One of the biggest improvements you can make to your content is improving the first few lines of copy.

I’d struggled for years with this.

I’d spend spend hours creating posts, videos and graphics, but the hook is often the thing that decides whether anybody consumes the content in the first place.

I’d missed the importance of it.

I’d assuming it was a gimmick.

I had useful advice, strong ideas and valuable experience, but people still needed a reason to pay attention. I’d get angry at my well-thought out posts bombing and then some random post going crazy.

That’s the power of a good hook.

The easiest way to understand hooks is to think about newspapers. A newspaper had a front cover designed to grab attention.

There’s a headline, an image and a smaller teaser section hinting at the main story inside.

The teaser is the hook.

Social media works exactly the same way.

The image or video usually gets attention first. The hook is the second thing people look at. If the hook creates curiosity, they continue reading. If it doesn’t, they move on.

A lot of people think the hook is there to explain the post, but that’s not really its job. The hook is there to create enough interest for somebody to continue into the rest of the content.

The Power Of Open Loops

Hooks are more than a social media gimmick.

They are part of how you get investment of time from people. Hooks are used in marketing, television, investor decks, presentations - they are fundamental human communication.

The best hooks create what’s called an open loop.

An open loop is an unfinished idea that leaves people with a question in their mind. It creates curiosity and makes people want to know more.

TV shows do this constantly with cliff-hangers. Something happens and you immediately want to know what comes next. Hooks work the same way.

You give people enough information to become interested, but not enough to fully satisfy that curiosity.

For example:

9 tips to send better DMs

No 9. is key to more responses

That creates an unanswered question. People now want to know what number 9 is. That curiosity pulls them into the rest of the post.

Hooks need to be short, easy to read and leave people asking a what, why or how question.

I alternate between two-line hooks (with a space between) and three short lines (see examples below).

Once you understand this, writing hooks becomes much easier because you stop trying to explain everything immediately. Instead, you focus on creating a reason for people to continue reading.

General Hooks vs Specific Hooks

There are two main types of hooks: general hooks and specific hooks. Both work, but they achieve different things.

General Hooks

General hooks attract a broader audience. These are usually built around curiosity, emotion, surprise or drama.

General hooks are useful when your goal is:

• Reach

• Awareness

• Broader engagement

Because they appeal to a wider audience, they can help your content spread further.

Specific Hooks

Specific hooks are designed to attract the exact audience you want.

These hooks usually reference:

• A problem

• A desire

• A result

• A type of person

For example, if your audience wants more leads, your hook should connect to leads. If your audience wants more sales, your hook should connect to sales.

The strongest hooks usually reference both the audience and what they want. That’s what makes people stop scrolling because they instantly feel the post is relevant to them.

What People Pay Attention To

Once you start thinking about hooks through the lens of audience motivations, the process becomes much simpler. You stop trying to sound clever and start focusing on what people already care about.

The clearer the desire, the easier it becomes to write stronger hooks.

Practical Ways To Improve Your Hooks

Strong hooks are usually simple, clear and direct. They don’t try to say everything at once.

A few small improvements can make a big difference:

• Lead with the strongest idea: Put the most interesting point first instead of slowly building into it.

• Keep the opening easy to process: People scroll quickly, so clarity matters.

• Focus on one clear point: Strong hooks are usually built around one core idea.

• Connect to real desires: Talk about things your audience already wants, cares about or struggles with.

• Create an unanswered question: Give people a reason to continue reading.

• Be specific: Specific hooks feel clearer, more believable and more relevant.

  ---

What Happens When Your Hooks Improve

The hook often determines what happens next in the entire content cycle.

When more people read your post, more people engage with it. More comments, shares and profile visits happen naturally because more people are actually consuming the content.

That increased attention can lead to:

• More inbound leads

• More conversations

• More opportunities

• More followers

• More visibility

The hook is often the first domino that creates all of those outcomes.

That’s why spending more time improving your opening lines is one of the highest-value improvements you can make to your content.

Small changes to hooks can completely change how many people consume the ideas you’re sharing.

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You’re already posting consistently and doing all the right things, but what you really want is leads.

You want people messaging you wanting more.

When you understand what actually drives someone to reach out, you can make every post work harder.

Most content creates awareness, and awareness is not the same as demand.

Demand is someone putting their phone down, opening a new tab, and typing “Hi, I’ve been following you for a while. I’d love to chat.”

Once you start using the three triggers below, that’s exactly what your content can do.

Why Emotion Does the Heavy Lifting

Your reader might tell you they made a decision because “the numbers made sense” or “the timing was right,” but that’s rarely why they did it now, on that particular day, after seeing that particular piece of content.

Decisions are emotional first and logical second.

The business case is what someone uses to justify it to their boss or partner, but the thing that actually gets them off the fence is a feeling.

When your content creates that feeling rather than just informing people, you’ll start to see the difference in your enquiries.

Here’s how to do it:

Trigger 1: Make Doing Nothing Feel Expensive

Showing your reader what they’ll gain is a great start, and most content does exactly that, but you can go further by making the cost of inaction just as vivid.

When your reader thinks “hang on, how much is this costing me right now?” rather than “sounds great, I’ll look into it sometime,” you’ve created real urgency.

Specific beats vague.

Instead of “you might be leaving money on the table,” try “if you’re still doing this manually, you’re spending eight hours a week on something that takes other people forty-five minutes.” Instead of “your marketing could be better,” try “every month you invest in leads that don’t convert is money you could be keeping.”

