Columbus marketing playbook: How I Made $200K in My First Year as a Freelance Marketer

Kind: captions Language: en If you are a freelance marketer trying to get your first few clients or you want to make your first six-figure year, you're going to want to watch this presentation. This is the playbook that I wish someone had handed to me when I was laid off from my full-time graphic design job February 1st of 2024. Since then, I in my first full year, I ended up making $200,000. And this is a presentation at the SEO search I gave just a few weeks back detailing the exact playbook I used to make those results happen. I talk about how I use a podcast and LinkedIn outreach to build a local web flow marketing services agency right here in Columbus, Ohio. To dive quicker into the context, February 1st of 2024, I was laid off with a bad haircut, not a lot of money to my name, and a all-time low self-esteem. 18 months from that date, the studio is consistently doing about 20K a month. We have a clearly defined niche with repeatable lead generation systems. And the podcast now has two sponsors and has gotten on some pretty bigname guests, at least in our industry. Jake Claus, Josh Hall, Andy Cresina, etc. So, without too much hyping myself up. I'm not very good at doing that. Let's just get straight into the presentation. I promise you guys it's valuable. Stick around until the very end. All of the resources and tools that I plug in the video, I'll drop down here in the YouTube description. And thank you for watching. Cheers. What is going on my friends? I am super excited to be speaking to you all today. Special shout out to Sam for putting this on. Um, and this presentation is going to be very real, very down to earth. Uh, and I'm going to challenge you to kind of expand your mindset a little bit. Uh, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Andy. I'm the founder of MMG Design, which is my web design strategy studio here in Columbus, Ohio. Um, I'm going this is going to be a little bit of a storytelling presentation, but it's going to be very tactical in the sense that I highly recommend you guys are either active on LinkedIn or actively having a podcast or content series that you can um use to inform the platform that you're showing up on. Um, this is going to be a part case study, part storytelling, and part tactical. There's multiple resources in here that you can use and you're going to leave this presentation with a clear framework that you can pretty much take action on right away. Um, and by the way, I don't love the word framework. That sounds like an AI word. And as you guys can clearly see, uh, we're going to just going to get right into this. So, LinkedIn plus podcasting, 200k revenue in my first full year of my web design strategy studio. How I built trust, interpersonal skills, and revenue uh, by by building relationships and sharing conversations. So, let's rock and roll. So, this is going to be more on the storytelling side. So, how I started, I graduated college and I worked at a design agency um up until February 1st of 2024. And this is a very low point in my life sharing this photo. Um I was laid off from the design agency February 1st, 2024 with two paying clients. Um, I went home that day after it happened in a single floor plan office with 60 plus employees on that floor. I was the only one to get laid off that day. And everybody knew it. Um, I walked out of the the building and I called my father on the phone and I said, "Man, this is going to be the hardest thing that I ever do." I wanted to pull the silent exit so bad that day and I'm glad I didn't. So I went home that night, went around to every I went rather earlier that day, went around to everyone in the office. Um, I said goodbye to everyone between snobs and sniffles and crying and tears and I just left that with a big fire under my ass. And that's going to be a lot of the case study of the story that we're going to tell today. So that this photo right here, I went home that night and I shaved my head because I was in a very emotional state. So, first time I probably ever shared that photo publicly. And I like having hair a lot better. Just to say that personalitywise, um, I was felt a little bit lost and insecure. Uh, you know, I grew up with, uh, two hearing aids. I still have two hearing aids to this day. Um, and I was very insecure speaking on camera. I had horrible lighting, a horrible studio just for the podcast and all content and of itself. I took speech therapy growing up. So, my teachers would use this thing called an FM system, which if you guys even know what that is, um I promise this has this has a thought, but um essentially when I was in elementary school, all my teachers would had to tap in front of the whole class on their ear on their FM system connected to my hearing aids and it was just horribly embarrassing and I grew up very insecure at that and that carried over into my professional life. Revenue-wise, I was doing around 2K a month. Uh, this is just a screenshot from one of my monthly retros that I record every month. You guys can head over to YouTube to see the last 20 months. Every month I've recorded a financial picture. February I made 2,300 bucks. March was 2500. April just a little over 4K. May 2,700. June 11,000. My first breakout month found back down to 3,000. As you guys can probably relate as freelancers, early days of the business, very up and down. Contentwise, I started posting on LinkedIn every single day, and I've only missed a handful of days since February 1st, between 1 to 10 engagements per post. I had no idea what I was doing. I would post old graphic design projects, random graphics, some thought leadership posts, and as you can see, right here, we're getting like 1 to 10 engagements, and just even fewer like nobody was even seeing my content. It was just horrible. podcast-wise, feeling out of place, no audience, no clarity. Uh, I was making the traditional mistake of making content that I wanted to listen to that I thought was cool rather than was actually genuine, genuinely