Good Morning,
As the CEO of your company, you need to be able to do a lot of things… but the biggest one is being able to see the future.
You need to be able to anticipate how people will react if you take a certain action or say a certain thing, if certain portions of your business model are sustainable long term, what employees are short timers or lifers, what single points of failure your business has and how to adapt if it fails… and a million other things. Its hard, its frustrating, and we don’t always get it right… but its also why we get to live the amazing lifestyle that we do.
This occurred to me yesterday when I saw 2 news stories on the same day:
LinkedIn cuts nearly 1,000 jobs
TikTok wants to add 10,000 employees in the U.S.
The trend I see here is simplicity and youth based function. The LinkedIn article draws the conclusion that it is because of the economy and that there are less white collar jobs. The article is wrong.
LinkedIn is failing because their product is garbage and lacks focus.
- It wants to be a job board for professionals.
- It wants to be a social media platform with reactions, and livestreams.
- It wants to be a blogging site and content distribution network.
- It wants to be a messenger app.
And it is bad at all of them.
If LinkedIn were to hire me as a consultant (and they should) the first thing I would make them do is to simplify their garbage platform and stop trying to be everything to everyone. People want simplicity. Instagram simplified Facebook, TikTok simplified Instagram. LinkedIn needs to simplify. I would have them make each person’s profile an online resume, with a blog, and an activity feed on the profile.
The home page would be either people looking for work, or people looking to hire (depending on what your preference would be)
There would be a place to search for Employees and Employers.
You would only be able to message applicants, or people that showed interest in your application.
That would be it.
Stop trying to be a Facebook/YouTube/Medium hybrid and simplify…
…but clearly they don’t see that trend and that is why they are cutting job while TikTok is adding them.
You need to be able to do the things in your business that LinkedIn isn’t in theirs. Audit your business, figure out what is working, what isn’t working, and most importantly what may not be working in the future, find the patterns and trends, and adapt or end up like Toys R Us, Blockbuster, or unless they make some changes, LinkedIn.
If you want a great resource for spotting emerging trends in tech and business you should sign up for the Trends newsletter and community I read it every day and have gotten a ton of great info and connections from it.
Also if you are unsure what trends you might be missing in your business or industry let’s discuss it in the Profiit Academy Daily Facebook Group so we can make sure we don’t get left behind.
Best,
CMW