“How to Use LinkedIn To Dramatically Improve Your Business” with Jessie Williams of the Main Squeeze Juice Co.

As part of my series of interviews about “How to Use LinkedIn To Dramatically Improve Your Business”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Williams started his career at AT&T in June 2008. He was then promoted to Retail Sales Manager at AT&T in Jacksonville, FL in November 2014, and was promoted to Client Solutions Executive in March of 2015 where he worked throughout Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. From AT&T, Mr. Williams moved to Lafayette, LA to become In & Out Smart Repair’s District Sales Manager in August 2015 and was promoted to Vice President of Retail Sales for In & Out Smart Repair in December 2015. He worked there until joining the Main Squeeze Juice Company team in August 2017.

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

Interestingly enough I have been an avid juicer for 10 years or so, but that is not what brought me here. After 10 years with AT&T, I began my career in franchising with my friend and mentor, Thomas Nieto. He asked me to join him in a cell phone repair concept out of South Louisiana that was starting out with tons of momentum. After about 18 months and 100 stores sold, the company was acquired by CPR Cell Phone Repair. Upon the sale, Thomas had been touring other concepts that had all claimed they had the elements of becoming the “next big opportunity.” Around March/April 2017 Thomas met with 2 like-minded entrepreneurs from the Lake Charles area with a similar concept that they were wanting to scale. On that visit, Thomas visited their family business, Main Squeeze Juice Company, which was a single store in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Thomas was blown away by the look, feel, and more importantly the taste of all of their superfood products. Thomas has never been a beacon of health, so after being won over by the experience, he knew that this had the potential of being something VERY special.

Knowing my background with juicing, Thomas called me that very night to share his amazing experience. Thomas truly believed Main Squeeze Juice Co. could become the industry standard for quick and healthy eating. The deal was inked, and we began franchising in August of 2017.

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

The most interesting thing that has happened to me is when I blindly solicited one of my sports idols with a custom message on LinkedIn.

The backstory… I have followed Marques on LinkedIn for some time. I had just watched a video that Gary Vaynerchuck posted about leveraging the business social media platform to reach high profile investors to share our/my brand with. DISCLAIMER… My CEO and General Counsel thought I was crazy and they would not fund any of my LinkedIn exploits. I took matters into my own hands and upgraded my membership to include InMail messaging. From here I hit the ground running, reaching out to company executives and multi-unit owners through all of my connections and the LinkedIn universe.

I ran into something that Marques was involved in regarding the technology space and his Columbia Business School partnership and thought, “Sure, why not?”

After pondering over my message for about 30 minutes, what seemed like an eternity… I hit send. Two weeks later at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, I got a notification saying that Marques had accepted my connection request. I had a message in my inbox within 10 minutes asking for more information about Main Squeeze Juice Co.

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?

The funniest story was when one of our franchisees and I drove to Dallas Texas during the worst ice storm in 30 years…. It was crazy, not a soul on the road and us on a mission to make it to Dallas to introduce our brand to the franchise community. Well, not funny in the moment but now we all get a kick out of it.

Just ship the products and fly. Find a way! haha

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?

We use a lot of Facebook and Instagram posts. We feel that it is the most effective way to reach new customers. We use SMS marketing to reach out to existing customers. That combination along with a great franchisee makes for a fast growing core customer group.

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.

1. Weekly posts about our products and/or franchise opportunities. I have been in situations plenty of times where someone I meet at an event has seen my posts on LinkedIn.
2. Adding all clients that we have had contact with to my connections or to invite them to sign up for LinkedIn to follow our progress. Clients aren’t always as ready to move as you are. Send them an invitation to connect so they can continue to follow the brand as you would a drip campaign in most CRMs.
3. Using the sales Navigator portal to identify multi-unit franchisees in any specific areas. Using Sales Navigator is tricky. It’s about volume here, not everyone is going to respond to finding the multi-unit guys will add a lot of value.
4. Using Inmail credits to reach out to high profile opportunities. Direct contact is invaluable when attempting to reach high-profile clients. Marques Colston was a result of Inmail credits. We all see how that worked out.
5. Skill endorsement searches to find a candidate with the necessary skills to look for future employees/partners. Using this can directly connect you to franchisees that share the same work ethic and experience that you are looking for success. Finding a franchisee that thrives in entrepreneurship that has experience with direct reports, leadership and customer experience you would have a rockstar candidate.

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. :-)

I would inspire a message about mental health. There are so many people out there that suffer from true mental health issues that need to be addressed. These disorders start when the patients are children from neglect and/or some form of abuse. Admitting the problem is step one, then educating people that mental health happens to everyone, they are not alone! Removing the stigma behind mental health disorders would give everyone the confidence to address their concerns with a mental health professional without feeling like an outcast.

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 :-)

I would love to meet Gary Vaynerchuk from VaynerMedia. Gary is not afraid to tell anyone the truth about them self. He knows what it takes to be successful and he teaches to double down on your passion. You will be successful if you align yourself with that and work harder than anyone in the room. Passion and hard work can take you further than you ever thought possible.

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