“How to Use LinkedIn To Dramatically Improve Your Business” with Chris Skaggs, VP of Talent and Brand of TSP

As part of my series of interviews about “How to Use LinkedIn To Dramatically Improve Your Business”, I had the pleasure of interviewing as the head of TSP’s talent and brand, Chris serves as the lead storyteller sharing and promoting TSP’s brand both externally to candidates and customers, and internally to employees and evangelists. Branding, digital marketing, talent acquisition and HR are all functions Chris has enjoyed learning and developing as he has built teams, processes and strategies from the ground-up. In addition to being the authority and chief promoter of the company’s brand, ensuring consistent brand expression through all touch points, Chris oversees TSP’s talent management and talent acquisition teams. He also is actively involved in the development of the company’s plans and programs as a strategic partner particularly from the perspective of the impact on people. Chris’ knack for process and seeing the big picture allows him to evaluate how business decisions affect all different types of TSP’s employees. Chris joined the TSP team in May of 2006 as a human resource specialist as TSP’s first and only recruiter. After two years, Chris was promoted to the company’s first-ever human resources manager. During his five-year tenure as HR manager, he grew this team and managed every aspect of talent management and talent acquisition. Most recently, Chris served as director of strategic initiatives, where he oversaw the launch of TSP’s first social media campaign, a rebranding initiative, creation and design of marketing collateral, website redesign and copy rewrite, and even a little video production. Before TSP Chris worked in the medical field as an operating room manager for a cosmetic surgery practice in the Plano area. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Human Ecology from the University of Texas at Austin where he was also an active member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. While working at TSP, Chris also received his master’s certificate in Human Resource Management from Villanova University. Chris is passionate about giving back to his community. He is a member of the board of trustees for the Texas Health Resources Foundation and serves on the board of North Texas Christian Academy. One foundation that is particularly near and dear to the Skaggs family (and TSP family) is Leighton’s Gift, which was set up to establish a lasting legacy for Chris’ daughter. Additionally, Chris and his family proudly serve as an ambassador family for the Dallas market March of Dimes. Outside of work, Chris can be found cooking, spending time with his family, or watching a college football game (Hook Em!).

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Since I can remember, I always wanted to be a doctor. During college, I had plans to attend medical school and shadowed a local cosmetic surgeon. Throughout my time in college, I realized I did not want to spend the next 20 years going through school and paying off the medical school debts. At the time, my father, Rick, was working on bringing TSP to life and asked for my help to start the recruiting for the company and I’ve continued working my way up to where I am now.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?

When I was still working on the recruiting side, one of the leads came up to me and I could immediately tell that something was wrong. She told me she didn’t know how to handle the situation and to check my email. She forwarded me an email from a candidate who was apologizing and said “I assume I did not get the job,” I asked her why he was saying that and she told me to keep reading. He had accidentally attached a nude photo instead of his resume. Rookie mistake!

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?

This isn’t necessarily a funny story — but a valuable lesson. When I was managing the human resources department, the company made a change to our benefits program, that negatively affected employees. I received a lot of emails from upset employees and sent a strong email back, company-wide. After sleeping on it, I felt terrible about sending the email. That day I decided to never send a company email on the same day that I draft it so I can review it, instead of sending it in the heat of the moment.

Which social media platform have you found to be most effective to use to increase business revenues? Can you share a story from your experience?

LinkedIn, by far. We invested heavily into the recruiting side of LinkedIn — which was very pricy. We wanted to build a network of potential candidates, but Linkedin has a slower hiring and response time — and is built more for passive recruiting than active recruiting like a Monster or Indeed. It helped us shift the time it takes to educate and sell the company to potential candidates to invest in the tool to help build a story and increase brand awareness. It has helped with recruitment and has established TSP has a brand name among incoming candidates. Our recruiting team found they were spending less time on the phone talking about the company to potential candidates and more time talking about the candidates’ actual work history and requirements of the job. Our time to fill a position has been cut in half over the past two years and has allowed us to attract new candidates with our employer brand as well as repel the people that are not a fit for our company culture.

Let’s talk about LinkedIn specifically, now. Can you share 5 ways to leverage LinkedIn to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.

• Have an engaging and authentic profile
• Whether you are trying to find your next career move or your next client, having a well-built profile is essential. When prospects research you, they need to quickly and easily discover what you are about, how you can help them, and why they should spend any of their time with you.
• Participate online and in groups
• After a thought-out profile, you need to engage and participate by creating original content, curating shared content, or simply commenting and responding in groups and on posts. You want to be educational and not overly promotional — the key is to provide value to your prospects.
• Expand your network
• Build your professional network on LinkedIn by utilizing LinkedIn ads and/or InMails to engage with your target audience. LinkedIn Ads are one of the best ad platforms to target a prospects “job title.” Having well thought-out personas of your target customers allows you to focus on these types of job titles on LinkedIn.
• Leverage your assets
• It’s important to leverage your company’s assets on LinkedIn to give your followers a clear picture of your company. You can do this through sharing blog posts, press releases, thought leadership along with company updates and announcements.
• Another rule of thumb for LinkedIn is to cross promote! You don’t have to write your original content, you can repurpose other blogs and articles. This is an easy way to republish content and build your network.
• Hiring and recruiting
• With the uprise of Gen Z in the workplace, recruiting strategies have shifted. There is a new mindset that recruiters should come to them, instead of the opposite. This space is always evolving, and each generation will not expect the same things. Consider more of a direct recruiting approach with the help of LinkedIn. Seek out specific candidates and take the time to make sure they are a good fit before inviting them to apply. Maybe the time isn’t right for them to apply, but if they follow you and/or your company on LinkedIn, they can engage with your content and learn more about your brand. By publishing a steady stream of authentic and consistent content, you can remain top-of-mind for them so when the time is right for them to apply, they think about you first.

Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

In 2013, my wife Amy and I co-founded Leighton’s Gift — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to turn a tragedy into something positive. After the premature birth and subsequent neonatal intensive care (NICU) admission of our twins Jaxon and Leighton, we were inspired to give back. Jaxon came home from the NICU after 74 long days; however, Leighton earned her angel wings three short weeks after birth due to a late-onset group B strep infection.

The foundation’s current project is dedicated to installing webcams into the NICU at various hospitals within the Texas Health Resources System– enabling parents to connect with their infants at any time from their computer, smartphone, tablet or other web-enabled device. To date, Leighton’s Gift has raised over $150,000 and installed 45 webcams into the NICU at Texas Health Plano (THP) and 25 webcams into the NICU at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands.

We knew we wanted to have a lasting legacy for Leighton. Even though she wasn’t physically here on earth anymore — she was here, she was a person. Numerous families have reached out to our family over the years since the first webcams were installed back in 2013. They view being able to share about Leighton and see her impact as a form a therapy and way to keep her memory alive.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Brene Brown. I’ve seen her speak a couple of times and I always walk away with a lot of valuable information. She practices what she preaches, puts in the work, does her research and shares real stories. I feel like our conversation over coffee would be exactly the same conversation you would get if you were her close friend.

Thank you so much for these great insights. This was very enlightening!