Stop Overthinking LinkedIn: How to Step Out With Confidence and Differentiate Yourself With Sarah Clay

Now is the time to stop overthinking LinkedIn and start becoming visible and known for your expertise business as a B2B founder and expert. 

Whether you're just getting started on the platform or want to become more consistent, this episode is for you. Learn how to overcome your most pressing fears about putting yourself out there on LinkedIn, the 3 tips to starting small and staying consistent, plus our best advice for differentiating your content in the age of AI.

Each episode of the Own Your Lane® Personal Branding Podcast highlights one of the four steps of the Own Your L.A.N.E. roadmap to help you gain clarity, confidence, and a clear path to growing your influence and impact.

L: Launch Your Vision – Lead with clear intention and purpose
A: Articulate Your Difference – Define what uniquely sets you apart
N: Navigate Your Presence – Shape your personal brand foundation
E: Elevate Your Authority – Grow impact and influence with publicity

This week, we're focusing on "A- Articulate Your Difference" with host Michelle B Griffin and expert guest, author, and UK-based LinkedIn trainer Sarah Clay who is here to tell us exactly how to get over ourselves and get out on LinkedIn, in a way that feels doable, relatable and repeatable.

LINKS

Connect with Sarah Clay on LinkedIn

Sarah's Book, Employee Advocacy on LinkedIn

Ready to Own Your Lane? - The Brand Leaders® Podcast

Michelle B. Griffin is a keynote speaker, personal brand and PR strategist, author, podcaster and LinkedIn® visibility expert who helps high-achieving professionals elevate their visibility and influence for business growth.

As the founder of Brand Leaders® Executive Branding and creator of the Own Your Lane® Recognition Roadmap, she helps B2B founders, leaders and industry experts position their personal brands and leverage LinkedIn + PR to grow influence, increase demand, and become top-of-mind authorities to accelerate business growth.

Book a chat with Michelle to discuss speaking, advising or workshops to scale visibility, influence, and business growth. MichelleBGriffin.com/chat

WEBSITE: MichelleBGriffin.com
EXECUTIVE BRANDING ADVISORY: Brand Leaders
READ: My Personal Branding Books
LISTEN: The LinkedIn Branding Show
CONNECT: With Me on LinkedIn

Transcript

 Welcome. I'm your host, Michelle B. Griffin. As an author, speaker, and certified personal brand and PR strategist,  I'm here to empower you to get visible, build your personal brand, and own your lane as a visible brand authority and thought leader in your space.  I'm super excited you're here. Now let's get going with today's show. Welcome to Own Your Lane, podcast Sarah Clay from the UK who is an amazing speaker, author, and LinkedIn trainer. And livestream host. How are you doing today? I personal branding is about, humanizing us. Being real relatable and that's what we're gonna talk about today. We are talking about how to humanize your brand and just stand on LinkedIn being you being human and being different.

So Sarah, let's start. How do we do this now? You know, the world has changed and there's so much AI automation, and let me tell you what I just read an article on, and I hope this is not the truth, but I read a post, that. Meta is gonna be populating Facebook, maybe Instagram.

I read with fake AI profiles.  Why? Wow, why? Just to get engagement. So people are talking to fake people. I don't know, I gotta go research that. But that was so alarming to me, and it begs the question, where is the human connection and all this? So let's talk about it. Sarah, you're LinkedIn trainer, you're specialist in this.

How do we start? Oh my word. So what a hideous story. What a hideous idea. And one of the other things actually that I've noticed is that I am getting comments on my posts, which are clearly written by ai, and it's hideous. They're awful, and it's so obvious that they're written by ai. But why? Why do we do this?

Because what we're trying to do here, what the purpose of LinkedIn and connecting with people is so that we can actually connect with real people in order to get to know them, do business with them, collaborate with them, whatever the reason. And if you are using ai, that's just not fulfilling that function whatsoever.

