I wish I could say, you know, growing up, I wanted to become a LinkedIn expert, but it's basically accidentally.
I got an invitation early in 2004.
It wasn't a thing.
Okay.
But it was an invitation from someone I trusted.
And two years later, I was a quota carrying salesperson and LinkedIn helped me slash my sales cycle by 30%.
Wow.
Simply by showing me the name of the person I needed to reach out to within the organization.
And then I decided to see what's under the hood.
And I started having friends and those friends asked me to come and train their, their staff.
And at one point I decided to specialize them and I'm very happy I did.
Wow.
Was there like some certain message you took in order to get that to work or you just put it out in the knowledge and experience to make that happen?
I think I made all the mistakes in the book when no one was around to notice them.
So it was, it has grown, you know, LinkedIn now has 1 billion members.
And since we started this very chat, hundreds of people have joined, like three people.
Each second.
Nice.
That's so it's, it's getting faster.
I see.
So when you made all of your mistakes, tell me a few of those that definitely get you where you need it.
The two most important ones, because LinkedIn is a bit unusual in this sense is not realizing how important my profile is and connecting with people I didn't know well.
You know, it's interesting, you are talking about this because a lot of people are confused.
I'm a real estate agent.
And so we often utilize Facebook, Instagram, you know, the number one, the number two, the number three.
Instagram, you know, the norm.
And when I mentioned my LinkedIn profile, a lot of people say that that's that's just for business, you know, just promoting your business and marketing your business.
What would you say to someone that says that?
Because they don't believe that it can produce what is needed in their business.
Cool.
So first of all, when did promoting our business become bad for business?
But what I could argue is instead of looking for the person who wants to rent a condo,
you could try and focus on the real estate that's relevant for companies in your metro area.
And that will maybe only 10 percent of your business, but those 10 percent tend to be on LinkedIn.
And those could enable you to gain better, better commissions.
It would be less competitive.
It could be long term.
It could be companies wanting to move to your area.
It could be, you know, one deal that could make up for 20 penthouse sales.
True.
Interesting. And I tell them, I'm doing it because I know that it works.
Is it working for me as of yet?
Nah, I probably need to help.
So how long have you been doing this?
So I started training on LinkedIn 2007, so it's been 17 years.
Yeah.
So do you have employees?
I basically train myself.
And one of the greatest benefits of doing this is that I can only I can work with people I like working with.
And I can fire clients I don't feel compelled to work with.
And the truth is, it helps me both sleep better.
Yes. Yes.
And also gain more referrals.
OK.
That wasn't the intention.
But the moment I focused on people I like working with, I thought I was turning down potential revenues,
but it ended up more than compensating for those lost revenues because each happy client refers many other clients to you.
And when they come, they're less price sensitive and they're warm leads.
So it ended up being advantageous even from the business perspective, although it was initially mental just to sleep well and not thinking about working again with that person.
What does the client look like that you don't want to work with?
Tell me what there is. Is it more of a personality or the business or their vision?
Maybe the lack of vision would be a good, good start.
People who want people who are not realistic in the sense that they have to provide information,
they have to answer simple questions, and if they can't answer the questions about their business,
then I can take a guess, but I'm not sure it will be worth their time and frankly, my time too.
I can understand that.
Be able to verbalize your vision and say what you need and also accept that the things you probably need to fix is probably the most
hardest for someone who thinks that they have it all, you know, down packed kind of thing.
So when it comes to this, this business and you being a LinkedIn specialist, tell me your vision and all of it.
My vision would be to help and serve more entrepreneurs, reach their own dreams and building on what we just said, when people know where they're headed.
In some cases, LinkedIn could help them get there and I'll be glad to help them do it.
Yes, it's very fulfilling to hear from people you worked and you helped with
and see that they move to another stage and their company has grown or they launched a new service and they're happy with it.
And it makes you feel that's a special feeling you get.
Absolutely. What is the when it comes to a company or an individual, how large or how small?
I'm sure the smallest would be just one a one man entrepreneur.
But how big are you willing to go considering you're a one man show the capacity of your leadership?
I've run training for over one thousand people, but there are few and far between because it's usually I would say SMBs are probably the sweet spots.
Yes, yes. Large companies, even when the leader has a clear idea, there are a lot of limitations,
there are a lot of stakeholders, processes and time involved. And my guess is probably up to a few hundred people would be ideal.
OK, that makes sense in the world.
A thousand would have been challenging.
What could go wrong? And hopefully you forget just for the just when you deliver, you forget everything and you're up basically like Michael Jordan on over there and you forget everything else.
