How the U.S. Navy recruits doctors on LinkedIn

Transcription

Matt: Imagine you're a doctor making $500,000 per year. A recruiter calls you up and says, the pay is lower, the offer is non-negotiable, and you may have to deploy. That's when most people hang up. But today's guest has convinced hundreds of people to say yes without negotiating once. Michael Yolone leads physician recruiting for the U.S. Navy, and he doesn't use cold emails or job boards. He uses LinkedIn. In this episode, we break down how to post on LinkedIn when you know your boss is watching, how to recruit when you can't even negotiate, and why trust beats incentives every time. Let's get into it. Welcome to Connection Accepted. Today, we have Michael Yolone on the show. Michael, thanks for joining us. Daniel: Yeah. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. Matt: Michael, for the audience that hasn't met you yet or hasn't followed you on LinkedIn, can you give us a quick background on who you are and what you do? Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So I've been in the Navy for about, coming up on 18 years in July, and I'm originally from South Jersey. If I had to pick a place to call home that I spent, I guess, the majority of my pre-adulthood life. I was an army brat for a little while, and so I kind of bounced around the country and did a stint at a community college and realized just because you're smart doesn't mean you're prepared for higher education or things of that nature. And so the Navy, I was like, Hey, I just want to join one of the service branches, you know, serve for four years, get out, go to a big school for free and then figure it out. And so I was initially going to join the Marine Corps, you know, because that's what you do when you're 18 years old. You think, you know, I'm going to go run and fight and do the cool guy stuff. I'm thankfully now, and I appreciate those folks, right? That's a special breed of individuals that we need. But I'm glad that there was nobody in the Marine Corps office when I went to join the Navy that day, or rather when I went to go join the service that day. And in fact, there was only that Navy recruiters there. So I was in the, what we call the delayed entry program. It's kind of like when you sign up versus like when you actually go to bootcamp. It's designed to, you know, mentor and train and all the things. So bootcamp is not as big of a shell shock or a culture shock going from like doing your own thing to being told how to do your own thing. So I initially chose to be a gunners mate. And so for those that don't know what that is, it's, you know, things from being a gunners mate of working with small arms, crew served weapons, like nine millimeters and M16s and M4s and all that cool stuff to the large and huge missile launchers and like five inch cannons that are on the front of, you know, destroyers and cruisers and stuff like that. So launching Tomahawk missiles and all the things you see on CNN is kind of like what gunners mates and fire controlmen do. Daniel: And so, like after my first six years in the Navy, I was going to get out and you know, do the thing like I mentioned, go to school. And I went on recruiting duty and that's when I drank the Kool-Aid. And so I've been a, we don't have HR in the enlisted ranks, but we're called career recruiters. And so effectively as of July of like 2014, I've been a career recruiter in the service. That's the 32nd story. Matt: Does everyone in that program that you're doing have to do a rotation in this career services where they try to recruit people? Or how did you end up in this role? Daniel: There's like a C and a shore rotation. So like C is like, you know, deployable and ships and expeditionary units and all the things. And then shore is basically where you can go teach, like bringing people coming in to be a gunners mate. You can go be a drill instructor at bootcamp, you can go to recruiting duty as like a fleet sailor and not as a career like recruiter and do a tour there. And there's, you know, a million other things I could go down a rabbit hole about, but basically you have a, you have a choice. And the reason why people pick like things like being a bootcamp guy or gal, like a drill instructor or on recruiting duty is because it's considered like an arduous duty, um, more challenging. And so it's more competitive for advancement. So that's why we don't always get the right people. Not that there's such thing as a bad person, but not, you know, there's a, as I'm sure you're aware from doing this, it takes like a certain level of confidence and personality to be able to be in that world, even if you're, you know, a good person. Matt: So you're serving in the Navy. You go on this rotation of trying to recruit people in the Navy. What attracted recruitment to you over some of the other work you've done in the Navy before? Daniel: That's a great question. Um, you know, if I had to pick one reason, it's just, I just love people. You know, I, it's funny. I'm a huge introvert if you couldn't tell, like deep down inside, like I feel it in my bones that like the nerves and all the things, but I think over years you kind of like just grow out of it and no one knows that you're truly an introvert. But um, I love people and changing lives and networking and, you know, like people post all the time, you never know what that next conversation is going to be. It might be your entrance into the guy who's the C-suite person that's your right hand man now for life, or it might be, you know, your best friend that 20 years from now you look back and joke about how you met on LinkedIn or in person. You just never know. And so I just really appreciate like the people