Real Connections vs. Spam Invitations: Tips for Using LinkedIn Authentically (w/ Daniel Alfon)

On episode #175 of The Author Factor Podcast I am having a conversation with LinkedIn expert and author, Daniel Alfon.

Daniel helps his clients leverage the power of LinkedIn to find new prospects.
He publishes articles, interviews, and exclusive content about advanced LinkedIn strategies.  He is the author of the book, Build a LinkedIn Profile for Business Success and a co-author in PodMatch Guest Mastery.

Learn more about Daniel by visiting DanielAlfon.com.

For more details about our short, helpful book publishing program, visit BiteSizedBooks.com.

Transcript

Mike Capuzzi [00:00:00]:

 Welcome to another profitable episode of The Author Factor Podcast. I'm Mike Capuzzi and I want to thank you for joining us. My guest today is Daniel Alfon. Daniel helps his clients leverage the power of LinkedIn to find new business. He publishes articles, interviews, and exclusive content about advanced LinkedIn strategies. He's the author of the book Build a LinkedIn Profile for Business Success and a co-author in a book that I'm also a co-author in PodMatch Guest Mastery. Daniel. Welcome to The Author Factor Podcast.

Daniel Alfon [00:00:34]:

 Well, Mike, thank you very much. I was looking forward to this.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:00:36]:

 You and I worked together for, I guess, a month or two on PodMatch Guest Mastery. Went back and forth a lot on email, but it's our first opportunity to actually meet. So thank you. So you're calling in just to let our listeners know, you're calling in from where?

 Daniel Alfon [00:00:51]:

Today I'm calling in from Israel, south of Tel Aviv. Beautiful neighborhood and beautiful community. A small place you need to visit.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:01:02]:

 Before we jump in and discuss, we're going to focus on Pod Match Guest Mastery today. Tell me a bit more about your business, who you serve and how you serve them.

 Daniel Alfon [00:01:14]:

 Thank you, Mike. I help business owners leverage the LinkedIn platform. LinkedIn has close to 1 billion members as we speak, and every second, three people sign up. Every second of three people. It's an amazing community, yet it's not very user friendly. So I help people match their business objective and their LinkedIn activities by analyzing their ideal clients, their presence, and the best lead generation process for them.

Mike Capuzzi [00:01:44]:

Very good. Do you mind if we go deep a little deeper on that? Just because I think there's some real value for our listeners, for book authors, et cetera. So I have a LinkedIn account. I don't use it a whole lot. I'm not really sure the best ways to use it. So working with you would probably make sense as far as LinkedIn being a suitable platform. Any type of business owner, business to consumer, business to business, local business owner, is there any reason any of those business owners should not be on LinkedIn?

 Daniel Alfon [00:02:17]:

 If you simply look at Google, then whenever we want to search for “Mike Capuzzi,” we'll see the LinkedIn profile in the top of the list. So, yes, it serves everyone. Obviously, if you're serving high client clients, if you're in a B, two B community, and if you're a nonfiction author, then the case is much, much stronger.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:02:37]:

 So give me a couple of tips, if you don't mind. Daniel, I know you weren't expecting this, but now that I want to dive in a little bit, I think you can probably handle it. Let's focus on nonfiction book authors. So let's say me, for example. Can you give me a couple of tips? Just high level tips that any nonfiction business owner author should be using on LinkedIn. Frequency, types of things, posting. I mean, I will tell you, the one thing that annoys me with LinkedIn, and I don't know how you feel about this, is someone sends you a connection request, you connect, and then within seconds, you get this bot generated communication. And they're all about selling themselves and what they do. And there's no real integrity and authenticity, in my opinion, about how a lot of people use it. I don't know how you leverage it in that respect, but just some tips for effective use of LinkedIn for an author.

Daniel Alfon [00:03:34]:

 Wow. With pleasure. So there are many ways to leverage LinkedIn other than simply sending spam invitations to people. And LinkedIn is probably the only strong platform I know of where you can succeed without sharing a lot. If you build this profile, anyone visiting your own profile, going to LinkedIn and looking for Mike Capuzzi, they would see the banner about the bite size book. They would see that you turn business owners into book authors and they could go to your website, they could simply visit LinkedIn and then go to AuthorFactor.com. This is the simplest way anyone can leverage the LinkedIn platform without sharing. And perhaps some good news is that you don't have to share a lot because most of our connections are not eager to watch us overshare on the LinkedIn platform.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:04:27]:

 So can I stop you for a second? Very interesting, if you don't mind. So, unlike Facebook or other social platforms where people are posting more and more content, it's more general. What you're saying, Daniel, is it's not absolutely necessary to be posting a lot because average LinkedIn user is really not looking for that type of social interaction.