When you get that specific, your reader feels it.

You can also make it easier to say yes by reducing the perceived cost of acting, not just in terms of money but time, effort, and risk.

The more straightforward you make the next step feel, the more people will take it.

Trigger 2: The Black Box

This one feels counterintuitive at first, but it’s one of the most powerful tools you have: show people the destination without giving away the route.

When you share full breakdowns and step-by-step detail, you create satisfaction.

Your reader thinks “brilliant, that’s helpful,” and moves on with their day having got what they needed. When you show them a compelling outcome and hold back the how, you create curiosity, and curiosity is uncomfortable enough to drive action.

Think of a film trailer.

It doesn’t show you the ending; it shows you just enough to make you need to see what happens next.

When you tease the destination, make the result feel real and achievable, and leave the route map for the conversation that follows, you’ll find people reaching out asking “how do you actually do that?” and that’s exactly where you want them.

Trigger 3: Give Your Reader a Wake-Up Call

Your audience might not be in a crisis.

But you know they could be in a better place. Maybe they’ve got used to the painful problem in their life or business.

There’s a good chance they’ve also convinced themselves that where they are right now is good enough. Your content has the opportunity to show them something bigger.

The most effective way to do this is to share a story about someone just like them who got a significantly better result.

Not a celebrity, not a company ten times their size, but someone with the same starting point, the same constraints, and the same doubts, who made one different decision and ended up somewhere much better.

When your reader can genuinely see themselves in that story, it creates a healthy kind of FOMO, not the shallow social media kind but the real, motivating realisation that more is available to them and other people are already getting it.

Case studies, client wins, and before-and-after stories are incredibly powerful for this reason. Used well, they give your reader the nudge they didn’t know they needed.

TL;DR

When your content combines all three triggers, something shifts:

1. Make inaction feel costly by being specific about what staying put is costing your reader

2. Tease the outcome, save the how so curiosity pulls them towards a conversation with you

3. Share stories of people like them getting better results so they can see what’s possible

Most content educates. The best content motivates. Start writing for the feeling, and the leads will follow.

You should be!

Stop being a better competitor.
Be the only choice available.
Hit these Category of One dominos.

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TL;DR: Winning 2-3 clients a month from LinkedIn is a system. Get five things working together and the platform turns into a serious revenue channel. Most of it is foundational work you build once and run for years.

You probably do not have hours a day to sit on LinkedIn like a creator.

You have a business to run, clients to deliver for, and hopefully a life outside of the internet. That means you need an approach that fits real life.

I built my businesses using LinkedIn, since 2015, LinkedIn has been my primary revenue channel. Despite the changes, I haven’t had to change my strategy.

My strategy isn’t about conquering the platform… it’s about resonating with the right people and playing a high value, low volume approach.

Sell high ticket, not high volume

Two routes will get you to $1 million in revenue.

Sell a $200 thing 5,000 times, or sell a $20,000 thing 50 times.

LinkedIn is built for the second route.

Trying to move thousands of low ticket products takes ad spend, automation, and a brand you probably do not have yet.

Selling 50 high ticket engagements is a completely different game:

• You only need 50 buyers to hit $1 million

• You only need to be relevant to a small group of the right people

• You can run the whole thing in a couple of hours a week

Selling high volume on LinkedIn is hard.

Selling low volume, high value is easier.

So, that’s what I’ll explain in this piece…

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1. Your 4 second value proposition

You have about 4 seconds when someone lands on your profile, your post, or your message to make them think “that is for me.”

That is your window. Fail that and you’ve been lost in the noise of LinkedIn.

Because you only need 50 people to buy, relevance matters more than reach.

A vague message that sort of fits a lot of people will not get you 50 clients. A super specific message will.

To get a 4 second value prop sharp enough to land, you need the Five Ones in place. Without them, anything you write stays generic:

• One problem people actively want to solve

• One audience who have that problem and the budget to fix it

• One offer built around that exact problem

• One message that makes the value obvious

• One process to capture their intent and convert it

When you dial into this, you can get really specific, and pull those messaging levers that draws in the right people.

You can’t write a 4-second value prop for your offer, your profile or any of your content without the five ones.

2. A pre-selling profile

People buy when they have seen enough of you over enough time to feel they already know you. People don’t buy from strangers.

Your profile is what does that work in the background.

When someone reads your post, gets your connection request, or sees your comment, they will check your profile.

Treat it like a landing page and the sale gets easier every time you speak to a prospect because they already understand what you do.

Build it in this order:

• Top of the profile states the promise of your offer

• Photo is clear so people remember your face

• Headline restates the value of what you do

• Services section spells out exactly what you offer

• Featured section points to the one offer you are marketing right now

By the time someone books a call, your profile has done most of the educating for you.

3. An audience of buyers

If you want 2-3 clients a month, you build a flow of the right people coming into your network every week.

Some are ready now.

Some take a couple of months.

Some take a year.

You are filling a pond, not fishing in a shrinking one.

Aim for 10-20 connection requests a day to your ideal client.

That gives you around 100-200 new ideal clients in your network every month, learning your name, seeing your offer, building familiarity.

A few rules to follow:

• Connect with 2nd degrees, not 3rds

• Check the person actually uses the platform. Recent activity means they will see you

• Focus on the lurkers, the people who scroll and read but rarely post. That is where most of the buying happens

• Your newest connections are the most likely to see your content, so keep the network fresh

This is the domino.