helpful. Like I said, grew up with hearing aids and speech disorder. Hearing myself speak, going back and editing these episodes and just learning on the fly, I was just feeling at an alltime point of insecurity and loness. So, on to the brighter story. How it's going in 2026. A lot has changed. So, a little almost two years. Uh, this is going to be more of a case study of 2025 in terms of the full year. Um, personalitywise, I'm outgoing and a lot more confident. I met a ton of people in the first full year. The business just through the podcast, people that I've met via LinkedIn, huge the amount of people that I have met and it's really made it a lot easier to not just get on camera, but also just to build relationships and go deep with people quickly. um a constant battle just in terms of the you know imposter syndrome every single day but it's pretty undeniable at this point that you know the reps really have paid off uh I can speak more clearly being on camera isn't that nervous nerve-wracking and uh I'm genuinely energized and excited to meet new people revenue-wise uh we've consistently been over 20k per month for the last 6 months or so um again head over to YouTube I highly encourage you guys to watch the monthly retros it's been the most productive habit that I have just sharing where all the money comes from and being objective from a business owner standpoint, but business-wise have a lot more stability, repeated sources of revenue. We've established a clear niche in healthcare and a clear value prop. Uh AI optimized web flow websites and we have predictable sales cycle. So, a lot more clarity on the business side. Content wise, we've reached over 6K followers on LinkedIn. Uh we have consistently higher engagement. Some of our content pieces even gone viral. Um I did a 90-day video challenge on LinkedIn, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. Um but some of my post, especially when LinkedIn was pushing video early on, um was getting just hundreds of thousands of impressions. um was a big springboard for me and uh usually nowadays on average it's a very um very leveled out since then but I still average between 10 and 20k impressions per week which is plenty to run a business on and get in front of the right people on the platform. In terms of the podcast, we now have 140 plus episodes. We have two sponsors and I have gotten to interview people that I have no business I had and maybe still have, I don't know, you guys can be a judge of that. No business getting in touch with um people that I have looked to look up to for a long time, only followed online. And um it's been a huge needle mover for my personality, just being a more interesting person and putting myself out there more and more, uploading weekly for over two years and slowly getting better at my craft every episode at a time. And some cool things here. We got to interview Jake Claus, local legend here in Columbus. Here are our two sponsors. Co-hatch is our event area space. So they have a studio that we can now record out of and they're a paid sponsor. AMA is the American Marketing Associ on the board at the Columbus chapter. So they distribute our content and my podcast via their newsletter and it's really good to get introductions to other members of other chapters and they could be potential clients or partners down the line which we will talk more about. This is my interview with Andy Cresadina. Huge awesome dude. I was just fanboying the whole time. Just a little screenshot there. This is with the man myth legend Josh Hall who's also presenting today. Shout out Josh. I've gotten to interview Josh twice. Um and this episode has aired by this time that you guys are seeing this. And it's just another full circle moment because I got to interview him back um early days of the show, too. This is my friend Casey Brown. She's another Columbus legend um at the Inerson studio. And yeah, some good feels from the podcast. So, diving more into the tactical side, this is what we are going to be covering today. We just talked a little about story and experience. Um, and now we're going to go through how to implement it and how we can get you guys to the other side of that podcast and LinkedIn strategy that's gotten me so far uh in my career just in the first couple years. Uh, number two, this is the phase we're going to be heading into is a three-headed beast. U, my AI wanted to call this the three-part growth engine, but I just was immediately repulsed by that. So, I like the three-headed beast because it's, you know, it's cool. Um, there's three parts to the LinkedIn and podcasting strategy that we're going to go over. Um, and then we're going to talk about a playbook. So, we're going to talk about daily actions that you can do every day to create predictable results. Within both of these are exact case studies, screenshots, and things that verify what I'm saying and you can go and replicate yourself. And then at the end, obviously, we're going to have some questions where you can pick everything apart and um really dive into it and get specific. So, continuing on, number one, I would say this is probably the absolute most important thing. Um, so if you're watching this, I want you to look at me and I want you to I know I used a meme to this uh to make it, you know, more laid-back, but this is actually very serious. before you even start creating content or you even start podcasting or really putting it anything out there. It's so productive to just have this idea that you identify that someone that is successful. So I want you to say that to yourself. I want you to say this to yourself right here on the screen. I am someone who is interesting and can be valuable to anyone even if they are two to three steps ahead of me or make more money than me. There's going to be so many times throughout the process of putting yourself on out there throughout the process of growing as a business owner, especially if you are doing you're meeting people, you're always going to be people that are a couple steps ahead of you. You are valuable to them in