Michelle J Raymond

Business LinkedIn Trainer - B2B Marketers/Business Owners my LinkedIn G.R.O.W.T.H Masterclass & B2B Community Builder are your secret to growth. Company Page Expert. 2XLinkedIn Author.

Are you running your company’s LinkedIn strategy in-house and wondering how to improve your results? You know your audience is here, but the advice available can be confusing or unsuitable for your business.

👉 Why Most LinkedIn Advice Doesn’t Work for B2B
Most LinkedIn advice is too generic or focused on shortcuts that deliver little more than vanity metrics. Hacks and automation will not build trust or meaningful relationships and will not grow your business. 

👉 Build a Strategy That Fits YOUR Business
Whether you’re starting out looking for more engagement or ready to turn followers into business growth, I’ll design a strategy tailored to your goals, resources, and team. 

👉 What You’ll Get When We Work Together:
• Company Page Expertise: Turn your LinkedIn page into a community where your audience engages and your brand thrives.
• Profile Rewrites That Work: Showcase your team’s expertise and attract the right opportunities.
• Social Selling Training (G.R.O.W.T.H. Framework): Equip your team to build relationships, nurture trust, and sell without sounding salesy.

👉 Who I Work With
I partner with businesses globally that are driven to lead their industry. These businesses are open to new ideas, willing to invest time, and not looking for quick fixes. If that sounds like you, we’ll work well together.

👉 The Power of Two: Build Your Brand AND Your People
Your LinkedIn strategy should grow your business and empower your team. I focus on the Power of Two: building a strong company brand while helping your employees grow their personal brands. When these work together, you get exponential results.

👉 Here’s What Makes My Approach Stand Out:
• Tailored Solutions: Every business has different goals, resources, and challenges. I design strategies that fit your unique needs because one size never fits all.
• Ethical Expertise: I don’t rely on hacks, automation tools, or engagement pods. My approach is rooted in trust, relationship-building, and long-term success.
• Proven Results: With over two decades in B2B sales and social selling, I bring practical, actionable insights that drive real growth.

👉 Work With a Recognised LinkedIn Expert
• International LinkedIn speaker.
• 2 x Best Selling Author - Business Gold (Company Pages) and The LinkedIn Branding Book.
• Host of the Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast and cohost of The LinkedIn Branding Show.

Global LinkedIn Pages Expert - LinkedIn Strategist and Trainer - B2B Social Selling Consultant

What's the secret to LinkedIn marketing success in 2026? Just so I'm clear...

First, we weren’t posting enough.
Now we’re posting too much.

First, we had playbooks to go viral.
Now we’re told to go niche.

Video will save us all. 
Video disappeared. 

You know the kind…

The problem is, shiny tools won’t fix a weak LinkedIn marketing strategy.

If your positioning isn’t clear and your message doesn’t stand out, no amount of hacks, prompts or posting schedules will save you.

This is where I think a lot of B2B brands are getting distracted.

Instead of doing the harder work on:
• Who they’re for
• What they actually want to be known for
• How they’re different from everyone else

In 2026, LinkedIn results will come from getting the fundamentals right and letting your Company Page and your people work together to build rapport first and then trust over time.

Not from flip-flopping every time someone says they’ve “cracked the algorithm." Or should I say Brew360? 

What's your favourite LinkedIn Flip Flop Advice? (yes, that's the technical term for it 🤣)

Company Page Led Growth ​> Scale with employee advocacy on LinkedIn. Work with me - Company Page Management, Page Admin Training. Employee LinkedIn Training. #Timfluencer

This one's for Page Admins, Marketing Managers and business owners who are figuring out how to get more from their Company Page. 

They, too, are impacted by LinkedIn's new algorithm engine 360Brew. 

🎤 WANTED: Someone who runs a Company Page for a global company that wants to be a podcast guest to talk about the unique challenges that come with this. It's more important that you have experience running the page than guesting on podcasts. 

Tag someone in the comments you think I should talk to.

Most B2B brands are running their LinkedIn Company Pages like personal brands. And quietly, it’s killing their results. That might sound blunt, but if

Open article: LinkedIn Company Pages in 2026 (What To Stop and Start Doing) by Michelle J Raymond • 4 min read

LinkedIn Company Pages in 2026 (What To Stop and Start Doing)

Are you feeling more or less confident with your LinkedIn strategy for 2026?