Get this right and everything downstream gets easier.

4. Authority content built on agitation

Authority content has three ingredients:

• An angle, a fresh way of looking at the problem

• A perspective, an opinion or belief you advocate for

• Experience, your stories and client examples to back it up

The strongest move inside authority content is agitation.

Agitation is where you contrast someone’s current state with a better one and let them feel the gap.

Think about it like this…

Your old car goes in for a service and the garage hands you a brand new Range Rover to drive for a week. You sit in it. You feel it. You get used to it. At the end of the week, going back to your old car becomes the motivation to upgrade.

That is the job your content does:

• Show people where they could be

• Help them feel the gap between today and the better version

• Give them the motivation to act on it

Heavy free how-tos can quietly delay the sale because they give people just enough to go away and try it themselves.

If you need clients soon, balance teaching with agitation so the motivation to work with you stays warm.

5. A conversion engine

Content builds familiarity.

A conversion engine builds predictability.

There are 5 paths to choose from on LinkedIn:

• Newsletter or email list, where 2-3 sign-ups a day become real conversations

• Conversion content like loaded polls, self-propelling posts, and lead magnet posts

• Live events and webinars where you teach your method to a room of the right people

• Relationship-led campaigns for higher value deals that need time to build trust

• Hyper-targeted outreach, the sniper version, where 5 well-crafted messages a day book a meeting

Pick the one that fits you.

If you love being on camera, run an event every month and fill it with your ideal clients.

If you prefer writing, build the newsletter and follow up with new subscribers.

The best path is the one you will run consistently.

Find the right path for you

The 5 conversion paths all work, but not all of them will fit you.

The right one depends on your style, your strengths, and how you like to spend your time.

Take the quiz at https://www.5pathstogettingclients.co.uk/quiz.

It scores you against all 5 paths and tells you which one fits you best, so you build a system you will actually run.

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I got an email from a listener to my podcast last week.

They’d been listening for a couple of months and they loved an episode where I talked about Wikipedia content. Here’s what they said...

Hi Dean, love listening to your podcasts on the drive home. I listened to one this week where you talked about not making your content Wikipedia content. I’m guilty of doing this, just sharing information.

My questions is, do you have a framework or structure to do that? I often overthink this and end up spending too much time on it.

This is a common problem and I’ll bet some of you reading also struggle with this too. You want to give value to your audience, but often struggle to structure it into an engaging format.

I got stuck here too.

Human beings despite being amazingly creative, often can’t operate without structure. I find this with my own content. If I don’t have a framework, I overthink it or over produce it, then get angry at myself for wasting 2 hours making one post.

If there is an area I’m weak on, I don’t look for hacks or tips and tricks, I look for structures or frameworks.

Frameworks give me a container to work within.

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The 5P’s of Storytelling Content

This 5P framework I found in 2018 and have used and repurposed for different types of content. This is it...

1. Picture - Set the scene (who, what, where, when)

2. Problem - What’s not working (the issue that arises)

3. Process - What I did (the steps you took)

4. Payoff - What happened (the result)

5. Point - The lesson (the reminder for your audience)

Let me do a post example:

Picture

I was sat in a coffee shop a couple of weeks back. I was drinking my favourite drink, Chai Latte.

As I took a sip, the shop owner approached me, “You do marketing right?”

Problem

“We’ve been struggling to get people into the shop mid-week, can I pick your brains?”

We chatted back and forth and I asked a few questions, before I gave my advice.

Process

Here’s what I suggested she do...

First, mid-week in a small town you need retired customers coming in. On a weekend the footfall is high, so that is taken care of.

So, I’d do some form of deal for the most popular items older people buy. I wouldn’t put all the effort on getting new customers. Just get existing customers to come more mid-week.

Second, I wouldn’t rely on social media to promote it, I’d do a promotional card and give it to customers over the weekend.

Third, I’d adjust your opening hours so you’re open for trades people for early morning fry ups and breakfasts. They often start at 8am. You open at 8:30am.

Payoff

“Why didn’t I think of that? It is so simple and makes total sense”

She made plans for the cards to be printed and decided to open earlier on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

I went back in this weekend and checked out it was going.

“We did a ‘builders brekkie’ on Wednesdays and they’re going well. We actually had some of lads outside this week waiting for us to open at 7.

“We do a pensioners discount mid week now and it bring us steady flow of custom on our quiet days.”

Point

Sometimes we run to the big bold actions, but often it’s the simple tweaks that make a big difference.

It’s cheaper and faster to make the little tweak.

Structure gives you speed and uniqueness

A structure like this works for you and the audience.

There is a logical flow which makes it easy for the audience to follow along, but it also makes it easy for you to put the point you want to make into a story or experience which makes it unique.

There is no shortage of content out there.

This allows you to package your advice and knowledge in your own stories and experiences.

This gives you speed and uniqueness.

That connects your expertise and you with your audience.

Webinars Made Me $27k A Week. I Stopped Doing Them (Huge Mistake)

I made a $1.3 million marketing mistake and it cost me $68,000 in losses before I worked out what had gone wrong.

In this episode I share exactly how it happened, what I did to fix it, and the lesson every business owner needs to hear.

Thanks for joining me this week.

If there is a topic you’d like covered, feel free to drop me a message.

