Discussions with creatives, leaders and thinkers

Interviews Season 31

Richard Moore, Founder, LinkedIn Client Accelerator

Richard Moore originally worked a 60 hour week in the city of London before deciding to build his own businesses and help others do the same. After building companies from the trenches up, by taking ownership of sales teams, coaching leadership roles and consulting with multi-hundred million-pound organisations, Richard created his own company to help others get massive traction as they launched their businesses. As he did this, Richard invested in many of the companies he helped to create and shared his views on business with the world through the weekly live Q&As he runs online, to university lectures and speaking gigs in front of business owners in his space.

Richard also created products such as the Basics of Sales course and his flagship service, the LinkedIn Client Accelerator programme, which helps consultants and coaches learn how to effectively convert from their content on the platform. He also directly mentors established businesses using his 17+ years of experience in the space.

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.”

- Seneca's ‘On The Shortness of Life’

Richard Moore

Richard Moore, LinkedIn, Twitter and Website

In addition, Richard has recently brought to life the Entrepreneur Business Live events series. Operating across the globe, in London, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Melbourne, Barcelona and many more cities, "EBLive" has been rewriting the way networking events are built and are able to "do good".

By creating a community first and then providing them with world-class speakers, a networking space and making donations to approved Charity Partners, the impact is being felt not just by those that attend but also those less able; served by charities. Richard has since been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Inc, Thrive, Influencive, Humans 2.0 Podcast and many others.

What is your favourite social media platform, and why?

LinkedIn. It's where the most effective organic reach of buyers can be found.

Tell us about you and your current role or area of interest.

I run the LinkedIn Client Accelerator programme. It's designed to show consultants and coaches how to optimise, draw attention, warm up leads and close sales, all through their content on LinkedIn. I've heard about a great deal of dissatisfaction from people who are shown how to make content and even generate engagement, but not how to convert that to meaningful conversations and deals.

So, my 18 years in selling (mostly online products) combined with a deep geekiness for understanding nuances of audience behaviour has meant I've been able to help those with the frustration of being present on LinkedIn without any sizeable returns.

What do you like about your career or area of focus?

I get to be the guy that helps with generating paying clients. So, for me, I know I'm helping with arguably the most important part of running a business.

What is the best advice you have ever received?

If you don't like it, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

What inspires you, motivates you, or helps you to move forward?

That there is so much frustration out there, I can fix it! Knowing I can help fix this specific and big problem really pushes me to grow and show up as much as I can.

What are you proud of in your life so far?

Globally speaking, my children. In business, I'm thrilled with the results my audience are getting from the Accelerator. I'm also exceedingly happy with the 26 Entrepreneur Business Live networking events we ran before the pandemic. They took place in cities worldwide and raised thousands of dollars for local charities while also helping local entrepreneurs.

What is your preferred way to meet new people/network?

Nothing beats in-person networking for getting a real 'feel' of people. But, in terms of a balance of combined efficiency and effectiveness, LinkedIn is king. My preference is to lead with content that attracts an audience and starts conversations. From there, we've created a great start point for a new connection.

What skills or qualities do you feel have helped you?

Without question, my success has been impacted the most by my sales experience. Of course, simply doing something for a long amount of time gives you a tremendous amount of different experiences from which to draw ideas and solutions. But beyond this, I also feel that the exposure and understanding of behavioural, psychological mechanics of people have allowed me to share how and why audiences and buyers think and act in certain ways.

It's clear that my clients find this part of the process fascinating, too, since they get to understand exactly why it is that certain things either do or do not happen with their prospective buyers.

What do you wish you had known when you started out?

That you can always go bigger! With every year, I grow and push myself further. And despite larger, more ambitious goals, it's clear when you make it through that you could do even more. So I always remind myself of this when I move to my next month, quarter or year.

Who do you most admire in business, academic or creative circles and why?

I'm currently being impressed by Chris Do's ecosystem online. I feel he is a great template for what hosting an engaged community looks like. He's kindly asked me to speak to his groups both on Clubhouse and directly, and what stands out is the depth of learning on offer to those that follow him.

Outside of your professional/work area, what hobbies or interests do you have or what other areas of your life are of real importance to you?

I'm very into road biking and find it very therapeutic to crack longer distances such as 100km and beyond. I'm also a keen runner with three marathons under my belt. Both of these activities have proved tremendously valuable in giving me a regular space to think and push myself.

Has the pandemic had a positive or a negative effect on you and/or your business, and how have you managed it?

I'm very fortunate that the pandemic had a positive effect on my business. It simply made me and my services more relevant for a world that I couldn't meet in person. And, since I was unable to run my in-person business events, I redeployed that time to build my Accelerator. This has since become one of my best-selling products.

Do you have a mentor, or have you ever mentored anyone?

Both! I believe in always having a coach of some form. I have three: one business, one mental and one health and fitness. Together they give me a level of bespoke support that keeps me in as close to optimal shape as I feel I can be. In addition, I have mentored many business leaders and entrepreneurs since 2014. Some people just really want the benefit of my one-on-one tuition, and it's wonderful to be able to give them returns.

What advice would you have for someone looking to get into the same area of work or interests?

You can't fake it! If you haven't any or enough experience, focus on that instead. It's dangerous to coach or guides people when you haven't done it yourself. While it may feel glamourous to run your own thing, you'll only make it work and create the respect you deserve if you know what you're talking about.

Of course, I'm still learning all the time, but I know I'm good at my art because of the years spent doing it that preceded me in daring to coach anyone on it. It's less exciting to go work for someone else first and spend time "on the pitch", but the experiences and exposure to your area of work are what your future clients need you for, and if you try and short-change them, you'll soon be found out. This isn't popular advice, but it's right.

What do you feel is the most common reason for people failing or giving up?

They aren't willing to go through enough pain for long enough. It shouldn't be weeks or months, but years that you're willing to put into your craft. You need to experiment, try new ideas, work with new people and be patient. But I must add that my observation is those that who do put in the work and still fail to tend to be the ones that focus on the wrong things.

Specifically, this means not showing up every day to concentrate on new customer acquisition. It's so easy to be seduced by tasks in the periphery such as polishing websites, designing logos and doing yet another course or reading another book because it feels like relevant work. However, sales are oxygen for your business.

Without them, you die. They, therefore, need to be the priority every day. Of course, any other items can feature too, but not to the exclusion of interacting with new people each day that could potentially buy your service or product. When that part works, the temptation to give up tends to go away.

Is there a phrase, quote or a saying that you really like?

In my opinion, the most important book ever written is Seneca's "On The Shortness of Life". He reminds us, "It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested."

When we truly understand this, we realise that there is no time to waste and suddenly, our choices over how we use it change radically.

What companies, brands, or institutions do you like or do you think are getting it right?

I'm a very big fan of SpaceX's decision to combine failure and iteration in a very public way. So, we get to see all the issues, crashes and errors as they go. In return, the amount of public trust and admiration for the brand will serve them really well. It's definitely cast them in a good light.

How do you define success, and what lessons have you learned so far that you could share with our audience/readership?

Success for me isn't just sales performance in my business or having nice things. I believe real success comes from doing great things in all areas of your life. So, only when I perform at a high level as a dad and husband, as a business leader, with my body and intellectually can, I say I'm 'successful'.

Without a doubt, everyone must always decide what their version of success looks like. However, it's important to not be too comparative with others and remember that happiness is really the metric that matters most.

The Global Interview