Over the break, I did a quick review of how I'm showing up across LinkedIn, my website, podcasts, YouTube, etc., and was pretty horrified at how much what was out there didn't reflect where I'm at now. 

Time to get focused and back on track! 

How about you?

LinkedIn changed a lot in 2025. Not surface-level tweaks. Fundamental shifts. The kind that quietly breaks old strategies while everyone’s still tryin

Open article: LinkedIn B2B Marketing in 2026: New Strategies & Changes You Need to Know! by Michelle J Raymond • 4 min read

LinkedIn B2B Marketing in 2026: New Strategies & Changes You Need to Know!

"If your product is the hero of the post, you’ve missed the point.” 

I want this Nancy Harhut quote on a t-shirt to wear when I'm speaking at Social Media Marketing World 2026. 

Honestly, the toughest lesson, the hardest to convince others it's the right thing to do, but the one that has the biggest reward. 

In the podcast, Nancy shares one simple language change that you can easily fix this. 

So go ahead and give it a listen and thank us both later. 

Just the tip of the iceberg, as they say....

Which insight did you find most interesting you want to try and implement?

And why most B2B content is working against the brain, not with it. If your LinkedIn content feels like it should be working but isn’t quite landing, 

Open article: What Brain Science Teaches Us About LinkedIn Marketing by Michelle J Raymond • 4 min read

What Brain Science Teaches Us About LinkedIn Marketing

Looking for a speaker for your community, podcast, LinkedIn Live or event? PICK ME 😀

Thanks MRxPros for having me on to share my framework, "LinkedIn in 15 mins per day". Sue Collin you have done such a brilliant job growing this community. 

Are you next?

Send me a DM and let's see if we can come up with a cool collaboration. 

Help me out and tag people you think I should be connected with who could be interested. 

Cheers

A Zoom meeting grid with 21 smiling participants, each in individual video frames. Top text reads "Pick me as your next guest speaker" in bold white letters on a pink background.

Tim Tam Tip - Unpopular opinion… Mangoes & Cream Tim Tams are a hard no from me. 🤢 I don’t care how “new” or “exciting” they are. I’m team Double Coated all the way.

This is your LinkedIn lesson for today.

Just because something is trending doesn’t mean it deserves a spot in your LinkedIn strategy.

I see too many B2B teams chasing:
👉 Every new format
👉 Every algorithm rumour
👉 Every shiny tactic
👉 Every “you must try this” post

This is the recipe for confused buyers and very little growth.

You don’t need every flavour to win. 

You need the right one for your business, done consistently and well.

Know your clients "Double Coated", and stop forcing the Mangoes & Cream.

What’s one LinkedIn tactic you’re ready to stop doing?

No alternative text description for this image

When leaders want control and employees stay silent, LinkedIn doesn't work.
The answer is not more tools or more rules. 

What is the answer to this very common situation?

Glad you asked. 😀 

My answer is in this week's podcast episode. Enjoy the overview. 

Can you relate to either side of this problem? Has it happened to you?

If your leaders want control and your employees want nothing to do with LinkedIn, you don’t have a content problem. You have an alignment problem. It’

Open article: Why Employee Advocacy Fails on LinkedIn (And How to Fix It) by Michelle J Raymond • 4 min read

Why Employee Advocacy Fails on LinkedIn (And How to Fix It)

Things that make me go hmmm 🤔 when marketing research announces what’s “new”…

After 20 years in B2B sales, a lot of the research I'm reading feels more like derrrrr I could have told you that, rather than a big breakthrough.

A few favourites:

👉 Buying committees.

Not new, they always existed.
When you actually sit in customer meetings, you see it first-hand.

Procurement, technical, finance, users, leadership… all influencing the deal in different ways.

That’s why I teach our clients to connect wide and deep inside every target account. 

👉 Buying cycles are getting longer.

I’ve worked in industries where deals routinely took 2–5 years from first conversation to signature.
Complex decisions take time. They always have.

That's why I teach our clients to nurture relationships over the long term, no hacks.

👉 It’s all about building trust.