some way. I promise you that you have something to say. your story is worth telling and you can share a conversation in a moment with someone that will leave an impression on them and they'll be glad that you are in their network. Now, I want you to say this to yourself and remember it and really let it sink in because like I said, there's going to be so many times you're going to start to it's human nature to question yourself on this and I just highly encourage you guys just say this in your head and keep it in your head moving forwards. I have been doing this every day just for the last several years and I continue to do it because it is a really powerful exercise. I don't make I don't want to make this sound wooy or you know anything overly philosophical but I encourage you to guys say this because when you are doing a podcast when you're interviewing people successful people there are going to be times when you question yourself on this and you just have to have this in your head. So, now that that's out of the way, this is literally half the battle. Like I said, um we get into a lot of head trash around if we are valuable to other people in our network. And once you guys can work out the fact that you can be valuable to anyone, the podcast, the content, the business growth, it's all going to fall into place and all the actions succeed this mindset. Now, we can literally do anything. So, let's get tactical. So, the puzzle pieces, like I said, part two, we have podcasting. Podcasting is what's going to create awareness with our ideal clients, and it's going to give us credibility before clients ever meet us. And it makes outreach warm instead of cold. So, when you're sending messages on LinkedIn, people are already going to know, like, and get into the trust factor of the relationship with you. on B. LinkedIn gives you a platform visibility and the flexibility and an audience of your ideal partners and clients. LinkedIn is a very special platform because it's one of the very few that actually allows you to create your followers. You can send connections. You can search by job title. You can create an audience of people who can do you be your ideal partners and buyers. And it's really unique in that sense. And that's a big part of what's going to make this work. And this is what I would call the golden goose right here. see lead generating activities and I want to say front and center this um this will not work if you are not consistent with all three of these and anytime someone is not getting the success they want is because they are not doing the inputs that are necessary to get the results that they want. It's in one of these three areas. When on a high level, we'll definitely dive into this more, but on a high level, lead generating activities are connecting with engaged followers, having real conversations with guests and people or who are listeners of your show, and nurturing your ecosystem. This is, like I said, not cold outreach, it's warm relationships. So, there is no way to speedrun trust. There is no way to speedrun relationships, but you can accelerate that process by being genuine and being consistent, which is the key to this. So remember that, too. All right, moving on. Why podcasting works, part A. Um, podcasting works, and this is a beautiful little visual that me and Gamma AI helped me make. Um, I was the brain behind it, obviously. Um, but on the surface level, podcasting works because it does all the visible things. It creates content. It's building an audience. Everyone sees that stuff, but kind of under the iceberg. And I don't mean to make a visceral Titanic analogy or anything like that. This is not related. Um, but under under the hood, what it's really doing, it's deepening connections. Some things that we're not seeing. It's deepening connections. It's self-improvement. You're getting reps every single week. And it's building consistency. It's training that muscle. It's also another thing I would add here is that it's also public accountability. Once you start a show, people are going to realize two weeks later you're like, "Hey, what the hell happened to your podcast?" You have got to show up month after month, even if you're not doing a weekly show, month after month, delivering the content, sharing the conversation, and it's also public accountability because you record a conversation with someone, they're expecting you to publish it. So, this is why it works. It's I highly recommend on offer. is such a highly leveraged activity. It's working on all these things at the same time. Like I said, not cold outreach, nurturing relationships with people who already recognize your name. And by the time you get into their inbox or continue a conversation, you're not a stranger. And I will say as a double caveat, this has happened to me several times. If you are in a sales conversation or you get on a sales call with someone who has either listened to your podcast or been a guest, the odds of likelihood that that call closes or next steps are taken infinitely higher. There is a level of trust that for some reason and I understand it too like I'm a huge fan of Alex Hormosi. I'm a huge fan of Chris Williamson. Huge fan of Joe Rogan. There is a level of trust that is built when you are listening to someone for hours and hours on end. And there was a study done where I mean there's a lot of times people I can't remember the name of the study but there was study that showed that there's a lot of people who are closer with some of these podcasters than they are with sometimes their own friends and family because they're listening to them more. There's more depth and exposure there. So podcasting works because it is a very good uh developer of trust and it can build close and intimate relationships with people in a way that not many other content formats can. So, your podcast um there's three things and we're not going to go into the podcast ideation and framework here, but at a simple high level, um your podcast should have all these three things. It should add value to your ideal clients. So, it