 Daniel Alfon [00:04:53]:

 Yes. Perhaps what I could suggest is find a frequency that would work for you in the long term and you can decide, Mike, that you can dedicate, say, 15 minutes to LinkedIn sharing once a month, and then simply ask yourself, what's the best resource I can use I can share on LinkedIn? Rather than, can I push something to my followers or can I push something from my connections? If you're happy with that frequency, then perhaps you decide to move to, moreover, every two weeks or every week or so.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:05:29]:

 Interesting. Any the just high level tips, Daniel, for a business owner author, you're saying just by being on there, you're getting some search engine juice, even if it's just clicking through to your website?

 Daniel Alfon [00:05:43]:

 Right, go ahead. A very high level and simple system, I would suggest, is three questions. Question number one, who is your ideal reader on LinkedIn? Question number two, what action, Mike, would you like that person to perform once you visit your LinkedIn profile? And the last question, are we making it as seamless and easy for those people who visit your profile to go wherever you want them to go?

 Mike Capuzzi [00:06:11]:

 That's great.

 Daniel Alfon [00:06:12]:

 Yeah. The fact that LinkedIn is also a place for people to network for jobs is not relevant if you're not looking for a job. So forget about it and ask yourself who's the ideal reader and authors? It could be that in some cases the ideal LinkedIn reader is not necessarily the reader of their shook or their short term book, or their book at all. They may be interested in gaining traction from LinkedIn to go on a podcast tour, or to be connected with media celebrities, with bloggers, with people who could show their book or discuss their book, or help them get more eyes. Go to Amazon and visit their book.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:07:03]:

 Very interesting. Can I ask one more LinkedIn question? Because I'm actually interested in this also.

 Daniel Alfon [00:07:09]:

 Please don't stop.

  Mike Capuzzi [00:07:10]:

 So when you mike those connections, as I mentioned, I went on a little mini rant where I'll accept a connection. The next thing you know, you know you're getting some sort of AI generated. It's not someone sitting there saying hey Daniel, it's Mike, nice to meet you. It's this canned and then it keeps going on if you don't respond and all that stuff. Any just tip or best practice. Daniel, when either you make a connection with someone that you want to connect with, or vice versa, someone connects with you. How to use a direct message, do you recommend that often right away or any comments about that?

 Daniel Alfon [00:07:47]:

Sure. Can I suggest a totally different approach?

Mike Capuzzi [00:07:49]:

 Sure.

 Daniel Alfon [00:07:51]:

 So the question I would ask is if you had to pick one, would you rather be in 2026, the most connected or the best connected? And based on your answer, I would advise you to act differently on LinkedIn. If you want to be the most connected, then you're in for 34 30,000 followers or 40K LinkedIn followers. And that means you need to automate everything. And basically what you described earlier may apply. But for many authors who are not interested in being the most connected but the best connected, they should actually leverage the LinkedIn platform simply by connecting with a real life network. And the real life network could be 80 people, or 800 people, or 1200 people. The power is in their own network. Say I wanted to get introduced to Alex Sanfilippo and we just spoke and I noticed that you two are connected. The instead of cold messaging Alex, who's the co-founder, who's the founder of PodMatch,  PodPros, I would reach out to you if we really work together and I would say Mike, how you've been? I really want to speak with Alex. Do you know him well enough to make an introduction? This is old school pre LinkedIn social, right? But most of our best clients comes through referrals often. Most authors, they want to have it both ways. They want to have quantity and the want to have the quality. And the sad truth is that they're mutually exclusive.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:09:31]:

 Yeah.