So that's crazy. And that to me is the beauty of LinkedIn and that's why I fell in love with the platform is because we can actually talk to people properly. And you and I met on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. I have met all the people I know on LinkedIn, via LinkedIn. There's no other sort of in-between way. And it's the most incredible platform for building relationships with people.

And that's what we're here for. So guys, just get rid of the ai. We don't want that. not in the context of taking over us. No, exactly. There's definitely a place for ai, but we are, so I have been thinking about what LinkedIn has been looking like and what it's.

Going to look like and it's not only LinkedIn, it's across all social platforms. People want to talk to people. People wanna know who we are. So it's really important that we are being ourselves because that's what people are buying. So whatever our personality is, maybe somebody likes it.

Maybe somebody doesn't, but if somebody likes who you are, they're more, much more likely to buy from you. And if you are showing yourself as you, you are being authentic, you're being real. People know what they're going to get. So by being ourselves on LinkedIn, we are showing our personalities and that's. 

All we need to do. It's our superpower. It's all we've got. And sometimes we think, oh, this or this about me. No, that's the one thing that makes you different and, you know helps you attract the right people. We're not here for a team. Everybody. We're here for team, somebody right In the context. We're not talking.

I. To everyone. We shouldn't be, but I know, I know it. We on paper, it's like Michelle and Sarah. I get it. It makes so much sense. But here's the thing. I think, and the reason I spent all last year writing Own Your Lane, the book, and now the platform and book series is because people wanna get out there, they wanna show, we're talking to the people who wanna get out there actually, right?

But they're, they're scared. They're held back and just being you, what does that mean? And so. What I see is that we start comparing ourselves. We look and then we start modeling what other people do thinking, oh, that works for them. They're getting a attraction and attention. But that is just making you a commodity and blend in.

And then so when you do step out, it's like no one's paying attention 'cause you sound like the masses. And so you and I are here and really saying, this is the year to humanize ourselves to really define our difference so we not only. Sound and resonate externally, but inside, you know that feeling, Sarah, when you just flow, you got it, or you're at a meeting or something you're introducing and people get it and the right people start talking to you.

It's a magical moment, isn't it? Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that's exactly what we really need to talk and that's what I wanna talk about today. 'cause you and I both get on LinkedIn, we help people in different ways. But do you find that with your clients to be the number one roadblock on getting out there and standing out?

It's, yeah, people find it hard. People think that LinkedIn is all about being formal, being, not being themselves at all and being this kind of professional, if you like, version of themselves. And in fact, bizarrely, I was working with somebody this morning who's a lawyer.  Lawyers, you know, they're very much, they want to be very professional on LinkedIn and talk about their skills, their expertise.

And I've done this and I've done that, and that's great and there's nothing wrong with that at all. But there are lots and lots of people who do the same things as, you do as we do. And how are you gonna differentiate yourself? So talk about. Something personal. Talk about why you do what you do, what drove you to be where you are.

Talk about the fact, so for example, this client I was with this morning, talk about the fact that you have house rabbits. You know, she, she said, really, I can say that. I said, not only, yes, you can say, but you should. Say it because I'm sorry, but you are kind of tenor. Penny. There's a lot of people who are good at what you do, but show your personality and that's the difference.

Find out what it is that's different and yet, okay, talk about your rabbits, your geckos, your music loves, whatever it is, and that's gonna be the start. To separate you. That's not the only thing that's going to cause some intrigue. It's going to make people think, oh, this person's a bit different. They're not just your average a, B, C person.

They've got something slightly different about them. And let's talk about that and let's have some conversation starters as well. 'cause people need that. People need something to hang onto. And you know, if you've got something slightly unusual or slightly. I don't know, just slightly different in your profile in you as a whole.

People are gonna warm to that. Absolutely no question. Absolutely. And you know, before I launched my consultancy, I was in the legal and insurance business four years doing marketing events, communications, pr, all that. And I know how buttoned up it's. But the world has changed, you know, five years we'll be marking, you know, the pandemic and a lot of good things came from it.

