Yonah Weiss is a powerhouse with property owners' tax savings. Through cost segregation Yonah has assisted clients in saving tens of millions of dollars.Â
Yonah is a Cost Segregation Expert at Madison SPECS, which has done over 14,000 cost segregation studies covering all 50 states. The result of this effort is a whopping savings number, currently totaling over $3 billion.
But Yonah isn't just a cost segregation expert, he's also a LinkedIn guru who has carved out a very successful niche for himself on the platform.
Today, Yonah and I chat about LinkedIn best practices for real estate professionals and how we can all get in on the fun. No matter why you're looking to master the LinkedIn platform - whether it be to connect with potential investors, expand your network or just hoping to understand the LinkedIn post algorithm better, you've come to the right place.
What You're Going to Learn
Generate Engagement on LinkedIn and Incoming Business
You Will Show Up in Top-5 Google Search
Showcase Your Business for Free
Learn How to Use LinkedIn By Observing and Following
Add Value and Educate to Get More Clients
Write and Post Engaging Content Every Single Day
Engaging Content That People Can Relate To
Capturing Inspirational Moments for Social Media
A Thoughtful Comment That Might Spark a Conversation on Social Media
Generate Engagement on LinkedIn and Incoming Business
Adam: How did you discover LinkedIn and what was the process that you discovered was the most effective to generate engagement and business online?
Yonah: We'll kind of break it down as how this has progressed and where it started and what I'm using it for now specifically to generate a tremendous amount of engagement which leads to a tremendous amount of incoming business. And I think that's really the main goal of social media. It's really a twofold goal, which is, one, in creating communities. But that ties in with creating those communities with like-minded people who you will be doing business with because you'd like to do business with those people that you like, know, trust. You know, all those famous things.
You Will Show up in Top 5 Google Search
Adam: How did you discover LinkedIn and what was the process that you discovered was the most effective to generate engagement and business online?
Yonah: It started, I'd say, interestingly enough, as a sales job. I was looking at LinkedIn to find, both to find leads and to qualify leads. And LinkedIn is an incredible place because, and I urge anyone who is not driving right now, listening to this, if you are in front of a computer or your phone, type your name into Google, just Google yourself, OK? And I do this quite, from time to time and you will notice, if you have a LinkedIn profile, one of the top, unless you have an extremely common name like John Smith or something like that, I guarantee you that either the top search or within the top five searches/results on Google will be your LinkedIn profile. And when someone is searching you, whether they're going to do business with you or they just came across you and they want to invest with you or whatever it is, they're going to Google you and if one of those things comes up is LinkedIn, likely especially if it's at the top, they're going to click that.
Showcase Your Business for Free
Adam: How did you discover LinkedIn and what was the process that you discovered was the most effective to generate engagement and business online?
Yonah: When I found LinkedIn through Google, by mistake, and then realized that it's a great place to have a free profile, where you can showcase your business and likely, if someone searches you on Google, will click that link and find your business. It's basically a free website where they can showcase your business. You can put in there, you know, PDFs and videos and all kinds of things that talk about things you've done. If you have videos, if you have been on podcasts, etc., you can showcase all that stuff. You can talk about your business and most importantly, someone who's looking for you. If you write your profile, the right way, it can be number one, professionally looking, but it can also talk to that person who is looking for you and I found that to be just incredible.
Learn How to Use LinkedIn by Observing and Following
Adam: It is amazing. I would say, Yonah, the reason I'm interested is I want to tap it. I want to figure out how you do it because it's very, very interesting. It's beyond anything that I can contemplate.
Yonah: So, when I started LinkedIn, it was really just observing and I still do this a lot. And it's not just what people call "consuming content", it's more really observing and intuitively finding the people who get it and the people who know what they're doing and are successful at what they're doing, and then follow those people. Not follow in the sense of, just follow blindly like, what they're doing, but, watch them and learn from what's working and what's not working. And so, I didn't start by just posting and doing all that stuff because people who do that, really have no idea what they're doing. And you do all the wrong things. Similar to how I'm on Instagram, for example, I just started an Instagram account this year, a few months ago and I still don't know what I'm doing. But, I post there, you know, from time to time. But I'm observing. I'm watching and I'm learning that platform as well.
Add Value and Educate to Get More Clients
Adam: It is amazing. I would say, Yonah, the reason I'm interested is I want to tap it. I want to figure out how you do it because it's very, very interesting. It's beyond anything that I can contemplate.