Almost. You skipped a step.

First, you build rapport. Once they like you, we can move on to trust. 

This is what makes working with me different.

I’ve lived on both sides, B2B sales and B2B marketing. 

I understand the pressure, the politics, the reality inside real buying environments.

That means I can help sales and marketing actually work together, with the kind of commercial understanding that only comes from experience.

Curious…
Which “new” marketing insight makes you quietly smile?

🚨 Stop posting on LinkedIn. Not forever. Just until you’ve done this one thing...

Check out the latest episode of Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast for more details.

I changed my mind on this one thing when it comes to LinkedIn Company Pages. 

You see, I'm always learning, experimenting, and joining conversations with experts, so how I work with my clients is always evolving.

LLMs will continue to give generic outdated advice. As they say, it's the average of the internet that you get in the responses.

Whether it's done for you with Company Page Management or training for Page Admins, I love being the competitive advantage.  

PS I may even change my mind on LinkedIn Pages Premium, too....

Help me out - would your business refer to it as a Company Page or Business Page on LinkedIn in your conversations internally?

I'm trying to understand a bit more about which is most commonly used in meetings etc

Any further comments are welcome if they need a bit more explaining.

How do you most commonly refer to your LinkedIn Page for your business?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

Bill “PhoneBill” McClain

You can call Gates, Joel, Murray, or Clinton…but only this Bill has the answer 💪 UCaaS Provider - VoIP- ☎️

Pioneering the intersection of AI and business communications as a 3X founder. 

Currently revolutionizing voice technology through UponAI while leading innovative UCaaS and CCaaS solutions at StratusDial, backed by extensive experience at Networking Solutions.

At StratusDial, I've transformed business communications by:
• Implementing cost-saving solutions that reduce operating expenses by up to $9,000
• Developing seamless Office365 integrations and advanced VoIP systems
• Building a 24/7 technical support infrastructure that maintains 99.9% uptime
• Creating custom UCaaS/CCaaS solutions for diverse enterprise needs

Through UponAI, I'm pushing the boundaries of:
• AI-powered voice recognition and natural language processing
• Intelligent call routing and automated customer service solutions
• Machine learning algorithms for enhanced communication efficiency
• Voice-enabled business intelligence and analytics

My entrepreneurial journey spans:
🔹 Advanced Telecommunications
🔹 Enterprise Network Architecture
🔹 Cloud Communications
🔹 AI/ML Implementation
🔹 Business Process Automation

Proud to be recognized by industry leaders, including Eric Hernaez, Founder & President of SkySwitch, for maintaining exceptional service standards and driving continuous innovation in business communications.

Specialties:
#AIVoice #UCaaS #CCaaS #CloudCommunications #NetworkingSolutions #VoIP #BusinessIntelligence #EnterpriseNetworking #ArtificialIntelligence #DigitalTransformation

Looking to connect with:
• Business leaders seeking communication solutions
• Technology innovators in AI and voice tech
• Enterprise clients exploring digital transformation
• Fellow entrepreneurs in the tech space

Let's discuss how AI-powered voice solutions can transform your business communications. Open to partnerships, collaborations, and innovative ventures.


Founder -

Networking Solutions 29 years
StratusDial 13 years
UponAi 2 years

3X Founder - 0X Exits

Founder President & CEO

Does the idea of switching phone providers for your business sound like a permanent migraine? Here’s what’s worse:

Turning your customers away because you’re unable to provide a good phone customer experience because of lousy support from your business phone provider.

When you entrust ☎️PhoneBill (& the team at StratusDial) with your company’s new voice, here’s what you get:

✔️ Pre-installation audit to locate savings (sometimes $9000!) & lower your operating costs
✔️ Take care of allllllllll the prep, installation, routing, testing… everything done-for-you
✔️ Hold your hand through set-up & advise you on phone experience best practices
✔️ Latest phone features for maximum efficiency (hello, Office365 integration!)
✔️ Custom set-up the big providers won’t do (e.g. overhead paging system)
✔️ 60-day and 90-day check-ins to make sure you love your new system
✔️ Eager-to-help technical support, 24/7

As a smaller (but mightier!) provider, we can deliver the type of boutique service that the large competitors wish they could deliver. 😉

Ready to have your business phone system work for you (not against you) in bringing more clients to your business?

