Meet Louise Brogan | LinkedIn Consultant, YouTuber & Speaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Louise Brogan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Louise, is there something you can share with us that those outside of the industry might not be aware of?
Most people created LinkedIn accounts when they first entered the workplace. So they can often assume it is a platform that business use to recruit and individuals use to find work.

It DOES offer this, but it also offers so much more.

LinkedIn is the social media platform for B2B marketing. Building relationships, networking, connecting with existing and potential future clients. If your CEO wants to be seen as a thought leader within your industry, LinkedIn is one of the easiest tools to use. Sharing your thoughts, ideas, starting discussions – all within your area of expertise, can lead to new business opportunities, requests for speaking, podcast invitations and more.

When we start working with clients, they often complain that LinkedIn has long been a source of spam, sleazy sales messages and worse. But we help them to narrow down their network, focus on. building the RIGHT relationships, and speaking up, so that they can start to get visibility, leading to leads and sales.

Viewing LinkedIn as a online version of your favorite industry conference can help with this. Imagine you walk into a conference – would you walk up to people handing out your business card without a word? I don’t think so. So why send connection requests on LinkedIn without a note? At this same conference, you probably will meet people and strike up a conversation. LinkedIn is the same! Sharing posts, commenting on others posts is your way of having conversations with your network. To extend this analogy, if you imagine your personal profile on LinkedIn is you walking around the conference engaging with people, then your Company Page can act as your sponsor booth at the conference. Somewhere people go to check out your company, what you offer, who works there and more.

LinkedIn has come a long way since the place we went to find our next job. Don’t miss out on the opportunities it offers.
At our LinkedIn Marketing Agency, we help our clients by creating content FOR them, so all they need to do, is connect and have conversations. Taking the hard starting place off your plate: what do you say, how often do you say it, and when do you say it – all done for you.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I started my business in 2013 and it has evolved a lot! We started out helping businesses with all of social media, and five years ago, niched down into LinkedIn marketing. What sets us apart, is my thirst for knowledge on how LinkedIn works, our professionalism and our complete enthusiasm for helping our clients to leverage LinkedIn. My clients comment on how our monthly calls cheer them up as I am one of life’s positive people.

How did I get here? I realised I needed to build the job I wanted for myself, as a mum of three small children, my employers put limits on how far I could go. I have build a business that works for both my ambitions AND my family. Pushing through limiting beliefs, we now have a team of six and work with clients from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Lessons I have learned include having belief in yourself, backed up with continual learning and improvement, I recommend you focus on your way forward – not on what other people are doing. Everything is recoverable. During the pandemic, in the first few months, we lost most of our business. After picking myself up, and networking (through LinkedIn!) we changed from mainly offering training and consultancy, to focus on building a business with monthly retainer clients – now we know how much money is coming in for the next six months and can build the business based on real numbers, not hope!

I am most proud of being named UK Small Business of the Year in 2021, and being invited to No.10 Downing Street and the House of Lords on several occasions, to represent small business in the UK.

I would like the world to know that we pride ourselves on exceptional content, delivered in a timely fashion, and our goal is to work with professional service based businesses who deserve the visibility we can offer them on LinkedIn.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Oh my goodness Northern Ireland is a delight to visit! I recently had a US friend from Colorado visiting – we started with food in the Cathedral Quarter of Belfast . We drove out to the Titanic Hotel and had scones with jam and cream in the Drawings Room where the Titanic was actually designed. You can have a look at the offices, completely restored, of the owners of the White Star Line, the Captain’s office and more. Walk across the path to the Titanic Exhibition centre for a full tour of the TItanic Experience. Then take a day to head up to the gorgeous north coast – we went to the Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, with a drop in for lunch to the Bothy coffee (yum) – delightful food and gorgeous views of both fields with sheep (my Colorado friend was enamoured with the Irish sheep) and the N.Irish coastline. If you are a Game of Thrones fan (and even if you are not), don’t miss Ballintoy Harbour and a trip to the Dark Hedges.

Take a day out to visit the second city – Derry – walk the ancient city walls and check out the murals including the recent one for Derry Girls. There are plenty of great hotels, but for a real warm welcome, try staying in one of the glamping sites. Toasting marshmallows around a communal firepit is hard to beat.

For your final days, try to head south to the Mourne Mountains – there are walks for every level, gorgeous ancient forests and plenty of options for food. You could stay in the Slieve Donard hotel or head back to Belfast, stopping in Montalto Estate or one of the many National Trust houses – our favourites are Rowallane and Castle Ward. (Castle Ward is another Game of Thrones spot – where they filmed Winterfell and you can also camp here, if you book early enough).

A week is not long enough in Northern Ireland! Come for two.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would love to Shout Out Shelli Warren, leadership coach and huge supporter of women in business. I have known Shelli for over five years, and even though I live in Northern Ireland, and she lives in Canada, we have become firm friends. Shelli sends me encouragement, has referred me to her clients, and even sent me a gorgeous box of Canadian goodies from the Thousand Islands region where she lives. We are both podcasters, and I met her in person when I spoke at the BizChix Live conference in LA back in 2019. The whole team at BizChix have been instrumental in helping me to build this buisness – from CEO and coach Natalie Eckdahl, to their accountabliity coach, Elizabeth Cook and behind the scenes, the wonderful Tiffanie Jordan. I have plans to come visit Tiffanie in Nashville one day, so we can hang out and go see some music together.

I quit my job to start this business, and my husband was the one who encouraged me to take the leap. I was pretty miserable in my last role, working part time as an IT Project Manager while our children were all under 10 – he could see the potential in the business, and we decided that life was too short to deal with negative people, and that if the business didn’t work out, I could always get another job!

Website: www.louisebrogan.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/louisebrogan_

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/LouiseBrogan

Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/linkedinwithlouise

Image Credits
Tara Torrens Photography