 Daniel Alfon [00:09:32]:

 If you go to the size, then you can no longer know people you're connected with. And if you want to connect only with people, you know, then it couldn't be 40,000 people. Just pick one for the long term and that will help you leverage LinkedIn in a different way.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:09:46]:

 First of all, Daniel, thank you. It's an excellent, simple, yet profound strategy. And it really applies to, I think, social media in general, and even business interactions, really realizing where the real value, where the real connections happen. It's typically not for the most people. It's not when you have 100,000 followers and stuff like that. And for most business owners, that would be a huge, if not impossible, challenge. One other quick question, then we'll move to the since you brought up Alex and PodMatch, is there a way on LinkedIn to make that virtual introduction or is there a way to connect to someone? And I kind of wish I suggested this to even Alex on PodMatch. I wish there was a way on Pod Match, I could connect two people. If I was a guest on someone's show, I could in the system, connect two people. I don't think it's happened yet.

 Daniel Alfon [00:10:39]:

 Right. So LinkedIn has had some system to get introduced, but right now it's been discontinued. And still, if it's important, then I would advise you to take the time and hear me out to know when to leave the LinkedIn platform. Going back to our discussion, if you see someone you would be really interested in speaking with and you notice Jane Doe, you notice Peter George is a mutual connection and you've just released an episode with Peter George. Then by going to Peter's LinkedIn profile, if you're connected on LinkedIn, you would be able to see his email through his LinkedIn contact info. And even though, Mike, it would take you 40 seconds more, I would advise you to leave the LinkedIn platform to shoot him. A quick search to say, we've just released the episode. Thank you very much. By the way, I see that you connected with Jane Doe. Would you mind? Could you help me get introduced to her? It takes a bit more time, but the biggest secret, and I tell you this as a LinkedIn specialist, is to know when to leave the LinkedIn platform. LinkedIn has enabled you to find a person and the most important name is Peter. The person who can introduce you to that Jane Doe. Don't stay on LinkedIn. Leave LinkedIn where real business happens.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:12:01]:

 Yeah. And which is that that's exactly what I do. It's exactly how I do it. Not knowing that LinkedIn didn't have that, I just automatically go to either a phone call, really old school, or an email. But again, going back because we're going to talk about PodMatch here now, which is a platform for podcast hosts and guests, which you and I are both longtime members of and huge fans of. I know because we're both in PodMatch Guest Mastery. But I kind of wish Alex did build that in because I'm on it. Either as a host or a guest? Because I'm both. I'm always wanting to connect people and I have to then go out, like you're saying, and connect them via email, which is not a big deal, but it'd be kind of cool if it was in the system. Anyway, let's talk about PodMatch. Is that good?

Daniel Alfon [00:12:49]:

 Yes, sir.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:12:50]:

 So you were one of the co-authors in PodMatch Guest Mastery. I helped Alex publish two books in the fall of 2022, PodMatch Guest Mastery. PodMatch Host Mastery. Again, there's two distinct audiences in that platform. And for those listeners who might not know what PodMatch is, it is an online system that connects automatically pod Match excuse me, podcast hosts with podcast guests. And it does this through some algorithms and connections. And the way Alex describes it, as you well know, Daniel, is he calls it like a dating app for podcast and guests. So, very cool system. I highly recommend it. I'm a huge fan of it. So we published these two books and we knew that a lot of folks that are on PodMatch aren't utilizing the system as effectively as they could. So what we did is we interviewed some of the top guests, which is what you are, Daniel. You use it as a guest and then also hosts. And they shared their best practices, their best tips, which, again, we appreciate you being a part of that. Just out of curiosity, why did you even decide to participate in that book?

 Daniel Alfon [00:14:04]:

 I made so many mistakes.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:14:09]:

 On PodMatch.

Daniel Alfon [00:14:10]:

 PodMatch, yes, I made all the mistakes in the book and I wrote chapter I would have liked to read a year ago. It's been a real roller coaster, very interesting. I met amazing people and without the Pod Match system, it would have taken me a lot more time to do and probably I would not have met those interesting people. And I think the book is a great initiative because it can really help people on board and leverage the Pod Match system much faster. And there is no other way for us to work and share a message than podcast today. And, you know, the power of podcast and podcast, and I think it's a great initiative.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:15:01]:

 I agree 100%. I've met the most brilliant people, the nicest people, people like yourself that are just really smart about certain things that I can learn from. And again, I think if you haven't checked out PodMatch and you are a host, definitely check it out. And then for most book authors, and Daniel, I want to get your input on this, I think most nonfiction book authors should really look at leveraging a podcast guesting strategy to promote their book, to share their message. It doesn't cost you a whole lot of money, it's just your time and energy. Any feedback on that?