I want to help you build your brand, win clients and get paid what you’re worth, so tell me what you need and I’ll core it.

The other day I was talking with someone who was overwhelmed.

They’d tried funnels, paid ads, lead magnets, and four different social channels. Nothing was working.

They asked me:

“Why does this work for everyone else and not for me?”

The answer isn’t the tools.

Selling and marketing haven’t changed. The tools have. The platforms have. But the people receiving your messages haven’t changed at all.

We are still wired for survival. We avoid loss. We seek gain. We follow the crowd. We trust the familiar. We buy from people we like.

That’s human biology.

No algorithm changes that. No platform rewires thousands of years of human nature.

These are the rules that transcend tools and tactics.

They work in person, on a call, in an email, in a post, in a DM. Master them and the medium stops mattering.

But one thing before you read on.

Every rule here requires you to know exactly who you are talking to.

Not broadly - specifically.

One person, one problem, one situation.

Without that, these rules have nothing to work with.

Get clear on that first. Then use what follows.

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1. Humans are distracted.

Most people are not sitting waiting for your message.

They are busy, stressed, and surrounded by noise. Every day the average person is exposed to thousands of messages, adverts, emails, and posts.

The brain filters most of them out without the person realising it. If the first thing they read doesn’t feel immediately relevant to them, they move on.

• Lead with the problem your audience already has, not your name or your company

• Read your opening line and ask: would someone who doesn’t know me stop for this

• Remove anything in the first sentence that isn’t directly about the reader

2. Humans are self-interested.

This isn’t a criticism of people. It’s how the brain works. The brain is wired to prioritise information that affects the person reading it. Everything else gets filtered out.

When someone reads your post, email, or message, they are not thinking about you. They are asking one question without realising it: does this matter to me.

If the answer isn’t obvious, they stop reading.

• Start every piece of communication with the reader’s problem, not your background or story

• Go through your content and replace every “I” and “we” with “you” wherever it makes sense

• Before you post or send anything, ask: if I were the reader, would I care about this

3. Humans avoid loss more than they seek gain.

Two psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, spent years studying how people make decisions. They found that losing something feels roughly twice as painful as gaining something feels good.

The fear of a problem getting worse, or the cost of doing nothing, is a stronger motivator than the promise of something new and better.

Most marketing focuses on the gain. The more effective approach is to help people feel the weight of the problem they already have.

• Describe what happens if your audience does nothing and stays where they are

• Show the real cost of the problem they are living with, in time, money, or stress

• Don’t just talk about what they’ll get. Talk about what they’re losing by waiting.

4. Humans are suspicious of being sold to.

People have been marketed to their entire lives. They have developed a finely tuned radar for when someone is trying to push them toward a decision.

The moment someone feels like they’re being pitched at, their guard goes up. They start looking for the catch. The harder you push, the more they resist.

This is why aggressive sales tactics and heavy promotional language produce the opposite of the intended effect.

• Give genuine value before you make any offer, whether that’s useful content, honest advice, or real insight

• Let people reach their own conclusion rather than telling them what to decide

• Remove any language from your communication that sounds like an advert or a rehearsed script

5. Humans buy with emotion (then logic)

A neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio, studied patients who had damage to the part of the brain that processes emotion. These patients were intelligent and could process information well. But they were unable to make decisions.

They would analyse options endlessly and never choose. What Damasio found was that emotion is not a distraction from decision making. It is a requirement for it.

People feel their way to a decision first, then use facts and logic to confirm it was the right call.

• Open with how your client will feel after working with you, not a list of what’s included

• Use real stories to create an emotional response before you present any facts or figures

• Don’t lead with features. Lead with the feeling, then back it up with proof.

6. Humans need to feel understood before they’ll listen.

The brain is constantly running a background check on every situation it encounters, asking: is this relevant to me, does this person get my situation, is it worth reading on.

If a message doesn’t reflect someone’s reality, the brain files it as irrelevant and moves on.

When someone reads something and thinks “that is my situation,” their defences drop. They give you their attention. They keep reading.

Understanding your audience in detail is not optional. It is the foundation of everything.

• Use the exact words and phrases your audience uses to describe their own problem, not the words you use to describe it

• Talk to your existing clients about how they felt before they worked with you and use that language in your content

• Write as if you are speaking to one specific person, not a broad general audience

7. Humans trust the familiar.

A psychologist called Robert Zajonc identified something called the mere exposure effect. He found that people develop a preference for things because they have seen them before, even if they don’t remember seeing them.

Familiarity feels safe. The unfamiliar feels risky. This is why being seen consistently over time is not vanity. It is a commercial strategy.

• Show up consistently so people see you and your message on a regular basis

• Keep your message, tone, and visual identity consistent so people recognise you

• Don’t disappear for weeks at a time and expect people to remember who you are

8. Humans follow the crowd.

When people are uncertain about what to do, they look at what other people are doing and use that as a guide.

Psychologist Robert Cialdini called this social proof. The thinking is simple: if other people like me have already done this, it’s safe for me to do it too.

Reviews, testimonials, case studies, and numbers are not nice to have. They are proof that removes the fear of being first.

• Share client results, testimonials, and case studies as a regular part of your content, not just on a website page nobody visits

• Be specific about who you’ve helped, naming the types of people, industries, and outcomes they got

• Show volume where you have it. Numbers like “500 clients” or “11 countries” signal that you are an established, trusted choice.

