I would like the younger generations to be involved in professional networking through LinkedIn rather than waiting until after University when they begin looking for their first job. The art of listening and asking questions are great skills to build lasting relationships that are rewarding for both parties. By teaching the younger generation these skills, they will be able to showcase their expertise without coming across as braggart, teach them how to assess opportunities in the future and how they can deliver value. Phenomenal skills that future employers will certainly jump at the opportunity to have within their companies.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Dennis Koutoudis. Dennis is an entrepreneur, a recognized LinkedIn & Social Selling Specialist, a Certified Social Media Strategist and Speaker. He is the Founder and CEO of LinkedSuperPowers , a Certified Social Media Consulting Company specializing in helping individual and corporate clients with their LinkedIn and social selling efforts. Dennis has personally worked with Fortune 500 Companies executives, including delivering LinkedIn training to Microsoft Executives from Greece, Malta , Cyprus and Romania, been listed as the #1 Social Media Expert to follow on Twitter, recognized as Top Authority on Social Media and he has been featured in international publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, Fortune, SalesHacker, CNN , Buzzfeed, The Great Work Insights Podcast , and more. Apart from the blog of LinkedSuperPowers, Dennis presents Social Media and LinkedIn Strategies at AlphaGamma, a pan-European business portal, helping young job-seekers and young entrepreneurs from all over Europe, as well as BizCatalyst 360° . He is also an author at Business2Community.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Prior to birthing LinkedSuperpowers, I was employed as a Social Media Marketing Manager across many industries, with a focus on professionalizing LinkedIn Profiles on behalf of companies, for both professional, personal and company goals. Given the level of influence and impact by focusing on profiles, coupled with the global demand of people seeking profile makeovers, LinkedSuperpowers was born with my co-founder Emily Pappas in 2015.
As a global service with offices both in Athens and London, our initial focus was undertaking makeovers of LinkedIn personal profiles and quickly expanded to company pages, search engine optimization, delivering training, lead generation and running influencer marketing campaigns.
I was always passionate about optimizing a platform for professionals to shine, stand out in their marketplace so they can bring their ideas, wisdom and impact to the world.
Can you share your story of Grit and Success? First can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?
When l embarked on this journey, LinkedIn Superpowers did not engage any investors. As you can appreciate when starting out, having capital is critical to be able to create a presence in the market. To be able to make an imprint in any industry you need the right collaborations, mentors that can guide and facilitate your journey and you need digital presence to be noticed.
My grandfather, Gregory Olympios was one of the most prominent people in my life as he raised me and invested in my business prior to his passing in 2015. When we first started, he was the catalyst in making LinkedIn Superpowers visible to the world. I am eternally grateful for my grandfather and l will never forget his love and support.
Starting any business adventure is not easy and l believe that there were certain key elements that were critical for launching our business. For instance, when we started, we were open for business and very liberal in our marketing whereas today, due to our experience in growing our business, we have a more targeted audience and approach lead generation differently.
Another key element for success was adopting a growth mindset and selecting team members that had the capability and skills to deliver a quality service. We used LinkedIn to screen profiles as part of the interviewing process. Once employed, we were committed to investing in our people’s development to showcase their strengths and create an environment where we nurture and grow our people. Our people are our greatest asset.
So, how are things going today? How did Grit lead to your eventual success?
As a result of my grandfather’s financial investment early on, my business partner, Emily Pappas and l established ourselves as leaders in this marketplace due to our commitment to significantly increase our client’s visibility and be the competitive edge in their industry. Our perseverance, commitment and investment in our team to deliver quality tailored services to our clients has been the greatest reward.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Don’t know about the funniest mistake but when I first started, I was a little stubborn and even if something didn’t work, I would keep doing it over and over again. Isn’t Einstein who says something like insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That was me, however l learned my lesson and have become more behaviorally flexible in that l am committed to progress, not perfection, so l continue try on new methods, access mentorship and ensure that l test and refine methodologies that will bring the best outcome for my clients.
What do you think makes you company stand out? Can you share a story?
LinkedSuperPowers changes people’s lives by empowering them for professional success in the largest network of professionals in the world. Our ethos of success is birthed as a collective and we build a team of experts around the client to ensure significant increase in visibility in LinkedIn searches, differentiate their profile by customizing a tailored response so they stand out in their unique professional field, write copy that enhances and builds their reputation whether they are an individual or a company.
We pride our practice on our care team approach, that is we build our team around the executive to maximize the key elements of their profile, share with how to get noticed more by targeting prospects and techniques to reach their goals more rapidly. Our team are experts of their respective fields, and each profile makeover has approximately 7 experts contributing to the final profile. Our team are leaders in killer SEO, copywriting and social selling techniques that accelerate the client’s results.
We believe your success is our success. Our story is being told by the people we have helped hence we have 290+ testimonials on my LinkedIn profile. The story is theirs to tell!
What tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not burn out?
One of the main tips would be, don’t be busy, be productive. I learnt early on in business that it is important to evaluate what the most impactful tasks are that you need to accomplish and prioritize them early in the day.
Know how to recharge by taking effective breaks and investing time in supercharging activities. One of the biggest reason’s burnout is on the rise is the inability of people disconnecting from the digital world. I recognize that by taking effective breaks and investing time in recharging keeps me focused and energetic when it comes to business. I believe setting boundaries to ensure rest and recharge. I acknowledge there are times within business that you must work long hours to complete a project however making sure that you don’t overextend yourself by consistently working long hours. Burnout is real and it creeps up on you before you know it.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Apart from my co-founder, Emily Pappas, without whom LinkedSuperPowers could have never grown as it has today, I owe a great deal of my success to my grandparents Gregory and Christina who supported me for all of my life and still do from up above.
My grandfather would tell my “life is tough, be a strong as rock”. He would say “vraxos”, a Greek word that represents strength in character and even on his death bed, my grandfather faced death with strength. I was by his side and he was my rock. Every day I remind myself to live with strength.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
One of the ways we give back is through providing pro-bono work to clients who are financially constrained and cannot afford our services. We provide them with opportunities to gain visibility with their LinkedIn profiles by providing free profile assessments, free resources and video’s through our blog and across our social media platforms with social selling tips, and strategies to start them building their presence and making a difference in the world.
Based on your experience, can you share 5 pieces of advice about how one can develop Grit?
- Everyone will fall, doesn’t matter how many times, or how bad, it only matters how many times you get back up. I often say to people stay focused, everything else is just noise. If you are committed to your vision, you get back up and you keep making progress.
- Don’t listen to naysayers and be mindful who you associate with. I always tell people stay in your own lane.
- Everybody makes mistakes and don’t invest your energy towards in punishing yourself for the mistake. Mistakes are valuable learning experiences that add character and make you human. Learn from your mistakes, enjoy the present and focus on your future!
- Lead by example, show guidance and strength and inspire those around you. If you expect your team to push forward to greatness, you must do the same.
- It would have to be those two words from my grandfather: be authentic. When you come from a real place within, your actions and words are congruent with your values. Living authentically allows you to continue to learn about yourself, challenge your thinking, face your fears and have the courage to live from this place.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? Your never know what your idea can trigger?
I would like the younger generations to be involved in professional networking through LinkedIn rather than waiting until after University when they begin looking for their first job. The art of listening and asking questions are great skills to build lasting relationships that are rewarding for both parties. By teaching the younger generation these skills, they will be able to showcase their expertise without coming across as braggart, teach them how to assess opportunities in the future and how they can deliver value. Phenomenal skills that future employers will certainly jump at the opportunity to have within their companies.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
They could follow me on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linkedinexperts/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LinkedSPowers
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denniskoutoudis/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us.