shouldn't just be, you know, shooting the [ __ ] with the boys on the weekend. You should be interviewing people who are productive to know and build relationships with from a business standpoint. It should be process driven. So it should be you should as you go into this, you're going to learn systems that make this not a huge lift. Like I said, we're not podcast production companies. So you're going to learn a light way that you can do this in yourself and make it, like I said, that leveraged activity that really gets those results. And probably most important, it's got to be enjoyable. If you don't enjoy having these conversations, like I said, you might not enjoy it at the beginning. So give it its thorough chance before you turn your nose up at it. It just has to be enjoyable. You have to be interviewing people that you're inspired by, interviewing, having conversations that you want to have. And I will say front and center, too. Not every podcast is going to be a banger. Not every conversation is going to be like, "Wow, I'm just leaning in the whole time." There are going to be moments where you're going to want to quit and you're just going to have to remember why you started in the first place. So, it's important in the beginning when you're ideulating on your show to make sure that it's something you're going to want to come back to every week, every month, whatever your launch cadence is. Next is guest selection. This was fun to put together because I did a little bit of um audit of marketing by design, which is the name of my show. Who am I going to be talking to? Um in the beginning, anyone. Um I know I just said to have an ideal audience, and you should have that from the beginning, so I encourage you to lead with that. But if you're just getting reps in, you can get more calculated on this as you go and you make uh podcast part of your content engine. Um I did a little bit of research here. Um there's three main guest types you should focus on. Um uh and by on a percentage basis, so 10% should be potential clients. You don't want to have a show where you're interviewing just your potential clients because then it's going to turn into a sales pitch and your listeners are going to be able to sense that and also it's not going to be fun. So on a percentage basis, you're not going to be able to calculate this ahead of time. But just on a rough rough percentage basis, potential clients make up about 10% of that. Uh another another 20% is going to be thought leaders. So potentially people who are in your space or serve your clients in a different way. um and can help the show get promotional visibility so that it becomes more of an asset just for you as a whole. Um I'm going to go through into case studies of uh people that I've had that have fit into each of these buckets so you can really see and you know um make one to one examples. And then the other ones, this is a big part of my play as I think about it. Um and I would highly recommend it be a part of yours as well is referral partners and a I call them agency partners. People who serve the same clients as you, but in a different way. Get that in your mind. People who serve the same clients as you, but in a different way. These are the people that you want to build trust and relationships with. Um, and they're perfect guests for your podcast. So, whatever your business is, get ideating on what these people could look like and create a show to where it's appealing for them to say yes to to join you on next. So, go through this framework to ask some of these questions. So, could this person directly benefit from my services? If yes, then they are potential clients and they are a good guest. These two questions, does this person serve the same client as me but in a different way? Or does this person know someone who serves a potential client of mine? Then they are referral partners and they would be a great interview. Lastly, does this person elevate the status of my show? Then they are thought leaders and they are a good guest for your podcast. So, like I said, real life examples and case studies of all these for marketing by design. Uh, number one client uh Andrew was episode wasn't that early days. I think it was in this in the 50s in terms of the episodes. Uh, my friend Andrew owns a local startup called Huckle Insights and I reached out because I had followed him on LinkedIn. I was interested in what he was doing with AI building a tool and a platform and about six months later he reached out because his company Huckle needed a new website. Uh, I'd highly encourage you guys to check out that website. it's badass to build it in Web Flow. Um, but again, the level of trust that we have, the level of cander that we shared over our podcast was a big person that made me top of mind when that project came up. Additionally, um, he addition me he introduced me to his boss, Bill, excuse me, who is going to be a huge referral partner to us. Um, Bill owns a healthcare data analytics marketing agency and could be a really good complimentary service provider to MMG in the future. So, there's a uh case study of a client that was a guest partners. Honestly, this is just too many to list, but I've came up with a ton of examples. By the way, you guys can go to mmgdesign.net/mpodcast and be able to see all the episodes and just scan through these one at a time. Chris Lefay, he owns an enterprise WordPress agency. So, we provide Web Flow services. So, Chris enterprise WordPress agency serving the same similar clients but in a different capacity. Andy C. Andy Cresadina owns an enterprise web agency just an incredible human. Um and his projects he they serve at a different um rate than we do and they also they also build sites on different platform. So again serving in a different capacity so not direct competitors. Bill like I just mentioned deep relationships in the healthcare space made a lot of introductions for us. Brad well connected in my local region. The local play is something else we'll touch on. Um and he specializ in the custom development work. So