9. Humans buy from people they like.

Social psychologist Robert Cialdini found that liking is one of the most consistent drivers of whether people say yes.

Given two similar products at a similar price, people choose the one sold by someone they like more. This doesn’t mean being entertaining or having a big personality. It means being real, being consistent, and being someone your audience can relate to.

People like people who are honest, who share a point of view, and who feel like a real person rather than a corporate voice.

• Share your opinions and perspectives, not just information and tips. People like people who stand for something.

• Be consistent in your tone and style so people feel like they know you over time

• Stop trying to appeal to everyone. The more specific you are about who you help and what you believe, the more strongly certain people will connect with you.

10. Humans buy from people they trust.

Trust is the single biggest factor in whether someone buys from you. Research from Harvard Business School shows that trust outweighs price, product quality, and convenience in purchase decisions.

Trust is not built in one conversation or one piece of content. It is built through repeated exposure to someone who knows what they’re talking about, does what they say, and has the results to prove it.

You cannot shortcut trust. You can only build it over time.

• Share your knowledge freely and consistently without attaching an offer to every piece of content

• Be transparent about what you do, who you help, and what you don’t do

• Document and share real client results so people can see evidence of what you produce

11. Humans act when the timing is right for them.

Most people who come across your content are not ready to buy right now. Research shows that in most markets, only around 3 to 5 percent of your audience is ready to buy at any given time.

The rest are at different stages. Some are aware they have a problem but haven’t decided to fix it. Some are comparing options. Some will be ready in six months.

The majority of people you reach today are not lost leads. They are future buyers who need to keep seeing you until the timing is right for them.

• Build a way to stay in regular contact with people over time, not just when you have something to sell

• Create content that speaks to people at different stages, not only those ready to buy right now

• Don’t write someone off because they didn’t respond. Follow up over months, not days.

12. Humans need repetition before they believe something.

Seeing or hearing something once is rarely enough to change how someone thinks or behaves. The brain builds credibility through repeated exposure to the same message over time.

Studies in advertising have found that people need to encounter a message multiple times before it feels credible enough to act on.

Saying the right thing once is far less effective than saying it repeatedly.

• Repeat your core message consistently across every channel and format you use

• Don’t assume people saw something the first time you shared it. Say it again in a different way.

• Build a content system that keeps your message in front of people regularly, not just when you feel like posting

13. Humans make decisions based on identity.

People don’t just buy products or services. They buy things that fit with how they see themselves or how they want to be seen.

Psychologist Henri Tajfel spent decades studying how identity shapes human behaviour. He found that people’s sense of who they are influences almost every decision they make, including what they buy and who they buy from.

If your offer feels out of place with how someone sees themselves, they won’t buy it even if they need it. If it fits their identity, the decision feels natural.

• Speak to who your buyer wants to become, not just what they want to have

• Use language that reflects the values, beliefs, and self-image of the people you are trying to reach

• Show people who look like your ideal client already getting results, so the decision feels like a natural fit

14. Humans are paralysed by too many choices.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz studied what happens when people are given too many options. He found that more choice does not help people decide. It makes decisions harder and more stressful.

When people feel overwhelmed by options or confused by a complicated process, they do the easiest thing available: nothing. This is called decision fatigue.

Every extra option, condition, or step you add to your sales process increases the chance that someone walks away without deciding.

• Give one clear offer with one clear next step, not a menu of options for people to work out themselves

• Remove complexity, conditions, and jargon from your sales process so the path forward is obvious

• If you have multiple products or services, guide people to the right one rather than listing everything and leaving them to choose

15. Humans value what they pay for.

Researcher Dan Ariely ran experiments showing that price shapes how much people value something. When something is free, people engage with it less and get less from it.

When something costs money, people pay more attention, put in more effort, and place more value on what they receive.

Price is not just a number. It is a signal. It tells people how seriously to take what you’re offering.

• Charge appropriately for what you deliver and don’t apologise for your price

• If you offer free content or resources, make them substantial and well produced, not an afterthought

• Understand that lowering your price to win clients reduces how much they value what you do

16. Humans are influenced by authority.

Psychologist Robert Cialdini identified authority as one of the core principles of human influence. People defer to those they perceive as experts.

When someone appears knowledgeable, experienced, and credible, others are more likely to trust their advice and follow their recommendations.

Authority is not about titles alone. It is about demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about through the quality of your thinking and the results you’ve produced.

• Share the clients you’ve worked with and the results you’ve produced clearly and regularly

• Write and speak with confidence. Over-qualifying and excessive caveats undermine how authoritative you appear.

• Don’t hide your track record out of modesty. Stating facts about your experience is evidence, not arrogance.

17. Humans remember stories, not facts.

Neuroscientist Uri Hasson at Princeton University found that when someone tells a story, the brain of the listener starts to mirror the brain of the storyteller. Stories create a shared experience in a way that facts and data cannot.

A list of features tells people what something is. A story about a real person solving a real problem makes them feel what it’s like. Facts inform the brain. Stories move it.

• Use real client stories to illustrate every point you make rather than stating a claim and expecting people to believe it

• Structure your stories simply: here is the situation, here is the problem, here is what changed, here is the result

• Make the client the hero of the story. Your job is to be the guide who helped them get there, not the star of the show.

These rules don’t expire.

They worked before the internet existed.

They worked before social media.

They’ll work after whatever comes next.