business and changing lives and being able to be that, like that middle factor in the trajectory of what's next. Matt: That's very cool. Because you're essentially giving people that camaraderie and finding someone, hopefully one of their best friends for life that they're going to be serving in the Navy with. Daniel: Did most of your friends in the Navy and the people that you've gotten close with and most people in general, I honestly don't know much about the Navy and I'm sure the audience probably doesn't as well. Are most people recruited by recruiters like yourself or do most people just enlist? So maybe give us a breakdown of how most people join the Navy. Matt: There's dozens and dozens of channels, but the big things that folks understand is like, obviously recruiting offices. They're out there, right? They're the big elephant in the room. You drive past, you can Google it. And so whether someone in the recruiting office is, you know, on the internet, sending emails, going to the colleges, going to the high schools, that's one avenue. Like me personally, like I walked into a recruiting station. No one called me. I think maybe I had seen someone, you know, do a presentation when I was like a sophomore or junior to like plant that seed. And I thought about it for a while. You know, honestly, I was like, you know, the Navy is the backup plan. Like only losers join the service. That was honestly just being frank. That was kind of like my perspective of the service. And so I was like, yeah, if I strike out or I go to school and I'm not prepared, that's what I'll do. Daniel: But specifically to answer your question, you know, there's job boards and presentations and referrals and 1-800-NAVY people ask questions, they get referred over to a recruiter. But if you're going through an enlisted rank, you're going to get, uh, you're going to speak with an enlisted recruiter. And you have to, you know, go to a recruiting station to then get into the Navy. And then on the vice versa, like if you're going to become an officer, you know, whether you're a neurosurgeon, a lawyer, or, you know, a PhD in, you know, nuclear engineering, um, similar concept. Matt: So there are pretty much three ways to enter the Navy then. It's more on the the place you started, which is almost like the bottom of the rank, the officer, and then more of the specialties like neurosurgeons and other professions like that. Is that kind of how it's divided up? Daniel: It's divided up in two, right? So enlisted and officer ranks. And in between there, and it kind of, there's like an olive olive branch down. When you're starting up as an enlisted sailor, usually you come in as like an E1. So the ranks are E1 to E9 and you know, vice versa on the O side. And so basically unless you are, and there's tons of little niche programs that I don't want to bore you or the audience with, but you know, for example, if you're a dental hygienist, you might be able to come in as an E6, right? Advance from if you're licensed, but most folks like myself come in as E1 and climb the ranks. Now it's very different on the officer side because it's federal law, it's title 10, it's, it's federal code effectively. And, and it's all written differently. Like you must be a U S citizen. Daniel: You know, as an enlisted member, you can be a permanent resident. Um, you know, they have MAVD programs for folks that are translators. And, um, and so, so in short, it's either enlisted or officer. And with an officer, you can come in very, very high ranking as in like with like, hey, you're going to be a service member, you can deploy, you know, obviously market compensation is not ever going to be alike, although it's comparable, and so all the other things that make, you know, the service unique to what it is, and it's very challenging, but also like very rewarding. Matt: So are the doctors you're trying to recruit getting paid less than they probably would in the industry? Daniel: It depends. 90% of the time, yes. Only because we have a ceiling. Like, we don't negotiate. There's really not a true range. And so there's a ceiling for us based on their rank that they would come in as and, you know, how many years they've been practicing. Whereas if you're, you know, Dr. Greenberg out in town can knock out, you know, if he wants to knock out 75 RBUs a day or whatever the case is, and you know, you're a dermatologist or whatever, you know, you can make seven figures if you really wanted to, easily. And consult on the side, moonlight, you know. Matt: So Matt and I were just talking about how the way we make a lot of decisions aren't just based on money because I'm sure the comp is like pretty similar to the industry, right? Or is it not even close? Daniel: It's mostly on an hourly rate, because if you're working less but getting paid less, it might even be around the same hourly rate, right? Matt: Yeah. So the thing about the services, nothing is based off hourly. Although I break it down in that facet so that way the folks that are used to seeing that can see the comparison, but everything is salary-based with us. So like if you're a brand new, you know, family medicine physician or a final year resident that is about to, you know, come into the attendingship world, you know, we're getting out $400,000 bonuses with zero experience aside from residency. And that's really big for like family medicine. I would argue that the specialties that are always going to be in demand or in high demand rather, like certain surgery fellowships or surgeons or, like right now the big thing is diagnostic radiologists. They can effectively work, you know, wherever they want in there, at home and make a huge half a million plus salary and have