again, not web flow and Vincent owns a healthcare marketing agency. So again, saving serving the same clients but in a different capacity. These are a couple of screenshots that I've posted on LinkedIn before of the kind of things that you can expect when you have a close network of referral partners who know, like, and trust you. Um, this was from one of the past guests of the podcast. Got you a 10K client, confirmed budget, confirmed web flow, got an entire entire call. We go over the whole thing. This one was another one from a podcast guest. Uh, it took me forever to find these, so I hope you guys appreciate this. But, um, we do some, this was an email that thread that he sent after our podcast said, "Shared your share the show. I tagged you so you can see it. We do some work with healthcare brands. If there's a way I can help you, it may be to send you leads for web development companies that don't fit in our budget range of 80k and up. I'm not sure there'll be many of them, but probably a few per year. I hope I can tell you firsthand this has already happened." um not at obviously at this price range because it was below that. But again, finding people that serve the same client as you but in different ways or different price ranges, people who are one to two steps ahead of you who you generally want to learn from, those are all good guests for your podcast. And example number three, C thought leaders, Jake Claus, absolute badass hero of mine. I've listened to every episode of Creator Science. um has a large audience in general but and that will uh boost the status of our show um and getting potential sponsors like now we have two of them so it's been a really good um asset to have him on the podcast got a lot of visibility towards the show obviously he reshared it we're collaborating on the episode on YouTube did it in person highlight of my year Josh Hall like I just said mutual friend and also a presenter on this summit amazing um amazing inerson space amazing first guest to have on early on in the show, but again, large audience of loyal peers and a really great guest for the podcast. So, these are two examples of thought leaders that uh we've had on Marketing by Design. And a bonus tip when it comes to podcasting, I have done so many episodes and I now have an assistant. So, I'll add that caveat. But for over a 100 episode, I was I was doing everything myself. all the production, all the outreach, scheduling, interviews, everything. But these are the highest leverage activities that I've learned and I would double down on if I can only do a few things. So, first one, timely follow-up. Immediately after you record with a guest, you take a screenshot from the recording, send it to them in an email, just say, "Hey, a quick note to thank you for your time today. That was the highlight of my week." Boom. right there, you're nurturing the relationship and that's 99% of the value that you just shared on the podcast. So, highly recommend a timely follow-up. B, give them everything. So, either before launch date or after launch date, send them an email. Give them all their assets. Give them the thumbnails, the video, the clips, the whole episode, all the links to where you posted it at the RSS, the show notes page, you know, YouTube if you published there. Make it easy for them to reshare. And number three, create a flywheel. I wish I had done this a lot sooner, but I'm getting pretty good at it now. We have over 40 testimonials. But when I say create a flywheel, use a tool like Senda. If you guys don't know what that is, highly recommend you check it out. I'm going to interview the founder, Ali Mikings, um sometime next year or this year. But um is a testimonial gathering tool. ask for testimonials from the show, you know, especially when emotions are high after either just after you record or after you um send them all their assets. They're going to be very grateful, you know. So, ask for testimonials. Then you can add those to the show notes page and you can use it for outreach for future guests. And you can also use it in promotional materials like we used a lot of the testimonials in the slide deck when we were pitching for sponsorships. So, highly recommend these three activities very leveraged. Okay, next up is LinkedIn. So, we have the LinkedIn part of this whole scenario which is going to be very important. Why LinkedIn? So, four basics. You guys have already probably been active on LinkedIn. So, I'm not going to go too deep into this part of it, but is is a big part of this framework. Um, number one is visibility. We need a place to publish the content from the relationships that we're nurturing via our podcast. Number two is control. Like I said, LinkedIn is unique in the sense that it allows you to get in front of your curated ideal audience and it creates the the platform where you're literally creating content for the people that can buy your services. I don't know of any other platform that's like that and that's why I'm just a huge fanboy. Match LinkedIn is a B2B platform. Um, a lot of us are selling to business owners. If you're a web designer, if you're a service provider in general, also takes you a little bit up market. And the majority of us are starting to business owners. Like I said, uh the last part of this flexibility. Depending on your taste, you can make just about any type of content work on LinkedIn. I have proof of this. Go to my profile. I've posted videos. I posted carousels, photo with text, just text only. Any type of content that is appealing to you, you can post on LinkedIn and you can do it well. I promise you of that. It just takes commitment and time as with a lot of this stuff. Moving on. So, this one took the longest of this entire presentation. I highly highly encourage you guys to get the slide deck that'll be available in the resources or just reach out to me directly. But the type of content that w that works on LinkedIn, I went through and I found my nine highest performing posts that led to clients and I distilled them into nine different post types. I'm going to go