 Daniel Alfon [00:15:39]:

 Imagine that the Power of Podcast combined with LinkedIn can help you better prepare for the interviews, find better guests and find better hosts. Because when you go to someone's profile, you instantly view their LinkedIn profile. You can look at their website and you can see the number of episodes they've released. And you get a much better feel of whether this could be a good guest for author factor or whether you would like to be as a guest on that platform. And if you think about it, in the long term, the connecting with people you've just spoken with can bring you the clients you'd like to have in 2024. In 2025. So one very simple suggestion don't wait until you need that person to connect. Try to connect when you've had a meaningful relationship. If you just had a conversation with someone and you feel you're connected in a natural way, this is the ideal time for you to send the invitation. You get a high acceptance rate, you can follow that app. And don't wait for the time in six months down the road when you want to ask them for an introduction. Start with connecting on a human level when you know them well enough.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:17:07]:

 Great advice. So how have you just out of curiosity, you've written your own books with the LinkedIn book. Now you're a co-author and a compilation style book. How are you using the PodMatch Guest Mastery book? Are you using it in your marketing and as a way to meet other people?

 Daniel Alfon [00:17:28]:

 It won't surprise you, but the first value I got is from reading other contributors to the book.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:17:34]:

 Oh yeah.

 Daniel Alfon [00:17:35]:

 Both on the host side and the guest side. To become a better guest, you need to sharpen your skill set. And I've read amazing ideas I would never have considered from any guest, from any hosts. And this is the simplest way to leverage it. Of course there are more layers to it, but the questions are the same. But the answers are so different that anyone is likely to find at least one simple strategy that they would resonate with and they would be aligned with, and they would be able to do authentically much more than one, but at least one.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:18:18]:

 I was about to say, Daniel, and I'm not just saying this because I helped publish it, I got a lot of nuggets out of it. So to your point 100% and you don't even have to be a Pod Match member to get value out of these books. Yes, it helps because a lot of the feedback is based on certain Pod Match features. But I recommend both of these books to people who aren't on Pod Match because, again, understanding different ways of being a better guest and the value you can add to host shows. So without a doubt, if you're interested in podcasting at either level the books are on Amazon, you can go to PodMatchbooks.com. They're just great resources. Any other feedback or comments, Daniel, regarding.

 Daniel Alfon [00:19:06]:

 The PodMatch book in general, as you know, being an author increases your perceived authority for people. And that's something I learned with my first book. Each proposal I sent was accepted simply because people saw that I published a book. So the value was not in the dollars Amazon paid me. It's simply the way that when you Google, you would find a book, and when not enough people manage to write a book and self publish or publish it. So it makes you stand out from the crowd.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:19:47]:

 Without a doubt. I'm going to just ask you one last open-ended question before I ask you to share your information, but is there anything relative to either LinkedIn, your first book, podcasting, Pod Match, any question? I should have asked you that I did not ask you.

 Daniel Alfon [00:20:02]:

 I like the free flowing of our conversation and I don't want to overwhelm people. Get back to the basics. Ask yourself, who's your ideal reader? What action would you like them to perform? And are you making it as easy as possible for them? That's for the LinkedIn method and for PodMatch. Leverage the power of PodMatch and the PodMatch Mastery books, both for hosts and guests, in order to increase your revenues and grow your business in the years to come. Don't take it as a short, new shiny.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:20:39]:

 Think about it. Yeah. Again, Daniel. Such sage advice. Book publishing, book marketing, podcasting. It's not a short-term game. If you're in it for I'm going to try it for a couple of weeks and see what happens. Big mistake. It both are long term games, and I've been a guest now I can't believe it. For three years. I just can't believe it. It seems like yesterday I was like, Maybe I should do a podcast. And we're almost near 200 episodes. But, Daniel, this has been great. You've shared a lot of nuggets. I would encourage people to check out Pod Match Guest Mastery and read Daniel, the chapter. Where can our listeners learn more about you? If they're interested in helping you? Having helped them with LinkedIn, where can they reach you?

 Daniel Alfon [00:21:23]:

 Daniel, thank you very much. Go to DanielAlfon.com and there you'll find lots of information resources and giveaway. Thank you very much, Daniel.

 Mike Capuzzi [00:21:32]:

 Thank you. Appreciate your time today.