Message ☎️PhoneBill on LinkedIn. I’ll sort you out.

Bill (PhoneBill) McClain

Thank you for registering your phone number with the National Do Not Call Registry. 

You successfully registered your phone number ending in 6500 on November 19, 2010. Most telemarketers will be required to stop calling you 31 days from your registration date.  

I remember reading that message and feeling hopeful.  

Peace.  

A quiet phone line.  
Fewer dinnertime interruptions.  

That was the dream.  

Here is the dry truth.  
Registering a phone number with the Do Not Call Registry tells legal telemarketers to remove that number from their call lists.  

It does not stop scammers.  
It does not stop every robocall.  

The Registry gives people a choice.  
People can say no to many sales calls.  
People can gain some control back.  

In my world, voice and AI can help.  

Smarter call routing.  
Better spam detection.  
Clear rules for teams that want to stay trusted.  

Business needs to reach people.  

Respect needs to reach them first.  

Thoughts on how the Registry works for you today?

#PhoneBill ☎️

You can call Gates, Joel, Murray, or Clinton…but only this Bill or AI from UponAi has the answer ☎️🤖

Last fall, StratusDial brought on two new automotive dealerships running their phone system with another provider.

That sounded like good news we know the NetSapiens system they had inside and out. We’ve been running it for over ten years.

But within minutes on site, we learned how bad things had gotten.

Calls dropping. Delays connecting. Terrible voice quality.

The dealerships had been on the system only about six or seven months and it had been a disaster. 
Multiple tickets opened with the previous provider and their IT support team.
 No resolution.

The buy/sell of those dealerships went through on a Monday. 

My team was onsite immediately to handle the migration and full acquisition of all technology.

As they went desk to desk setting up our complete tech stack, nearly every employee had the same question:

“Can you do something about our phones?”

We were patient and empathetic, but knew the priority 👉 the migration and new tech stack came first. 
My team was absolutely slammed but we were up for the challenge.

I arrived on Tuesday to assist wherever I could. 
Our team leader, Eric asked me to look into the phone issue.

So I called the provider for access to the system. 
And what I found was very disturbing.

Here’s the thing:
 Voice traffic must always come first. 

Browsing, streaming, and file downloads come second.
 That’s called Quality of Service (QoS) - and one of the best ways to achieve it is through a VLAN (Virtual LAN).

Picture your network like a six-lane highway. 
Each type of traffic gets its own lane. 
And guess which one gets the fast lane? 
Voice 👍

Now, remember this is a car dealership. 
A big customer waiting area. 
Customers streaming music, video, and social media on the dealership Guest Wi-Fi.

So what happens when that customer traffic ends up in the same lane as voice traffic? 
Big problems. Dropped calls. 
Bad audio. 
Delayed connections.

Within two hours, I’d confirmed the issue. The network desperately needed a traffic cop.

So I installed one - and called it #PhoneBill 🤣

After implementing QoS, separating traffic with VLANs, and making targeted improvements, voice calls immediately sharpened up.

Dropped calls disappeared. Connections were instant. Quality was crystal clear.

In less than a day, we proved our expertise and earned the client’s trust.

That’s the power of understanding what matters most: 
Voice traffic always gets the fast lane.

Do you need a traffic cop?

#PhoneBill ☎️


Networking Solutions, Inc. 
StratusDial 
UponAI

Most CIOs juggle 3+ phone platforms.

I run them all through one brain…UponAI.

In my world, single-platform purity is rare.  

Real companies grow by merger, region, and vendor.  

Result:  
One team on UCaaS A.  
Another on UCaaS B.  
A contact center on a third CCaaS stack.  

As founder of StratusDial, I learned early that forcing everyone onto one phone system creates risk.  

Vendor outage.  
Contract fight.  
Feature gap.
Buy / Sells.
Equity Investors.  

When all calls live on one platform, one bad day can shut a business down.  

So we built StratusDial around a different model:  

Risk mitigation!

No emotion, just strategy.

Multi-platform UCaaS and CCaaS for resilience and choice.  


Then I added one simple rule from UponAI:  

Many phone systems, one AI brain.  