through them all very quickly. I also attach the links to all the posts here. So, if you're new to LinkedIn as a platform, this is really good and you can also work with someone with a podcasting strategy. Number one is the intro post. So, my friend Jay Klaus, he also calls this like the selfie reset. Essentially, just a video or a post or a selfie saying, "Hey, this is who I am. This is what I do." Uh, and it gives people a reason to follow you, to buy into your story. Can look at that post with that link. Uh, number two is the pitch in public. This is one of my favorites. So, my ideation of this content strategy, a lot of these videos went viral for me, is I took a website and I would literally tear it apart. I would be like, boom, this is what I would change. This is what they're doing well. Here's some of the problems. And you be very constructive. You can also tag the company. Or if you're a designer, what you could do, redesign a hero section on the homepage and talk through your ideas and strategy. Uh, it's sharing your skill set. It's sharing what you can do and you're proving yourself to your potential clients on video, which is just amazing. Number three is the announcement. So, another personalityled post. I post this every time the podcast or every time you reach a follower count metric, whether it's on YouTube, uh, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, something you're proud of. When the podcast reaches a certain number of views, it's a good time to post it. But just like signals of progress really you can position this in a humble way so you don't have to sound braggy. It's really easy to do that. Check out this post to see the copy that I used. But just signals of progress are really important to share because success begets more success. And then you'll find that with a lot of the stuff. Number four is social proof. So pretty self-explanatory. You can use Senda to create posts or just you know if you can get your clients on video even better. Um, but just like a testimonial of your past clients, share them, tag them. Um, really strong trust accelerator. Number five is a detailed case study. So, we record one of these for all of our website launches. Is essentially just going through the website talking through all the tools used. You'll see the format of the post itself. You share the tool stack, you share the company, you share um the client, the testimonial, and you just go super deep on the exact project because it shows that you're being deliberate, and that's something that clients really value. Number six is the personal business transformation. So, leaning into the storytelling part of this, um it is it's a growth story. You share failures, lessons, and pivots. Um where you started, where you're at now, kind of like I did with this presentation. Um, you use this when you have something real to share about your journey of building. So, this can come at an inflection point or just when you want to be more personality driven uh through your content. And the reason it works is you'll see this with a lot of LinkedIn post is because it humanizes you. And people come to LinkedIn. I know it's a B2B platform, but I'll die on the hill that LinkedIn people come to LinkedIn to be entertained. They come to meet people. I don't think there's any other way to describe it is you have to tell you get good at telling your story. in many different capacities even on LinkedIn and that's why this post type works. Another one, this is a good one you I call it the number one rule. Some other creators that I've heard have called this um like the spiky point of view. So essentially like for this post you guys can watch the video, but um what I did was I essentially said like this type of website sucks and I I brought up like um some kind of e-commerce website. And the reason I said that, I read led with that in the hook too, is that people can have mixed opinions about it. And when people people also like to um start controversy because it is a social media platform. So if you have something that's very core to your business and that you believe very deeply, stand behind it and defend yourself if anything comes up. Um, I would highly encourage you guys to experiment with this format because it enforces self-confidence and it forces you to also justify your beliefs and opinions. And when you can justify those with positive attributes that your clients can see, then it's a very productive habit to get into. Post number eight, the personal touch. So, this is really leaning on the community element. What I did with one of these posts is I um I shared a lot of people who I was grateful for in my network and I tagged them. So if you don't want to get too down the rabbit hole of tagging too many people in your LinkedIn post, but what you can do is if you have someone that you connected with that you're grateful for, tag them in a post. They might reshare it. Just gets their visibility on it. They'll get notified and it's just a really good community feel. And look, I tagged seven or eight people in this post. I had a a personalized like two or three sentence description for why I was grateful for them and how they were helping me in this phase of life. Really good play. And the final one, number nine, the local effect. And we alluded to this a little bit earlier. Having something in common with people that you're connecting with on LinkedIn, such as uh location, is a really big um trust accelerator. It's a conversation point when you're having conversations on LinkedIn. So, what I mean by the local effect is you share go to a networking event like I did. I went to an AMA event and I shared a behind the scenes. Look, I tagged everyone that I was connected with at that event. Um, and it allows you to connect with them on a deeper level. So, that's why that post type works. And those are the nine highest performing LinkedIn post types. Um, a few more LinkedIn basics if you guys are new to the platform. Um, using the podcast as a networking tool. Connect with ideal guests. LinkedIn allows you to send 200 