💪 Your most surprising strength

Leadership tools to sharpen your competitive edge

Photo by ALAN DE LA CRUZ on Unsplash

Your competitive advantage in 2024 may not be what you think it is.

This week, we’re digging into our most important tools as leaders.

Today’s agenda:

🧠 Our advantage over AI

🔗 Boosting sales with LinkedIn

🗣️ Presenting content with confidence

💼 Briefly: Marketing challenges & AI influencers

⏱️ Up & coming: Social media monitoring

🤯 The brain’s competitive edge

In a world obsessed with AI’s potential, what is humanity’s enduring edge?

If we look at penicillin’s accidental origins, it may be in our ability to make and learn from mistakes.

Our fallibility is an asset

In an essay for Fast Company, Eric Markowitz shares his insights on humans vs. AI:

• Our ability to embrace “randomness, luck, and flexibility” can lead to breakthroughs

• We have the freedom to embrace “unconventional thinking” and try new paths

• Human intuition is able to uncover deeper meaning and context

• “Softer skills” are becoming more important—compassion, emotional intelligence, etc.

• The ability to experience joy is linked to increased creativity

💡 Markowitz concludes that our most profound innovations were fueled by “uniquely human experiences”—which, for now, will remain our edge.

🏅 LinkedIn: The unsung marketing hero

LinkedIn’s professional, business-focused audience and robust search tools make it an ideal platform for finding qualified leads.

According to Social Media Examiner, its algorithm also is advancing—feeds once dominated by “fluffy, motivational content” are now favoring posts with “subject matter expertise.”

Techniques for using LinkedIn for sales

LinkedIn expert Hala Taha has the following insights:

• Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to filter prospects by job title, companies, past companies, locations, and more

• Join LinkedIn Groups related to your industry to engage with others and share content

• Find your ideal prospects and look at the groups they are in and who they are engaging with

• Request to connect with a personalized message that explains why you are reaching out

• Send your connections direct messages that include a relevant, valuable lead magnet

💡 Taha says the key is to create a consistent daily routine for connecting and engaging with others on the platform.

🌟 It’s not your job to know everything

Webinars and workshops are excellent marketing tools that help to build your brand, engage with customers, and generate leads.

But if you’re faced with imposter syndrome or a lack of confidence in front of an audience—especially if this audience contains other professionals in your field— professional speaker and facilitator Deborah Grayson Riegel has some advice:

• Reaffirm your self-worth: Understand your strengths, and facilitate conversation in areas where you may be lacking

• Be humble, but don’t undermine your credibility: Have respect for other viewpoints, and be willing to revise your viewpoint when given new information

• Invite others’ experiences, but don’t let them take the stage: If your audience includes seasoned professionals, you can acknowledge them and invite them to provide another perspective once you’ve given your take

💡 No matter who ends up in your audience, remember your goals and the purpose of the workshop—while also leaving room to adapt and shift gears if necessary.

Briefly

💼 If TikTok is banned, it could be an “extinction-level event” for many creators, who may have to start their careers over from square one

🤖 New data finds that burnout is pushing more workers to use AI—whether their bosses allow them to or not

📱 Study reveals that Gen Z may have a much different view of authenticity on social media—namely because they don’t care if influencers are humans or AI

📈 Small business owners cite finding new customers and measuring performance as the top marketing challenges they face, according to a new survey

⌛ Should outdated content be removed? Not always, says Google

Up & Coming

Should you be monitoring what people are saying about your business on social media?

Learn how you can use social media monitoring to join the online conversations about your brand—and discover more about your customers and competitors.