The tools will keep changing. Human beings won’t.

♻️If this has been useful, share it with someone who is drowning in tactics and missing the principles.

It might save them a lot of wasted time and money.

Every week I break down what actually works to get leads, build pipeline and win clients, if you like the sound of that - don’t forget to subscribe.

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Is LinkedIn Stopping Live Streaming?

Not exactly. But it is changing.

And it’s GOOD NEWS.

From 22nd June 2026, you cannot go live on LinkedIn without scheduling it first. No spontaneous broadcasts. No hitting a button and going.

LinkedIn put it this way: you can still go live on short notice by scheduling your event just minutes in advance.

So the option is still there. You just need to give it a title and a time first. That is the actual change, and it is not as dramatic as some people are making out.

Why LinkedIn is doing this

A few reasons, and none of them are surprising.

• Unplanned streams get no viewers: When nobody knows a stream is happening, nobody shows up. The streamer waits around, delays the start, and ends up talking to a handful of people. Scheduling gives the algorithm something to work with and gives your audience a reason to show up prepared.

• LinkedIn does not want to become Instagram: Some of the spontaneous lives on the platform were a mess. No structure, no topic, no real purpose. Forcing even a five minute planning window means you at least have to give it a title and a reason to exist. That is a good thing.

• LinkedIn wants you inside the platform: Most people streaming through Riverside or Streamyard do not even need to log in. They broadcast and disappear. LinkedIn wants the planning, the promotion, and the audience building happening on LinkedIn. That makes sense from their side.

The opportunity most people are missing

While everyone is debating this change, most people are missing the bigger point.

Live is one of the most underused tools in social selling and one of the highest return activities you can do.

I have done weekly lives for six years.

Every one scheduled.

And we worked out recently that each live generates around $12,000 within 30 days. Within 12 months that climbs to $27,700 per live.

That is not from selling on the stream.

There is no pitch, no offer, no close. It comes from the trust live builds and the conversations it starts.

Here is why it works.

When someone watches you live, something different happens compared to reading a post.

They hear your tone.

They see how you handle questions.

They watch you think on your feet.

That is a completely different level of trust.

It is the closest thing to being in the room with someone without actually being there.

Posts build awareness.

Lives build belief.

Belief is what turns a follower into a conversation and a conversation into a client.

The replay keeps working too. It sits on your profile after the broadcast ends.

People find it days or weeks later. One live can start conversations for months.

Most people avoid live because it feels uncomfortable.

That discomfort is exactly why it works.

Anyone can write a post.

Not everyone will show up and talk openly about what they know for an hour.

That willingness to show up is what separates the people who build real trust from the people who stay invisible.

What this means for you

If you are already scheduling your lives, nothing changes.

If you were going live with no plan and no audience, this change will not hurt you.

You were not getting much from it anyway.

And if you have been putting off using live because it felt too spontaneous or unpredictable, this is actually a good nudge.

Pick a time.

Invite your network.

Show up.

Talk to your audience.

The bar is lower than you think.

One extra step before you go live is not a problem.

It is probably what most people should have been doing all along.

Thanks for your support.

Have a great week.

Dean 🍸

One of my clients started doing this in February.

• 10 messages a day.

• 15 minutes of work.

• Avg 4 calls booked each week.

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How does he decide who to message?

LinkedIn tells you exactly who is already paying attention to you. Every day, three lists update with people who have looked at your profile, followed you, or engaged with your posts.

These are warm contacts. They already know who you are. All you need to do is start the conversation.

Open LinkedIn and check these three places:

• Profile Viewers: Click on who viewed your profile. These people looked you up for a reason.

• Followers: See who has followed you recently. They want to hear from you.

• Engagers: Check who liked or commented on your posts. They are already interested in what you do.

Pick 10 people across those three lists and send each one this message:

[Name], spotted you [action]. I work with [their role] to [outcome]. Is this something you are looking for?

For example:

Alex, spotted you checked out my profile. I work with MSP owners to get consistent pipeline from LinkedIn. Is this something you are looking at?

The reason it works is that these people already know who you are. You are not interrupting a stranger. You are following up on something they did. That changes the whole dynamic of the conversation.

Most people spend their time posting and hoping someone reaches out. This puts you in control. You are starting conversations with people who are already paying attention, and that is where pipeline comes from.

Fifteen minutes a day. Ten messages. It is one of the simplest things you can do on LinkedIn right now, and the results speak for themselves.

Give it a go this week and let me know how you get on.

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You sit down, you know your subject inside out, and nothing comes.

The problem is not your knowledge. You have no system to access it.

A content map fixes this.

Here is how to build one:

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Step 1: Write down your three to five main topics

These are the broad areas your business covers. Not twenty. Not ten. Three to five.

If you work in LinkedIn training, yours might be: profiles, outreach, content, lead generation, personal brand. If you are in sales leadership, yours might be: prospecting, pipeline, objection handling, closing, team performance.

Do not overthink this. These are just the containers for everything you know.

Step 2: Break each main topic into six or seven subtopics

Take each main topic and ask: what are the distinct areas within this?

LinkedIn profiles breaks into: Profile, Content, DMs, Groups, Sales Navigator, Ads, Newsletters, Events, Games etc.

Seven subtopics from one main topic. Across five main topics, you now have up to 35 subtopics.

Write them all out.

Do not filter.

Step 3: Go micro on every subtopic

This is where the content lives.