connection requests a week. We'll get into those more a little bit later. LinkedIn allows you to send 200 connection requests per week. So, leverage each and every one of those to make sure you're building the correct audience. Repurpose every episode. So, you can post clips, you can post carousels. I've done um carousels of like best quotes with the guests. Attach their photo on it. Tag them in the post. Make them look as good as possible. Uh lead with the hook, not the episode number. That's really important. No one cares about I've seen people post this on LinkedIn. They have to lead with the the title or the name of the episode. You want to lead the post for the podcast about the biggest lesson or the biggest takeaway from the episode. That should just be that should be basics. Um so don't weed with important information when you're posting on LinkedIn. Obviously tag the guests and track. So something we started doing is my assistant is logging every episode in terms of the how it performed on every platform. and we're going to be doubling down on the episodes that perform the best and the ones that I know drove really good relationships and introductions um from a business standpoint. So you what gets measured gets managed as the expression says. Um so be really diligent on tracking these things too. Um this isn't a LinkedIn strategy post but I want to dive a little bit into profile optimization again in case you're new. Um, a few things to pick apart from my profile. As you'll see, always append a CTA. So, LinkedIn let you have a featured link. Always link that back to your website or some place where people can see your work or get in touch with you. When it comes to your bio right here, talk about the you want to have some some um what they call latching points for conversations. What I mean by that, you can identify the platforms that you build on, identify your company, and identify that you host a podcast. All of these things are are um status elevators and then a little bit of a personality thing that is that um that is that conversation point that people can reach out from. I've had a ton of people say or mention hearing aids or that they know someone that has hearing aids or even joke about it and cander and say, "Hey, um I bet my hearing is worse than yours." Or something to that extent. It's really good to have something in common that people can um optimize for. Again, also in your location is kind of kind of covered by this, but um in your location, you want to mention a metropolitan area that's closest to where you live. Um so if you live in a suburb of Columbus, like say Springfield or Worthington, which is where I actually live, go to the biggest metropolitan area that's closest to you, and use that in your bio. It's just helpful for indexing and search. It gives you more credibility. Um and it's a lot easier for people to find you and thus your business. and being visible is the name of the game here. Um, also when it comes to your banner right here, have your company logo, have a main value prop that really explains what you are in clear, simple language, and an element of social proof. So, this is kind of small right here, but essentially a uh a head shot of five clients and five stars, 50 plus marketers and founders that um we've worked with. So, those are the basics of an optimized profile from above the fold. You want to view it as a landing page and you guys are web designers so I don't have to go into details on that. Make it effective from first glance. And part 2C all right if you have been listening via audio or you've tuned out at all this is the most important part of this entire presentation this entire strategy. So I need you to pay attention right here. Um this is part this is the the last part of it and it is lead generation activities. Okay. So if you own a business maybe you didn't sign up for this or maybe you're not thinking about it this way. All of us are marketers. If you started a business it is now your obligation to use strategies like this to the full extent to generate leads and conversations and introductions and progress for the business. If you are not fulfilling on this part, if you're just having conversations or if you're just sporadically engaging on LinkedIn or posting some stuff and you're not doing this, you are not going to get the results. So, this is going to be the most helpful part and I've gone pretty in detail for you here to make this as easy as possible. So, number one, sending connections. We already touched base on this. LinkedIn let you send 200 per week. I'd recommend sending as getting as close to that as you can. Um, I've had some mutual connections whose profiles were taken down for going too high. So, be as enthusiastic as you want with that. Maybe send a little less than 20 per day, but always, always send those connections. This is a curated way to grow your audience. And after that, after people accept your connection request, go to the my network tab in LinkedIn, go to the connections, and that's where you'll see everyone who's accepted those connection requests. Then you actually start conversations. Yo, crazy. We're humans. This is what's going to accelerate the pipeline. If you just connect with people and aren't taking the next step to reach out to yourself, introduce yourself, have conversations, you're not going to go you're not going to get as far with this as you want to. You're not going to get the results that you want. So, essentially, here's just a screenshot of a message I sent this Thursday. Um, this guy and I were in a Slack channel together. So, pulling on that idea of having a talking point, a mutual conversation springboard. You mention that and you talk like a human like this. Um, if I would have said, "James, good to connect. I saw you in the Slack channel." And that's it. We're not going to have a conversation. We're not going to connect. This guy and I are going to be buds. And we started talking about um, hell, I don't even remember like football or something like that. Snow, like this guy and I are going deep and