The fact that we can, you know, be more freer and you know, still be our professional selves. I have a word for that. I call it professional, not professional, professional. It's a blend of being personable because I have a lot of people go, Michelle, I wanna get out there, but I don't wanna share my, I'm a private person.

No, being personal and personal are two different things. Yeah. We want that relatability to start that conversation. LinkedIn is actually their tagline is where business conversations happen, but at the same time is, you know, you're not here to be a. Comedian or entertainer, right? Because we still have an expert professional side.

So the other side is professional. So tell us about what you do and Sarah, one of the things, you know, when I started on LinkedIn posting every single day and four years ago as a challenge to myself, so for ai and before the masses started really coming in, before I got hot and popular, a lot of how-to content was like the thing, right?

And it still has its place. What I'm seeing is more how I do it, how I see it, how I failed, how I learned lessons. And I think people, that's the level leveraging playing field that we all just kind of wanna hop into and get to know each other. And I think that's what we should look for in 2025 and beyond.

Absolutely. And I think the other thing is telling stories. Mm-hmm. Tell your stories. People love the story. So it's not just, I do this, I do that, I do the do the other. It is talking about your why. It's talking about your journey, talking about who you are in here. You know? Mm-hmm.  And, and that's really, really important.

And I think people have realized that we work hard, you know, in our working lives we work very hard, so we wanna work with people that we like that obviously, you know, that we trust. And I think by telling stories, you can build that trust with people because they really even resonate with what you're saying.

And if they can't resonate with what you're saying, then you're not meant for each other. And as you quite rightly said, Michelle, you know, you can't work with everybody. Mm-hmm. So by really showing your personality, you're gonna help find your lane as you talk about, and, and find your niche. And it, it works across everybody.

On LinkedIn. So as you know, I've written my book, which was published in September 20, 25. Mm-hmm. Not long ago. It's still very new. And that's all about getting employees in companies out there on LinkedIn, telling their stories, talking about what they do and why they work for the company they work for, what do they love about it, what do they do in their job and, and how they've ended up there.

And it really makes a difference to the audience for each employee. Also for the employee themselves, it gives them the confidence. Yes, it gives them much more gravitas. And it creates this wonderful team of people who get to know each other better. They work together better. And of course, it attracts more people to the company page and to the company itself.

So there's so many pluses for it. Absolutely. It's such a connected culture and feel when you, when you do that, and that's why you know, when I'm developing some new keynotes this year and workshops with Own Your Lane, it's, they're all centered around my brand. Yellow fun. I put back and I had a long time ago and I took it out 'cause I ran outta room or something.

I put back eighties music fan because I love music, I love eighties stuff. In fact. One of my keynotes I've developed recently is all about let's get visible all around the let's get physical eighties themes.  So I find that people just resonate and that's the people I love working with. You know, people are really smart.

Driven, ambitious, and they like to have fun, you know, and I'm not being silly and stupid. There's a place to be having fun, relatability, and still get a heck of a lot of work done and be successful. So those are the people I love surrounding myself and I'll, I'll be honest, when I came into LinkedIn after being in insurance and legal, nothing wrong with that.

Back then, it was so buttoned up. So I had to unpeel the layers because. Me in real life. I'm very extroverted and fun, but you put me on LinkedIn and I'm sure this is like this for a lot of people I work with too. It's like, oh, LinkedIn, we have to be a different part of ourselves. No, no, no, no. The biggest compliment we can have is like, Michelle, you're in person just, or you're on, you're the same online and offline.

And that's what I think is the greatest thing I strive for. Absolutely my personal brand about you? Absolutely. Yeah. No, 100%. And it's quite interesting because you know, people come to me and they say, wow, your brand is so strong and so powerful. I didn't do that deliberately. Mm-hmm. This has just happened.