Take each subtopic and list every individual element.

Just thinking about LinkedIn profiles, you have profile pic, banner, featured section, about section, experience, recommendations, skills, custom links, headline etc.

Do this across all your subtopics and you will have hundreds of specific, usable ideas in front of you.

You’ll now have 100+ micro topics.

Now use these and think up and research common questions, myths, problems people encounter etc.

I like to use Google and reddit for this.

Why you must stay at micro level

Broad topics run dry fast.

You write one post about LinkedIn profiles and feel like you have covered it.

You have not. You have been working at the wrong level of detail.

Teaching broadly also undermines your value.

If your post explains your entire profile optimisation process, why would someone pay to work with you?

Micro topics let you share real value without giving away the methodology that makes you money.

One specific, actionable thing per post.

Useful to your audience. Safe for your business.

How to use the map

Pick one micro topic.

Pick a goal:

• Attract - Gain visibility and engagement

• Nurture - Build trust and add value

• Convert - Drives leads and downloads

That is your post.

For example:

Topic > Subtopic > Micro Topic + Goal

LinkedIn > Profile > Banner

• Attract = Comparison post of different banners = ask which people like

• Nurture = Practical tips for your LinkedIn Banner.

• Convert = Canva Template for Banner

If your goal is practical value, write a step-by-step guide on designing one in Canva in fifteen minutes.

Same micro topic.

Completely different posts.

The map does not just give you ideas. It gives you a repeatable process for turning one idea into many.

Set aside an hour this week.

Main topics first.

Subtopics second.

Micro topics third.

By the end of it you will have more content ideas than you can publish in a year.

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I’ve been doing LinkedIn Lives for six years. They’ve brought me roughly 125,000 leads. About 20,000 a year. All organic. No ad spend.

And they’ve consistently delivered two to three clients a month.

Let me show you how it works.

Why LinkedIn Lives Work

We operate in a low trust environment. People have been scammed. People have been burned. If you want clients quickly and you don’t have a big network or a big audience, you’ve got to build deep trust fast.

Showing your face and giving value in a long form format builds that trust faster than anything else. People see you. They hear you. They get a sense of who you are. And they become more open to talking to you.

Where else on earth can you get 100 to 150 people to pay attention to you for 30 to 60 minutes, and have them be exactly your target audience?

That’s the power of LinkedIn Lives.

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The Five Things You Need To Get Right

If you want two to three clients a month from LinkedIn Lives, you need to hit five milestones:

1. An outcome-centric title

2. Build the event and get 100 people signed up

3. Send reminders

4. A structured delivery that sells the why

5. Follow up

Miss any of these and it falls apart. Nail all five and you’ve got a client acquisition system.

1. The Title Sells The Live

Your title has to attract people who want what you’ve got to offer.

I’m doing one soon called “How To Build A Personal Brand That Sells, Even If You Hate Self-Promotion.”

I know people want to build a personal brand.

But they don’t want it for vanity.

Sure, we all love the likes and followers. But when it comes down to it, they want clients. They want money.

So I’ve put together a title where if somebody signs up, I know I can help them. And they know what they’re going to get.

Your title does the selling for you. If people resonate with it, they sign up. If they don’t, they won’t. So spend time on this.

2. Build The Event And Sign Up People

I always do the event on my own profile, not a company page.

I want to concentrate the brand awareness on me. People might forget your company name, but they won’t forget you.

I do them as LinkedIn Lives, not external links.

Show up rates are better. Rewatch rates are better. And it helps build your brand on the platform because people stumble into them.

Then I invite people. You can invite up to 1,000 people per week. You don’t need to invite 1,000 to be successful. I usually aim for about 100 sign ups.

Here’s the key: invite people who fit your target market.

You can filter by industry and location. Don’t just blast your whole network. Be selective. The quality of attendees matters more than the quantity.

Give yourself at least four weeks before the event.

And give yourself free time before you go live.

You don’t want to be running around like a lunatic. You need that breather to prep yourself.

3. Send Reminders

People are busy. They sign up and forget. You need to remind them to show up.

LinkedIn will send some reminders automatically. But you should send your own too. A couple of days before. The morning of. An hour before.

Simple reminders make a big difference to your show up rate.

4. A Structured Delivery That Sells The Why

This is where most people get it wrong. I know because I got it wrong for ages.

When I first started doing these, I thought if I gave people loads of information and tips, they’d want to work with me. Educate them and they’ll buy.

It didn’t work that way.

What actually happened was people would appreciate all the value and then go try to do it themselves.

I’d build huge trust, but I’d inadvertently push them further away from having a conversation with me. I’d given them a little meal they could eat. They didn’t need me anymore.

So I shifted. And this is a big concept that’s hard to wrap your head around.

Focus on why content, not how content.

If you share how-tos, you’re giving people stuff they can go and do themselves.

When they fail, the logic is they’ll come back to you. Some do. But if you want conversations quickly, why content is better.

Why content helps people see the importance of doing something. Why certain things are happening. Why certain things matter. Why they shouldn’t overlook certain things.

To us, this feels empty. We take it for granted. But for someone struggling with a problem, helping them understand why is powerful. It makes them hungry for the how.

Here’s the difference:

• How content: “Here’s how to write a LinkedIn headline. Use this formula. Put your job title, then who you help, then the result you deliver.”