really no overhead or responsibility to report anywhere. And they have a lot of control and autonomy. And so things like that within the military mission and like the practice environment that we have, you just don't, the opportunity for some of that stuff is not there, but we are, we are comparable to market. We were just not at market. Matt: I see. Daniel: And I think LinkedIn is definitely a great way to recruit people and give those physicians that emotion and feeling like they're making an impact and show them what a positive experience it's like to be a doctor in the Navy. So I want to transition now to hear how you started posting on LinkedIn, when you like made an account and how it's progressed with your job. Yeah. So just like everyone's initial LinkedIn story, it's pretty embarrassing like most folks. So there's a guy named Michael Quinn, retired sergeant major, pretty solid guy. He runs like a USO program, like where he teaches veterans and service members like once a month or once a quarter how to use LinkedIn and questions to ask and, you know, informational interviews, et cetera. And so I, I was Googling, you know, Hey, how do I find people? And I'm always very innovative with everything. Every day I'm trying to find something different. Like what's up and coming and LinkedIn obviously is not up and coming. It's been around for a long time or so I thought. And so I was like, cool, I'll create a LinkedIn. You know, I went to one of his classes and I was that guy, you know, calling all nurses, you know, emojis and goofiness. And, you know, you could be like, Hey, that dude copied and pasted it directly from AI. And this was like late 2022 when it like, you know, it wasn't even like, maybe if you asked 10 people if your buddies maybe wanted to know what Chat was or whatever. I don't even know what Chat came out, but there was other like little niche LLMs that were around before Chat. But you know, so I was that guy at first, you know, a cool thing. And we can talk about that separately about like LinkedIn premium. Like I don't know why people rag on it. I could lead a team without LinkedIn recruiter and without LinkedIn sales navigator, just using LinkedIn premium with the, with the failing miserably for a year that I did. And like how to really use it from like a recruiting or like a TA or like a sales background. But yeah, you know, so I learned miserably. I would use my 100 personalized connection requests per week and I would just blast docs and stuff like that. Just goofy stuff. And not like from a, from a negative intent, but just like, Hey, I think this is going to work because I have the best thing to offer everybody. And you know, they want to listen. And I come to find out that, you know, like, Hey, this is the only place where you can really, you know, because physicians and dentists, their data is the most expensive besides folks in the cleared space. And so like Doximity and all those places, they're getting beat up every day, their emails, but one place where they, they get beat up less, if you will, if that's a thing, is LinkedIn because it's more of like a public facing, still a social network kind of piece. Daniel: And so if you're just remotely human, you keep it short and you have like some content backing, whatever sort of message you're going to like try to send them or it's, it's worked wonders. But yeah, it started off pretty rough. I mean, it was, it was embarrassing posting jobs and just copying and pasting stuff from the VA and making it like my own or, you know, HCA and Kaiser trying to follow their lead. Networking with, with every physician and provider recruiter I would come across. But I found out that, you know, no offense to them, that everyone is really doing the same thing. And it's just all about numbers and volume. And so I was like, Hey, let me not like try to sell something and just share what the Navy does and what we do and how we're different. And then like passively, man, it's, it's overwhelming. Like I know everyone probably is like, well, I get a bunch of messages a day, but I genuinely get like 12 to 18 messages per day. And that's just on like the regular LinkedIn, aside from like LinkedIn recruiter and jobs and all the other like platforms that we have open. But LinkedIn is certainly the king. I mean, I, my team would fail, frankly, if we didn't have LinkedIn. Matt: We need to dive into how you're using LinkedIn premium especially because 75% of our audience, Michael, is in the U.S. And I'm sure some of us have been hit, all of us at some point, by some sort of recruiting message. And it was probably a bland email, a bland piece of maybe physical mail. And what stands out so much about your content is what you just described. Like you're keeping it short. You're not constantly selling the Navy. And that's how a lot of people are using LinkedIn successfully right now, whether you're in the Navy or a recruiter or not. So can you run us through how you're using LinkedIn to be so successful with it? Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So from like a perspective of premium, you know, I don't have a magical like 531 or 1042 or anything of that nature. You know, I'm a huge fan of posting every day. And some people will say that's like madness. But then just spend a couple hours, you know, and automate it. You know, you can go into the scheduling tool, you know, when you have a bunch of great ideas, like you had mentioned on that one podcast, like I was like, huh, I wonder that other folks are using the Apple notes to, you know, categorize and just data dump like one of the, the ideas fresh. And so you go in there, you know, you pick three to five things, you spend some time again, I love AI. I hate that people use AI only, but, you know, human input, AI output, human refinement. That's like I say that Chris Doe, he's a big influencer. He, you know, he literally said the exact words and I was like, dude, that's my thing. And so I just, we had like the same wavelength, but you could have the best message, the best website and all the things. But like when someone looks at it, like me personally, when someone messaged me, I click on their profile. Daniel: I see what they're about. I go there. It's all about credibility. And you, if you can't build credibility, like in a split second, it doesn't matter what your title is or what company you're backing. Like, I don't care. You know, I want to know that you are, are a human and that, you know, you have value added data points and, you know, if I'm a physician or if I'm a whatever the case is, and I go there and it's just, just gone awful, like reposts and AI clear, like zero human input. I just, I just personally like don't care to, to see that kind of stuff or engage with, with people like that. And I'm sure, you know, you see it all the time as well. There's certain things that come with having premium. And, you know, I, I'm, I'm not sure that some of their data and some of their uh seats and effectiveness because of how fast LinkedIn is growing. And and I I have been seeing so fast the growth. It's I love it. I love it for for us at least, you know, and hopefully everyone else takes advantage of it. I could I could talk I could we could literally I could give a PhD dissertation. I could defend this right now in front of Congress. I'm prepared. And like, you know, through all kinds of things. But obviously we're cut on time and so, um, is there anything specific you think I should dive into in regards to, you know, any of those things? I just I'm so passionate about it, man. Matt: Well, us too, Michael, and you touched on so many things that a lot of previous guests have touched on and that we all agree with. Sending connection requests. Like that has such a higher response rate than email because we're all checking our connection requests and it takes more effort to send a connection request than it does an email. You're also updating your profile, updating your headline to make sure you look human. You're checking your analytics to see how you can improve, and you're posting every day regardless of what people say. I mean, I'll try to post three times a day and I haven't had any issues with it. When it comes to diving into one specifically, I mean, we could go on and on forever. Which one do you think has unlocked the most or best results for you so far, or one that you like to spend the most time on? Or something we didn't hit on. Daniel: That's a great question. You know, it's it's challenging because you're like, well, these three things are super important, but I, you know, pick one. Now, I would say, honestly, it's hard to say because, like, you know, if you send a message and there's no substance behind like the who or the you, then nothing means anything. And so I'll say, if you have a good foundation, you know, your profile is optimized, but you have like legitimate content that people can like, you know, if I find someone interesting, I'm scrolling through their profile for 5, 10 minutes and I'm clicking on their stuff and I'm like, oh man, this is really cool. And sometimes I write it down. Daniel: I'm like, I need to just try that or or wow, I had no idea I learned something new today, or or wow, I'm gonna go sign up for an account for that place because, you know, that's value added to my life personally, professionally, or whatever the case is. Um, and so I would argue that just having like a very steady flow of value added content, where if you send someone a message, it instantly will build trust or provide credibility to actually respond and accept. And I think that's huge. The day of like attention and all that stuff. Yeah, cool. We can Gary V it up and you know, you got a split second, but nowadays with AI and you know, everyone and all the things, trust is, is my, uh like, how can I build trust within a split second with someone without them knowing anything about me or trust me, if you will. So, yeah. Matt: When you're writing some of your LinkedIn posts, we're all tempted to just put it into ChatGPT and just copy what that says and paste it out. What is your thought process and workflow, really, from start to finish when writing your LinkedIn post, all the way from your idea to hitting post? Daniel: I would say 25% of the time, I don't use any sort of assistance. And maybe that's that's a high number. I would say 20, 20% of the time because just refinement is always needed and even if it's a robot or a program, you need someone to give you some sort of feedback. And so I would say I started off by myself first and I have these, you know, however many of them in a document on my phone and in a Excel document as well to show, because I don't have the time to scroll through when you have like hundreds and hundreds of posts. So I think everyone should have an Excel document of like, hey, you know, and you can have like 50 different rows if you want, like the last time I posted and, you know, engagement and just so you can like really have a true sense of your analytics of what worked for your audience. Um, and, but basically I I spill it out to myself first and then I read it as if like, you know, I'm scrolling through a phone and I'm reading it from someone else. And if it sounds goofy or if it doesn't sound like me or if it sounds like, if when I read it out loud, the message is not coming across the way I want it to, then I'll say, you know, to, I don't like