And in fact, is it really five years since lockdown? That's crazy. Yes. So after lockdown, when we started meeting in person, I had built my audience, tripled my audience on LinkedIn during lockdown. It was crazy because everybody needed. You know, some way to connect with others and you know, people turn to LinkedIn, et cetera, et cetera.

So after lockdown, when we were meeting in person, people were literally saying exactly that to me, saying, wow, you're exactly the same as you are on LinkedIn. And I was flabbergasted by that because I was thinking, why would you be anything different? Yes. But of course people are because they see this barrier and it's almost like the computer screen is the barrier.

Yes, yes. I've gotta be different. It really is. Yeah. Its not, it's crazy. Shouldn't be. No, absolutely not. And I think I, you know, I say to my clients so often, just pretend you're in a real life situation. So LinkedIn is the biggest networking party in the world. Mm-hmm. And we love a party.  So just imagine when you are commenting on somebody's post, just imagine that you are, you're not commenting on somebody's post, but you are talking to that person in a room, in a circle.

You're all standing around and you are just chipping in with your thoughts and your views, and that's what you write in the comments.  And it's not hard. Stop overthinking it. Just be yourselves.  Absolutely. And it just makes it much easier.  Oh, you don't have to think too hard. Just say, this is me. I write like I talk and you know, it makes it so much easier.

And our analogies are very very much alike. I think when I was on your show last month, I call it, and I've said this before, that LinkedIn, I think of it as the world's biggest business conference. And so there's so many people, you know, billion people.  You know, registered if maybe 300 are active, and then even less and less actually show up to the breakout sessions, IE the posts.

So how do you get seen by the right people and more they wanna add? Well, you know, we're not gonna go do posts probably in finance. In, you know, aerospace engineering, Elise, I'm probably not. I'm gonna go where, you know, I wanna have a conversation. I have expertise to share and just learn from others. So go find that post IE breakout session.

That's how you start warming up and getting to know people and just start commenting. And I know, and you know, you and I have been on LinkedIn for a long time. We teach people, but we have to go back. We are the curse of knowledge. We have to go back and remember. It's hard. What it's like to even do a comment, right?

I mean, that can be really intimidating for people. So I say maybe even start just showing up as half the battle, start liking and then commenting and and I think you get your legs that way and then it builds up. And it is hard. I remember, and I do tell this story quite a lot. My second ever post on LinkedIn was a video. I decided I was gonna do a video as my second ever post on LinkedIn many, many moons ago. I spent a. All day recording that video. Literally all day. I got my tripod, I got my phone and I stood in different places in my house.

I don't like that background. I didn't like this, I don't like that. And I couldn't, didn't know how to edit in those days. So it had to be a one take. And quite frankly, it was rubbish. But I did it. And by the end of the day, I had to go and pick up the kids from school. So I thought, right, I need to post something.

And I chose one of the videos, thought, right, this is just going to have to do. And I hit post and I felt. Physically sick. Mm-hmm. I was so scared so that I was putting this thing out and you know what happened?  Nothing. Yes.  You know, I didn't blow up. LinkedIn didn't blow up. LinkedIn didn't ban me. And in fact, a couple days later I got an inquiry from somebody I had met years and years ago saying, oh, I've seen your video on LinkedIn.

I didn't know you did that. Now can we talk and I've got a client. Nice. Yes. That's awesome. Just do it. It's just, and, but it, I can see that it's hard. So I always say to people, start with people that you know. Yes. So it doesn't matter whether they're your target audience, target clients, it absolutely doesn't matter.

Find people that you know on LinkedIn, family, friends, anybody, and just start commenting on their posts to get you into the groove and start doing it. And that is a really, really nice way to start. And your audience will grow and you'll gradually, your confidence will grow. And then off you go. That's a great idea. Familiarity is everything, right? Absolutely. And talking of, you know, parties and conference, if you went to a networking party, you wouldn't just hide in the corner with a, you know, a cup of cup of cold coffee. What's the point of doing that? What's the point in going to the networking party and just standing in the corner and not talking to anybody?

