unless it was to do with the company. Oh wow, and at that point I decided to leave that organization and I knew it was best.

What would your biggest piece of advice be for them?

It always comes back to really grounding into your authentic truth. The reason why I say this is because there are so many people out there who have a brand similar to yours or you want to do something and you realize it's just about you. There is a magic which happens with people that are drawn to you because you start a friendship. That has always been the magic in my business.

Thank you for hanging out with me today. Did you love this episode? If yes, please share it with a friend about girlfriends other online coaches, you know that might find this helpful. Please leave me a review on iTunes and let me know your honest opinion or any questions you might have. Takeaways all of the goodies. Do you want to send my way? I'm always going to be your biggest cheerleader. You taking time out of your day to hang with me, truly means the world to me. I’ll see you next time.

Topics we cover include:

Ruby’s Moment When She Left Her 9-5
Have a financial runway before you go all in
Building a business from scratch
Video formula for LinkedIn
Difference between LinkedIn and other social sites

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(2:50) How Ruby got to where she’s at

(7:52) Ruby’s transition out of her 9-5

(12:44) How Ruby and her husband started working together

(16:20) Building structure into your business

(25:25) Ruby’s formula for video on LinkedIn

(31:31) Differences between LinkedIn and other platforms

(37:45) When to update LinkedIn if you’re still in your 9-5

(41:16) Ruby’s #1 piece of advice

GET IN TOUCH WITH RUBY:

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/_rubylee_/

Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ownyourhustle/

Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruby-lee/

Website:

https://www.rubylee.co/

GET IN TOUCH WITH MELISSA:

Hot Leads Machine (new course):

https://www.themelissalin.com/hotleadsmachine

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