Chat, I use Claw mostly, um, or even Gemini is really good now. I don't know why something's changed recently within their, um, programming, but I'll say like, Hey, you know, this message is coming across too harsh. I want someone to read this and feel like it resonates with X demographic, X range, and I want it to, you know, whatever the specific prompt is to that, you know, to that post. Um, and it'll give me something and it's never great, but it's much better than what I originally started with. And so then I'll take that and I'm like, great, now I can fix this harsh wording or this filler word, remove the fluff, um, and provide more value within a more densely populated message. Matt: So it's less, and sometimes, you know, especially within my world, you know, there's so much law with it and specific things that I have to have a longer post than I really want. Um, but that's kind of like my workflow. Like I'll really try to pretend as if I can get this through without anybody and it's just, you know, just my wits. My favorite part about your process that you described, Michael, that not everyone does, is tracking their posts in Excel. Because most of us will just post a ghost. We won't reply to the comments and we'll just hope everything will work well and we'll take every week almost like it's week one and we're just posting from scratch. But in reality, the key to success in content really is the format and iterating on what you've done well before. So if there is some specific format of talking about the Navy that's going viral, you should flag that in your Excel and repeat that. And I think a lot of the audience sometimes get caught up because they're thinking, well, I've posted so many times and I can't come up with any more original ideas when really the new idea for you is sitting right in front of you. Daniel: So I'm curious to ask you if you've had any great success with formats and anything you're testing in that realm. Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I've learned immediately that, you know, if you read something and your heart like sinks, whether that be from it resonating from like a sadness perspective or I can relate or, you know, where you can really grab someone by the heartstrings. Like me personally, when I, you know, a lot of people are animal lovers. And so the other day I posted something about dogs. Obviously I had no plan on going viral, but it's just, it continues to build those things. But, but honestly, things that are controversial, unfortunately, and, and money, you know, no matter how patriotic someone is, they have to be able to sustain and provide current lifestyle, whether it's private school, having a large family, all the things. And so I've noticed whenever you talk about money or, you know, things like being worldwide deployable or the expeditionary medicine type of just like showing physically like them out there doing it with either still pictures or videos um on the on the backside with the impressions and and members reached is is huge is a very large number, even if there's not maximum interaction, which is then what drives my messages like like, hey, I saw you posted X, Y, and Z. Can can you explain like what that would look like or how could I get to there if I'm a general surgeon, um, type of deal, you know, as everyone says, the lurkers are the ones that, you know, engage with you like on a professional level, not like on a platform level. And so I love lurkers. Like when I have a solid post that has decent interaction, um, but not the level I want it to, I'm even more excited because I know that my DMs or my email is about to blow up. Daniel: Um, that's, that's like the signal that I recognize, like, okay, this is about to be really good for me, like on a professional and a platform level. That's what Peter Walker said on one of our first episodes, is that the metric he tracks is actually DMs, not comments or likes, because if you're a physician or if you're a fortune 500 CEO, you're probably not going to comment on your post, Michael, or you're not going to comment on Peter's post. But you might send him a DM after and say, I love that post. I have some questions for you about this role. Or in Peter's case, it's like, I have questions about Carta. And it's so validating to hear that because I think a lot of people get caught up with impressions a lot and comments at the start when that's not always the goal for a lot of these bigger outcomes. Matt: Exactly. And even like to, to add on to that, you know, when I'm, when I'm leading my team for, for the exact same concept, I'm telling them, Hey, make sure all modes of prospecting or all modes of communication or you can be reached is within reach, not on the post, of course, but like, whether it's a job description or, And how to get the SheerID verification, how to get LinkedIn premium for free for 12 months, you know, my system on how it works, like the very in detail, like start to finish, do this, do that, you know, you know, gosh, the LinkedIn premium search now feature where you don't have to like click filters, you can just say, hey, find me Daniel Greenberg in Australia. I want to know how many. It'll list you how many Daniel Greenbergs. It's the new feature is incredible. They haven't mess with it yet, but you know, yeah, it's kind of ventured off to my team, peers, people getting out of the Navy to the recruiting class. And honestly, like if I had enough time, I would probably do like a pro bono, like nonprofit kind of deal for any military, any veteran, any spouse to show them how to like optimize, how to use it for job hunting. You know, if they're in a recruiter or sales role, how to use it for social selling. Just like, you