Here is how it works in practice:  

1. StratusDial supports multiple call platforms for one client  
→ UCaaS from multiple suppliers  
→ CCaaS in a remote center  
→ A legacy PBX still in place in one branch  

2. UponAI connects to all of them through flexible SIP  
→ SIP trunk, for whole-system connection
→ SIP endpoint as a dedicated AI extension  
→ SIP URI for routing only certain calls  

3. The AI voice agent handles the heavy lifting  
→ Answers first, in any language the business needs  
→ Understands intent with natural language  
→ Uses sentiment to adapt tone  
→ Passes full context when a human must step in with a WARM transfer

4. The business keeps one AI playbook  
→ One prompt strategy  
→ One routing logic  
→ One integration into CRM, POS, ticketing systems  

The platforms stay diverse for safety.  
The AI stays unified for simplicity.  

That is how we see up to 60% of calls move from human agents to AI  
without ripping out phone systems  
without new chaos for IT  
without customers feeling lost.  

Many platforms for risk management.  
One AI brain for control.  

Thoughts on running many phone systems under one AI brain?

#PhoneBill ☎️

Unfortunately #PhoneBill will not be attending but Jody & Sean will do a great job 🙌

Make sure you stop by to see and support them 👍

See you at ITExpo! 🎤

Jody is joining the CEO Insights Panel: Agentic Voice AI in the Real World to discuss ROI, Trust, and Scaling.

🗓️ Thursday, February 12, 2026
🕐 1:00 – 1:45 PM
🎯 CEO Insights Panel

Sean will also be on-site to answer questions and chat about our AI voice solutions.

UponAi is at the cutting edge of AI, and we're excited to be back again this year to share what we're building.

Stop by and say hi! 👋

Jody Gonzales Sean Henning Bill (PhoneBill) McClain

#ITExpo #ITExpo2026 #UponAi #VoiceAI #AgenticAI #CEO #AIPanel #ArtificialIntelligence #TechConference

Businesses today don’t just need to communicate-they need to connect smarter.

I see the same pattern in companies of every size.

Teams feel busy.
Phones ring all day.
Costs keep going up.

Yet customers still wait on hold.
Messages still fall through the cracks.
Leaders still lack clear insight.

AI in business communications changes that.

Here is how we set it up at UponAI:

→ Improve communication  
AI voice agents listen, understand, and respond in real time.  
They speak in natural language, stay calm with every caller, and never forget key details from past interactions.

→ Boost efficiency  
AI handles the routine work:  
- Simple questions  
- Balance checks  
- Password resets  
- Status updates  

Your people focus on complex cases and human moments where empathy matters most.

→ Scale without new headcount  
Call volume grows?  
AI does not need more desks or parking spaces.  
You add capacity in the cloud, not on the org chart, while service stays fast and steady.

Under the hood we use:

- AI voice agents  
- Intelligent call routing  
- Analytics that show trends, sentiment, and gaps in your customer experience  

The result is a system that works 24/7, keeps quality consistent, and gives leaders clear data instead of guesswork.

I have spent my career at the crossroads of phones, networks, and now AI. I believe the next big gains for business come from how we connect, not how loud we shout. 

Actually delivering today what others promise in the future.

What is your take on using AI to handle the front line of customer communication?

#PhineBill ☎️

Yes 🙌 another AI post from #PhoneBill ☎️

Is it just me, or did every phone platform suddenly launch their own “AI voice agent”?

Here’s the thing… 
We’ve been building our ecosystem for 3 years - not weeks.

Yes, we can spin up an AI receptionist in 5 minutes. 
But then what?

💡 What if your business needs something more complex? 💡 What if you need a real solution that goes beyond just a “hello”?

Most platforms stop at simple use cases. 
We built one platform that lets you: ✅ Launch simple AI voice agents instantly ✅ Scale seamlessly to advanced, fully customized agents ✅ Integrate with any voice platform

And here’s what we’ve learned from experience -
 The second you deploy a simple solution, your customers will want more.
 We’ve seen it firsthand. We’ve built for it.

That’s why UponAI isn’t just another AI tool -
 It’s the ecosystem that grows with your business into the future.

#PhoneBill ☎️

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