Yes, yes, yes. Tell me a little bit about you. Tell me more about you.
I'm based in Israel, OK, south of Tel Aviv. I was born in France and I moved here when I was four years old.
I married to Leah and we have three grown ups, two students and one who's serving in the in the IDF.
And increasingly, the leaders I refer to or leaders I think of are my parents, my late father and my parents.
And in the last couple of years, our kids, it was worth it.
You know, when they were three and five, you were struggling with all sorts of stuff.
But now when they make decisions of grown ups about their studies, about the work, about their career, it's just you can admire them from afar and say, wow, I'm really proud.
How old are they? What's their their ages?
So the eldest is twenty seven and then twenty four and then ninety.
You know, it's so funny, I can see the passion in your eyes about the kids.
I can see your face just totally glow and change.
And it seems like that they're one of your you're one of their biggest cheerleaders, rather silent or loud.
And absolutely kudos to you for having and choosing to watch them grow.
And it's not easy being a parent at all. I have four myself.
So I get exactly what you're saying. And my two eldest are twenty nine and twenty four.
So watching them live their life right is a reflection of totally what we did and what we taught and how we raised and how we raised.
I totally get it.
It's it's challenging initially to to let them make their own mistakes.
But I think it's worth it in the long long term.
Absolutely. So where did podcasting come in at?
We connected through Podmatch.
I think Valentina Gutierrez sent us an email and Podmatch helped me discover amazing people and amazing podcasts.
And I'm happy like we're having this conversation one on one.
And it's it's always unique, like the sort of question, the sort of people you meet is international and dynamic.
And you never know what's going to be the next question or the next move.
And it keeps you on your toes in a very positive way.
What do you like most about broadcasting and hosting?
I love meeting people, Daniel. I love people.
It's crazy as I was getting into podcasting and just living my life part of this.
Every job that I had, I can't say that I loved the job.
I loved the people. So with that being said, I realized that I'm a people person.
And now that life has changed drastically after covid and things like Podmatch, I'm not sure if I would have heard of that.
You know, and and the connections that we can make now over the Internet or over Zoom or over, you know, Streamyard.
I would have never thought that I would meet so many people.
For example, you being in Israel, I met someone who was in Hungary last week.
I'm currently in San Antonio, Texas.
So it's it's this thing of being able to create relationships without having being face to face,
but also still being face to face and getting the real person behind that.
I think that we can often put on this show, right?
I'll wear the telephone. But when we're face to face, there's something about a connection that could happen.
And so when I initially get these podcasts and I don't know who I'm interviewing or who I'm speaking with,
I try my hardest not to dive deep into your business because that's the whole goal, right?
The whole goal is to get to know Daniel Alfon. I want to know where he's at.
I want to know what he does. And so I feel like it's a contradiction for me to actually go on and read your entire website,
your entire life and then get on here. So it's it's been a great relationship builder.
It's been a great time just having a conversation with someone I don't really know.
You know, so I believe that the advantage is so much more that I haven't even been able to see as of yet,
but it only builds from here. So much like yourself. It's it's it's a way of connecting with people.
Right. It's we could have done this without the platform, but it might have taken a lot more time and be more clunky.
And we would not know. Like just scheduling could take hours and misunderstandings.
So this is like quick and it saves you a lot of time.
And you get to to meet interesting people from Hungary or from San Antonio or from all over the world.
Yes, definitely. So when it comes to this business and you being in since 2007,
I want to know what is your thought process? So why do most business failed today?
I was listening to the to the webinar with first class business and I noticed the 96 percent failure rates.
I wasn't aware. I know many I knew many of them fail. But 95 or 96 is an amazing figure.
So much has changed in the technology that surrounds us,
but so little has changed in the way our minds are wired that there seems to be a gap.
Because we could spam people within four seconds. I could I can blast an email to 100000 people.
But I would pollute or water down the quality of of my reputation, my brand, my name.
Just by doing that, even if five people bite and do something, it's not worth it.
But the ability to do it is something that makes people.
We're as a society, we're chasing vanity metrics where entrepreneurs should really focus on their business.
And and the funny thing is focusing on your business does not require more time.
In some cases, it even doesn't require more effort.
It just requires that you know where you're headed and you and you you ask yourself,
is this actually going to take me to the vision I have for my business or not?
And in 99 percent of the cases, you know the answer.
But there are all sorts of new shiny objects flying around.
And maybe let's do that and maybe let's do this.
And at the end of the day, many people fail. That's that's pretty sad.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.