know, out of the kindness of my heart. So, and then maybe monetize it at some point. Daniel: But yeah. When you're going to these trainings, what are some of the common pitfalls and mistakes you see that these beginning recruiters or service members are making? Matt: The biggest thing is fear, embarrassment, all those things, not even be able to like take the first step forward. Just beginning with a post or, you know, with the day of, with how technology is for us now, I don't want to say laziness, but more of like, like, hey, show me, show me, show me. Instead of, well, hey, I just, you know, gave you the keys to the castle. Just go play with it, you know, go walk around the castle, open some doors. Okay, cool. There's a scary monster behind now and they'll do that ever again. Matt: I just kind of like work through the flows of what works for, you know, because what I do won't work for everybody and vice versa for you and your audience. But there's some things that are universal, right, that are good practices that will work for everybody. And I would say really mastering your niche, you know, if you're a general officer recruiter, which is kind of like for us, anyone from like, you know, nukes or regular stuff, stay within that niche. Make sure it's, again, legitimate content, not calling all lawyers. The Navy has like blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, just really goofy stuff. And so staying true to your niche, making sure it's, you know, if I talk to Daniel Greenberg in person, it kind of matches the content and the voice and like, you know, it's not like two different people, like, hey, like you're getting catfished almost. Like, this is not this guy's voice. Like, this guy is a fraud kind of deal. That point you made about fear of failure is something that Matt and I overcame. And I'm sure it's probably even scarier in something like the Navy or the military because, well, honestly, I have no clue, but anyone trying to start out posting content has this fear of climbing cringe mountain because your posts aren't gonna do well at the start. That's just MrBeast started zero. Everyone starts at zero followers. No one just magically starts at a hundred thousand. So I'm curious to ask how you help these service members get over the cringe of failure because I'm sure they're like scared, really. I mean, it's an irrational fear. We can't even put it in words sometimes what we're scared of, but I'm just curious to hear how you help people go through that. Daniel: Honestly, what I do is I put myself out there all the way. I walk into the room, butt naked, not literally for the people listening and watching. But, you know, I tell them like, hey, look, me right now as I'm teaching you guys, I know that some things I say are going to come across to you guys as cringe and I have the same fear. When I make a post, I have the same fear from day one, except I don't care anymore because I know that my intent is good and I know that like what I want to share is great knowledge and it's not for everybody, right? That's the point of the whole niche thing. And so then I say that it's never going to go away. You know, it's just like when we talk to our supervisor or boss or you're having an interview with someone for the first time. There's that natural fear there and fear is good, right? Fear means you care, in my opinion. And so like, it just depends on how you let fear take over, if you let it take over or if it's just like, Oh, Hey, what's up, fear? Okay, cool. You know, let's do this kind of deal. Um, but I kind of show them my, my original posts back from like 22 or 23, whenever I actually started getting more like um consistent with it. And I'm like, Hey, calling all bloody blah, copy and paste from the, you know, the LLMs. Daniel: And, um, you know, again, just, I think really showing them like with me being on the screen and 30 of them watching and listening and all the things, just letting them know like, Hey, me too, you know, we're going to do it together. And they're like, Oh, okay, got this. You know, this guy is not standing behind the ivory tower saying like thou shall and you know, he's better. It's just like, yeah, man, that's, you know, it's going to happen. It's called being a human, right? Let it happen. Matt: I love that. You approach these conversations just like you approach your content on LinkedIn. You're not trying to act like someone you are and you're just, just like you're having a normal conversation with me right now. You're not through any sort of filter or anything. Daniel: No, man. I'm a goofball. I tell people like, I don't have a magic number, but if you held a gun to my head, I'm like 70% professional, you know, 20% personal and 10% memes because I love memes. You know, the memes are important. Matt: So that's just me. The snow meme you had yesterday was hilarious. We're, we're recording this at the time of the major snowstorm in the Northeast and in actually parts of Kentucky and I think like Nashville in the South too. So, um, I hope you're staying warm right now and it hasn't hit you too hard in Nashville. Daniel: No, we've got some embarrassing looking ice that makes driving difficult, but not enough snow where the kids can go have fun. So. Matt: When thinking about that line of being authentic and sounding like AI, something that a lot of executives fear that listen to this is thinking that they're going to post something that is going to get them in trouble. And I'm sure a lot of people that you coach may think this too, that because not a lot of people post on LinkedIn, they may get in trouble for saying something they shouldn't in the hopes of being authentic. I'm curious how you help people through