it's because I acted like a human. So send actual message to people who could be referral partners, potential clients, etc. that you connect with. Um this is a core value of mine right here. So number three, the world belongs to those who follow up. I am an insecure person. I admitted that at the beginning of this. Getting over the fear that someone will have of just of rejection is going to accelerate you guys so far. Um, literally sending a follow-up just, hey, I know it gets busy. Just wanted to circle back on this. Hey, I know I know you I know LinkedIn inboxes suck. Um, wanted to make sure that this didn't slip through the cracks. And also this, if you send this Mr. Bean meme, I know it sounds stupid, but trust me, this is has converted high of the highest of any other follow-up I've sent on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn a lot. Um, so even just, you know, having a playful joke to it. Um, once, you know, follow up a couple times. I recommend there's a thing called the Fibonacci follow-up. So, essentially when it comes to following up following up with people on LinkedIn, what you want to do is each followup is twice the length in gap of the followup before it. So uh for example it would be like 1 day 3 day 6 days 12 days 24 days 48 days and whatever after that would be 96 days. Um there's no way to automate this natively via LinkedIn but we use I use a platform called Dex deex. Um you can set reminders for following up with potential leads um at a at a cadence like that. So always always follow up and the I heard a quote about this. Um not just the world belongs to those followup but follow up until f Okay, this is listen to this. Follow up until um they say yes, they say no until you die or until they die. And if you follow that up, if you keep it to that extreme, you don't have to be rude with it. you can be very human and still have that core value. Uh, and number four, bringing this all home is to track this stuff. So, I go over this every month in my monthly retro, head over YouTube to see the last 20 months I've recorded this, but essentially it's just um keeping track of your pipeline, logging into a spreadsheet, doesn't matter. If you have a CRM, use that. Uh, I use Google Sheets and I use a pieces of other CRM I just have notices of, but track all the stuff. very helpful, very productive. Bonus right here. I need to zoom out. Um, I created a little bit of a resource. Um, essentially just how I got my first five web design clients. I took screenshots of all the conversations and the pieces of content that led to those. If you want that, you can either message me or I'll just send it to you. Um, or you could just uh download that in the resources as well. Um, more LinkedIn tips because I just have a ton of them. Consistency. Like I said, I don't see a huge difference between posting three times a week, between posting seven times a week, or posting twice a day. Um, minimum three times a week, Monday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you're getting the 8020 of the benefits. Pay attention to small signals. So, small signals. When someone likes or comments or reposts your post, you instantly have an outreach list. So, anytime someone um comments or raises their hand that they're interested in you, your life, your content, this is more this is context dependent on the content type. So, if it's directly like a salesy, not a salesy post, but um like a post of your work, if you're a designer and a potential lead or someone who's a marketer, someone sees that, then follow up with them, say, "Hey, thanks for the love on the post." Or just start a conversation. Number three, kind of building on the tracking, build on what's already working. So, if your post goes viral, like I said, you don't want to be posting selfies and stuff all day. But if you have a post type that's productive from a business standpoint, that works well, repurpose it, reformat it, and continue to post it. This goes back to like the hormones, the idea of when you think something's saturated or that you've done it too much. When you think you're boring people with your content or that you're overloading them or spamming them, people are just now learning about you. Like there is no you have to get over this mindset that you're going to bother people on the platform is that when you think people are getting bored of you, they are just now hearing about you. They they people don't care that much about you. So get out of that mindset. Now your playbook. So ideas and everything is fun, but you have to actually take action on this. Um, so I have three prescriptions for you on each lever of this when it comes to LinkedIn, podcasting, content, and systems. Um, when it comes to LinkedIn, make that intro post. So, go back to the 10 post types that I showed you in the slide deck and reference my post. Say, "Hey, this is who I am. This is what I do." Reintroduce yourself to your network. And that's going to be a great springboard into creating content long term. Whether you post three days a week, 5 days a week, just having an intra post, a selfie reset as Jay calls it, get yourself on the platform. Number two, podcasting and content. Go to LinkedIn, build a list of ideal prospects, connections, and send 20 requests before Monday. Go to people that could be potential podcast guests that would benefit you or your audience that fall in those three categories, either thought leaders, potential clients, or referral partners. create a list of a hundred and start connecting with them and then a conversation will naturally arise. When it comes to the systems part of it, systematize your outreach and get more consistent on that front as well. So, thank you guys. I'm open for any questions. I encourage you guys to connect with me over on LinkedIn if you have any questions. Um, this has been a lot of fun to put together. I want to say thank you to Sam and all the badasses that have come before me um in this presentation. And you're going to learn a ton from every single one of them. So, I appreciate you guys and I'll talk