Go and talk to people. And that's what you do on LinkedIn. That's all you are doing is just going and saying hi.  Okay, people are gonna say. But I don't have time. I don't have anything to say. No one wants to hear from me. It's all been said before and I say, you know, rubbish to all that going back to our initial start of this whole conversation, we need more human people. We don't listen to one book, or music we liked. Variety. We like when we wanna hear something in an area, we listen to many songs about it in that genre, or the books or podcasting or whatever.

So I have learned so much from people. They may have said something someone else said, but they said it in a way that resonated with me right in that moment. So you never know the impact you're gonna make for someone, and it doesn't have to be this incredible profound, you know, Pulitzer Prize post. It's just being real.

In fact, even better now, we want the real relatable, and dare I say, raw stuff versus the polished and pretty perfect of Instagram. That stuff's over. No one wants that.  Be frank. It's a lot easier to do that. So we are, we're given permission because I waited five years when I was wanting to launch into entrepreneurship.

I waited five years just really binging on content and courses, credentials, thinking that's the way to get all the answers. And no, it's just PYOT putting yourself out there. And that's why I have that back there and I talk about it all the time, is once you get out there, like you said, with familiar people who will just be your, your people and start walking you out there, I.

The action, the ideas and that beautiful confidence just starts bubbling up. Absolutely. I know that people are frightened of being judged. I. Yes. So, you know, it's like, well, if I say that is, you know, you just said, oh every, no one's interested. Everybody will think I'm boring, everybody think I'm stupid, blah, blah, blah.

But here's a secret. When you first start on LinkedIn and you have very few followers, when you post, very few people will see that post. Yeah. So you are not gonna offend. Yeah,  you are gonna be seen by so few people that if you get it wrong or if it's not quite what you mean to say, it doesn't matter. It really, really doesn't matter because unfortunately, or fortunately, not many people will see it unless you start, you know, until you start building the traction around that. 

So, you know, give it a go while you've got a small audience while you are new. And then while your audience builds, you'll get more confidence. It will happen. It definitely will.  Absolutely. What happens is we groomed for social media think, oh, we need the likes and all the things. And so we give up because it's not there, but it's, yet the people that we see who are farther ahead of us, they're not better than us.

They're just starting. They're out there, they stayed in it. And that's, you can just get over that hurdle, that mindset, and a lot of people, and I've seen, here's just to make everyone feel better. I've seen people with, you know.  Tens and tens of thousands of followers and they don't get any traction. But then I've seen people with small, you don't need a lot to make a huge impact.

I see people who are New York Times bestselling authors that have, you know, a small audience, but yet I know they're rocking stages and their bank accounts are filling up and selling books and all that. So don't let LinkedIn's post impressions or count dictate your worth. Because it is no indication.

It's just you showing up and the better you stay in there, whatever consistent and committed means to you. The better. And I'll be honest, back in 2021, I post every day. It was amazing. I got all this stuff and then the next year I'm like, oh, that was tiring. But you've gotta stay consistent because here's what happens when you fall off and you quit doing, or you say you're too busy, it's harder to come back.

You start overthinking again that little voice inside. So it's better just to stay slow and steady wins the race. That's one of my slides in one of my presentations, the hair and the rabbit. But thing is about being consistent. That's what builds the trust.

Absolutely. And you can, you know, people will not buy from you if they don't trust you, but if you are co consistently, and as you say, whatever consistent means for you, but if you're consistently there. On LinkedIn, and it's not even necessarily consistently posting, it's being consistently there in the comments and being consistently there talking to people.

That's gonna build the trust over time. And if you drop off, people will, they will think, well, where are you? What, where have you gone? Yes. They won't, they actually, they won't think that. They'll just stop thinking about it. Yes. Because you are not there and you know, yes. Take a break. We all need a break. I took two weeks off and it was the most amazing, you know, incredible thing I ever did.