Yonah: And so, from someone who is in the sales business, to an extent, and all of us are, business development, I am looking for more clients. I'm looking for more business. And we all are. You're looking for investors. There is that sales aspect to it. The approach is totally different. And the approach of two things I saw, which were very, very similar and spoke to me. One is that, the approach of: adding value, just giving and helping other people, and then they'll come to you. And the second thing which couples with that is, if you educate people about things they don't know about, then they will look to you as an expert and they will look to you as the person to turn to when they need help with that thing, whatever that is. So, those two approaches like, speak to my core, right. The teaching, I'm a born, natural teacher, that's what I do. That's what I did for a long time. And the giving, that's also is, part of who I am, like I love to give. I ran a nonprofit organization for many years. Right. I have a bunch of kids, six kids. So it's in my nature, part of who I am. So those two things really spoke to me.
Write and Post Engaging Content Every Single Day
Adam: How do you do that? What are we talking about in terms of the quality of what you're sending out there?
Yonah: One way is to, and I decided this very early on, after I observed for a long time, to write, post engaging content every single day, OK? Maybe excluding weekends, but, you know, every single day to be consistent so that people will recognize you. Because that's the other main thing about LinkedIn is that brand recognition. People see you and they immediately recognize you and your name and your tagline, which is what you do. That one line that's under your name on LinkedIn. You know how many people come to me and they just know, I'm the cost segregation expert, because that's what it says right under my tag line. And they say, I love all the content that you put out about cost segregation, even though very little of the content that I put out is actually about cost segregation. But they make that mental connection, of branding, that I'm the cost segregation expert because they see my name and they see that line, over and over and over and over and over again.
How to Create Engaging Content That People Can Relate To
Adam: What is the nature of the engaging content? You're not tapping into people's fascination for tact, right? You're tapping into something else. So, what is it that you're tapping into there?
Yonah: There's a lot of things and it is multifaceted but I will touch on a few things. One of those things is, like I said, creating consistent content every single day. And that can be about things in your life and it could be a variety of things. I talk a lot about real estate. I talk a lot about LinkedIn. I talk about creating communities. I talk about my podcast that I have now. I talk about things that are happening in my business, not necessarily about what I do, but things that a lot of people can relate to. For example, today I posted something about a cold call I once made to a billion dollar corporation and got chewed out by a CFO and then turned that into a win by responding in a positive way. That actually ended after, in a sale. That's something everyone can relate to. Yes, it was about cost segregation but anyone who is in a sales business or anyone that's in any business can relate to those sides. They've been on sales call, on the receiving end or, you know, a client. So, those type of things, something is happening in your business. Again, that's just an example of something that's happening in your life or in your business that you can share and people get to know you through that and relate to it.
Creating Engaging Content - Capturing Inspirational Moments for Social Media
Adam: What inspired you to write that? Were you thinking, oh, gosh, I need to write something today. What inspirational thing happened to me?
Yonah: When things are happening to you, that's when that emotion and that's when that comes out, that is most relatable. So, when something like that happens to you, sit down with a pad and paper, or with a Google doc or whatever it is you use to write, a notepad, and write something down. You can come back to it later, polish it up and make it fit, and save it. You don't necessarily have to use it now or today. You can use it a week from now or a year from now. And so that's an example of things. So, when I have an idea, I'll sit down, I'll write something down. But it's usually for me. It's when things are happening.
A Thoughtful Comment That Might Spark a Conversation on Social Media
Yonah: Another aspect I want to go deep into this next thing, which is not about creating content. It's more about the real engagement on LinkedIn happens in the messaging. Number one, and in the comments of other people's posts. So that's what I call engaging.
Adam: OK.
Yonah: That's free, okay? It's free and you're adding value. You actually add more value to someone else in multiple ways by commenting on other people's posts than actually writing your own posts. So, instead of putting out 10 pieces of your own content today, that might be seen by collectively, let's say, a thousand people, one hundred people see each post, you could comment ten times on ten other people's posts with a thoughtful comment that might actually spark a conversation and that might be seen by 10 times or 50 times or 100 times more people, which, again, that's your name, your face, your name, your tagline, what you do, that's being seen over and over and over and over again. And it's seen in that positive light where you're adding value. You're helping other people.
How to Engage With Social Media Comments - Social Media Marketing 2021
Adam: What other tactics? You've talked about a few, like commenting on other people's posts...
Yonah: One of the biggest things, I would say is to, engage on your own post, okay? So people are commenting. Like every comment. Respond to every comment. Every single action that happens on a post actually tells the algorithm that this is something that is being noticed and being engaged with. We're going to show this to more people. And so, for your post to be seen by more people, which is ultimately one of the main goals, okay, the more eyeballs you get on you and your content, the better. Again, because this all comes back to the branding and people seeing you. So, that's a huge pro tip there that a lot of people ignore, you know, especially big, big people who. They'll have all their posts automated. And so they're not even checking in on LinkedIn and so the posts are going out there and they have no idea who's even going to be commenting on that.