that and how you navigate both being authentic and also not trying to toe that line between saying something that might put the Navy in a bad light. Daniel: Right. So I'll say what, you know, and again, I've never been on the civilian side, you know, coaching C-suite folks, but I'll say if I was, you know, I would say, hey, if, if, you know, this was you, right, and you were reading this and it was about, you know, C-suite Bob at, you know, insert here company or parallel C-suite guy down the hall, how would it make you feel? And obviously there's no such thing as perfect, but would it resonate in a way that you would either understand or does it toe the line where it's like professional, but also like, Hey, we're all humans. Like, you know, the CEO of LinkedIn, I'm sure drinks bourbon or has a beer or whatever. I'm sure he's got something that, you know, half the country would say, Oh my God, you know, and cancel you on. Right. It's just, that's just, again, freedom of speech is the beautiful thing of being a United States American citizen. Matt: Um, and you know, the freedom that this country, you know, provides and allows. And so there's no easy answer, but on my side, I always say like, Hey, if the admiral, right, my two-star admiral that owns my entire enterprise reports directly to the chief of personnel, directly to the secretary of the Navy, to the president, if he was sitting next to me reading this, yeah, it would probably be super awkward for me, but I would take it like a champ. It's like, would he like think entirely, and he's on LinkedIn, by the way, and he interacts with me. Super cool. Very cool to see, you know, the tip of the spear in your enterprise, uh, interacting and posting on LinkedIn. But, you know, I always think like if that guy was sitting next to me or read my post directly, what would he think? And, and I would say 99% of the time, he'd be like, Oh, this is great. And again, you know, that 1% of the time when there's the disagreeance, like, let's agree to disagree because that's what makes me human. Um, and as long as it's not putting my company where I can get sued, which, you know, you can do all the right things and still get sued. So it's like, unless it's like, I'd say unless it's a hot button topic, race, religion, sex, politics, all the Daniel: And what that story is, is my freshman year of college, someone fired six shots directly at my dad. My dad's fortunately all safe. They all missed. I still don't know how to this day, but one came so close that he hit a hole in the back of the sweater. And that story and like occurrence has really made me, well, one, motivated for context, he was running for mayor and didn't stop. He continued to run for mayor and then ended up winning. And to do that, his kept me motivated. Like, if he's gonna keep going through that, what's my excuse? And then also, I felt very thankful for every day and just started to appreciate more of the small things in life that I may have taken for granted. Like being able to just scroll on LinkedIn for an hour or being able to run when I want to six days a week. So that's one story, maybe a little bit more emotional than you were expecting, but that some of the audience may not know about. Matt: No, that's awesome. Well, sharing with me was awesome. Thank you. I didn't mean like, obviously, you know what I'm trying to say. I didn't mean that what had happened was awesome, but no, it's, you know, again, I, I think that provides just equal, if not more value to, to share like trials, tribulations, the why behind the things that you're doing and people will buy in from that and not anything to do with your business model. Because they're like, hey, this guy right here is going to do all the things. He is going to go through a brick wall for me. I can trust him or her or whatever. And so I, you know, I love it. Thank you. One more thing that I'm kind of obsessed with that I've been writing a lot about right now. I write my posts like two weeks out because I schedule so much. Daniel: I don't know if you schedule at all, but it's the concept of, I don't know if you do this in the Navy at all, but if you're like in investment banking, for example, you might take a client out to dinner. Do you do that in the Navy? Like take a physician out to dinner? Matt: No, in that exact regard, but we'll do, you know, we'll do a lunch for residents. Like we'll go to a, you know, a teaching hospital and provide lunch and stuff. But no, we're not doing like executive, take them to the baseball game. Like I get what you're saying. The thought is for the SpaceX IPO that's probably going to happen. Goldman Sachs really wants that. Goldman Sachs may take Elon and his C-suite to this $10,000 Michelin star restaurant to try to get them. Or you may do a lunch for some physicians to try to reel them in. And what I think is that content is this new client dinner because you're just building a relationship with someone at scale because just like someone may want to have a positive experience after they go to dinner, they're also going to have a positive experience viewing your content. Daniel: And I think it's proven to work for you so far. You haven't needed to do these extravagant dinners. You haven't needed to pay people crazy salaries. And you can just tell stories and bring out emotion in people that makes them want to serve their country in a way that people haven't before you. So I think you're proof of this that LinkedIn is the new client dinner. You know, you're not wrong. It's like, what's the co-founder of Netflix? I forget his name. He's big on LinkedIn. Matt: Reid Hastings? Daniel: Oh, Mark Randoff. Mark Randolph. You said that and it like, it was sitting in the back