'cause I've never done that before. But you know, I've come back and my audience is still there. Because I've managed to build over the 10, 12 years, I've been consistently on LinkedIn. I've built this audience by being consistently there every, every day, every second day, every third day, whatever it is. I'm there.

I'm there, I'm there, and people are seeing me. And they're just seeing more of me. And you know, people say to me, damn, won't people be sick of me? So I use this analogy, another one. 'cause I love analogies. When you're driving along the motorway or highway or whatever and you see the big yellow M sign.

You might think,  Hmm, do I need a burger? No, I'm okay.  A few miles later, you'll see another one, you think, maybe I do need a burger. And then by the time you've seen three or four of these yellow s, you are doing the drive-in and you are ordering your milkshake and your burger and everything because you've seen it and it's literally wet your appetite and you know it's there.

And that's what being on LinkedIn consistently does. It just reminds people that you are there. If you are adding value, you are being kind, you're being nice, you're being yourself. People will know who you are, and you are creating that all important trust. So stay in the game. It's never too late. In fact, I opened up my giant calendar. And it said every day is a perfect day to start. So, you know, I used to get so hung up. Oh, it's not January 1st. I'll wait till this, no, start now.

Because time is our most precious, non-renewable, gifts. It's a lesson learned. I wouldn't say it's a.  I regret it, but those five years that I just kind of wasted looking for permission looking at content and not putting myself out there, took me like two years into it of finally, and then three more years to really get my plan and get out there. And that's my story now, but I, know that I could have gotten out farther, so you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be present. So True. I have a sort of a mixture of posts and videos and things like that, and I started just recording videos on my phone as I was doing my walk to the tube.

And I started publishing these, and they've started to do really well. So then I thought, well, let me polish them a bit. Let me, you know, get an editor in and make some nice videos. I do some of those as well, and of course the ones that do better are the ones with just me talking.

I'm holding the phone. It's a bit bumpy. It may be raining, whatever, whatever. Those are the videos that always do best that people love it's incredible  I don't wanna sack my video editor 'cause I should quite like my nice polish.  There's a place for those too, but the real quick ones are what we need.

So I think that's something to embrace  in fact, on my, you know, everyone has different rollouts, but when I go on my desktop and I think on mobile, it'll say on the post thing, start a post. Put your video or write a text post or something like that. Like it's queing you to put video. I've never seen that.

That's new. So we're giving you permission because we are trying to do it too. We are not perfect. We're just trying to be present and encourage you and, 'cause I know what it's like. To be on the sidelines and want so much to be out there and you feel you overthink it, you're scared your imposter syndrome gets the best of you, but just know that you have a message, a mission, a platform or story, something that can benefit someone.

And isn't that the thing about what life is? Just to pay it forward and make an impact on someone else and you never know that ripple effect can just snowball to greatness. And so we won't know you unless you're out there. 

I'd love if you could let everyone know where to follow you. Your book about employee advocacy.

'cause I know you write about it, you train about it and you speak about it. And I know when I was on your show, we were talking about how you're gonna just start your publicity, PR campaign, all the things. So that is such an evergreen needed topic. What's one quick tip you'd love to give everyone to humanize and stand out and differentiate themselves because we are talking about step A of own, your lane a search or difference.

What would you say? To be different on LinkedIn. Just visualize everything you do on LinkedIn as a real life situation and be yourself.

And you cannot be more different than being yourself.  I love it. It's your superpower. Alright, Sarah, thank you again thank you all for listening as always, keep putting yourself out there.

You have a brand to build, a message, to share, and people to impact. I'll catch you next time. Take care. That's all for today. In the meantime, are you ready to grow your visibility, personal brand, and thought leadership? Then head on over to michellebgriffin.  com for free resources to get started and get going today. And until next time, thanks for listeni