of my head that I was like, please don't forget when he's done speaking. He literally posted yesterday and I interacted with him. He was like, I, he's like, what did he say? He's like, my team and I are watching. We are watching who comments in our posts. We are watching so that way if your name comes through my avenue for, you know, applying for whatever, maybe we'll recognize you. And like, basically he said what you said in a different concept or context rather. Matt: And it's so true. I mean, like, you know, the CEO of LinkedIn, you know, whatever he posts, he's very interactive. I'm always on there and he, you know, he'll like or respond to it. It's like, where else can I get in the room with the CEO of LinkedIn or, you know, some, anyway, it's just, I love LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. Daniel: When, when Connection Accepted t-shirts or even better, nice, nice golf polos when I go have something fancy to play with. Or even, I'd even rock like a nice trucker hat, man. I would totally support you guys because I love what you're doing and I can't wait to see how fast you guys get to that $10 million podcast because this is so real and it's, and it's different. It's different. Matt: Well, I appreciate it a lot, Michael. And a previous guest, Will Bowman, has actually hooked us up with a website on, on 412 for his merch. Matt: So I'm gonna send you some stuff. I don't think we've done trucker hats yet, but we've tried a few polos and hoodies and I'll send you some of those. Heck yeah. Is there anything we didn't touch on about LinkedIn that you wanted to cover? Daniel: Oh man, I'm sure that there's probably a thousand things that the second we both hang up, it'll just be like, ding. What about newsletters? Have you thought about writing a newsletter? Matt: Yes. I can't, I'm trying to think of the gal's name yesterday. Anyway, she was posting about Substack and I was like, man, I really need to do it because like the long form content I put out is like, I put my heart and soul into it, like hours. And like, for example, I did a really deep piece for like LinkedIn premium and like start to finish with screenshots and the why and how. And if you have problems and it had very, very minimal interaction. And I was like, I wonder if it's just because it's in between like a newsletter and a post and long form is great to have like the differences, you know, when you go to someone's profile, like images, video, articles, et cetera. But I'm wondering if I need to switch that to either a newsletter format or perhaps a substack, but I want to keep it on the platform. And so, you know, these, these are the things that like, I, I'm internalizing daily, like that I didn't take action on. And maybe we could talk offline, you know, your, uh, before we can talk about it here. It's tough. Daniel: And your job is also not to be a content creator, but it is, but it isn't. So it's like kind of difficult because if you wanted to maximize reach and maximize what you were putting out, maybe we'd start a YouTube channel for you, just like what we did for Connection Accepted because you have some really cool access to things that a lot of us don't know anything about. Like I doubt all any of our audience knew about the difference between tracks of in the Navy of enlisted versus officer. And doubt people even knew that there's a training in Pensacola, Florida where all the recruiters get trained. And a lot of people, some of them probably didn't even know that, you know, you're bringing the Navy to LinkedIn. So you have a really unique perspective and are in cool rooms. And I think the Netflix documentary about the U.S. military, I think that's proof that there's demand for a lot of this stuff. And whether it's Substack, LinkedIn, Instagram, I think what'll work the best for you is something you can do long term. And right now LinkedIn is working so well. I would not stop it. And if Substack and YouTube are going to be too hard, I would, I would be careful because you don't want to burn yourself out too much because you have such great momentum going on LinkedIn right now. Matt: And I, I've got like a whole nother Apple notes running tab on like, you know, I was thinking about starting a YouTube channel, but I was like, who would run it with me? You know, we don't have a budget for, you know, this is all out of the kindness of my heart, everything that we're doing. And so like, I don't have a budget. I don't have a team. You know, I've got the brain and the know-how and the tact and all the things, but you know, we've been, we've been thinking about doing like the Navy unscripted, medicine unscripted, connection accepted, military detachment. Maybe I'm just saying, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't ask for any money, but no, I'm just teasing it. Unless, unless you be, you know, it shouldn't have like a military segment. I would, I would love that. But yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's tough. Like, or maybe it's not. Maybe I just got to take the jump. Right. And, and kind of build it as we're flying. Like we do most things. Daniel: The only real way to find out is just to post and the fact that you can juggle your job, recruiting physicians, serving the country and post on LinkedIn and comment on people's posts and train other people in the Navy, how to post on LinkedIn. Now you're thinking about adding a YouTube on top of it. Like I am, I'm, I'm beyond impressed, Michael. Matt: Thanks, man. I appreciate it. You know, it's, it's not much, but it's honest, right? So. Those were all the questions we had. Is there anything else you want to hit on or leave the audience with before I wrap? Daniel: Yeah. I'll say, you