• Why content: “Most people’s LinkedIn headlines describe what they do, not why anyone should care. Your headline is the first thing prospects see. If it doesn’t speak to a problem they have, they scroll past. That’s why your headline matters more than almost anything else on your profile.”

See the difference?

The how gives them a task to do. The why helps them see the importance. It builds urgency. It makes them want the how.

So on my events, most of my delivery is talking about why it matters.

Why things are going wrong. Diagnosing their situation. Helping them see the value.

5. Follow Up

Don’t wait for people to come to you.

After the event, follow up with attendees. Start conversations. See who’s interested. See who has questions.

If you don’t follow up, you won’t get clients. Simple as that.

The event builds trust. The follow up converts it.

A Few Other Things

Don’t be too slick.

Don’t hide behind PowerPoints. Be conversational. Share little stories. Talk about successes and failures. Weave in objections you’ve heard from clients.

Someone said to me the other day, “Dean, I’m not good at presenting on LinkedIn. It takes me ages to put PowerPoints together.”

You don’t need a PowerPoint.

Sometimes when we try to be professional and polished, it disconnects us from the audience.

Being a bit gung-ho actually works better. People feel like they’re having a conversation with you, not watching a stiff presentation.

The System

This is what I do every single week. Same thing. Over and over.

125,000 leads over six years. Two to three clients a month. All from doing simple LinkedIn Lives.

Just posting content, as much as I love it and get a kick when a post goes well, I’m not building anything. I’m not building pipeline. LinkedIn Lives build pipeline.

You could do this on other platforms. Facebook. Substack.

But LinkedIn is the only place where you can select and reach your target audience this quickly and easily.

So if you want two to three clients a month:

1. Create an event with a title that speaks to a specific outcome

2. Invite the right people and get 100 sign ups

3. Send reminders

4. Deliver why content, not how content

5. Follow up

Hit all five and you’ve got a system. Miss one and you’re leaving clients on the table.

That’s how you get two to three clients a month from LinkedIn Lives.

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I’ve been hosting LinkedIn live events now for 6 years.

They’ve been the critical part of my success on LinkedIn.

Doing that weekly live has made me £3m+

If you average that out, every live has made me £12k.

When I started doing them, I was making around £20k a month in new business from LinkedIn, today, that’s almost £70k a month.

There is no doubt, they’ve propelled my business.

I’ve had more than 125,000 people on my LinkedIn events since March 2020. Whilst I can track the sign ups to sales, what I can’t track is the full impact, the referrals, the recommendations, the brand building.

So, for me, this 1 hour slot each week has been a pivotable part of my growth.

If someone was starting out now, here is the advice I’d give them…

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#1 - Two-Timers Is Where The Money Is

Of the clients that came to me from LinkedIn, almost 75% of them had signed up for two events.

With LinkedIn events a central part of my strategy, that makes sense, but it also informs how I follow up.

Up until discovering this, I treated everyone the same, now, I try to give the repeat visitors some special attention.

This means getting into a regular monthly cycle.

Do one event every month.

I’ve seen a few people do one, maybe too, or even do them randomly. I do them like clockwork. That’s how you lean, improve and build a rhythm.

#2 - Friday Is The Best Day

When I started out I hosted my events on Tuesdays at 7pm.

But through a random situation, I had to move one of my events to Friday. My show up rate that day was higher.

So, I tested this a few times and guess what? My show up rate is the best it’s ever been on Fridays at 3pm.

If you are going to do them, find a time you can stick to, for me it was Tuesdays at 7pm, then I found Fridays at 3pm works better. Test the times and find what works for you.

#3 - Informal Gets the Best Conversation

When I shoot from the hip more people buy.

When I stack it with slides, people zone out. One of the big learnings is how powerful the lives are for building trust.

Today, with so much hype it is hard to trust, but showing up live, dealing with questions in an unscripted way, really gives people confidence you know what you are doing.

Avoid it being either a QVC sales pitch or death by PowerPoint. Show some personality, relax, enjoy it and don’t be afraid of making mistakes.

My first live, I had three Gins’ beforehand.

#4 - The Replay Is More Powerful Than The Live

I get more people watching post-live than live.

One of the great things about LinkedIn events is how they hang around the platform. If I get 80 people live, it will treble in the week following.

I’ve often had clients feel disappointed at a15% show up rate live. I tell them to wait a few days and check back, that climbs up to very good numbers.

So, don’t stress about the live count.

I make a point to circulate the replay, edit it into clips and rinse it for everything I can.

#5 - Follow Up Matters (Fast)

I was talking with someone who does lives and they said they had got very few clients from them. I didn’t understand this, as her content was good.

Then, I asked about her process.

First - she wasn’t inviting people.

Second - she wasn’t following up. She was waiting for prospects to reach out.

I explained my process and why I proactively follow up.

She gave it a whirl on her next live - boom. She got 3 clients.

Follow up is essential, even if you just offer a conversation. Follow up and don’t wait too long, within a few days the momentum is lost.

#6 - Align Your Live And Your Offer

Teaching good stuff doesn’t automatically lead to clients. You need to share content in the live which leads people to the next step.

Forget the countdown clock, just give some value that is directly connected to what you are selling.

For the first 11 lives, I just fired out value. It built trust, I got appreciation, but it didn’t actually move me any closer to closing some business.

When I started to think about the challenges that people come to me to solve, and themed my LinkedIn events around them, it was easier to convert.

#7 - The Title Is More Important Than The Content

If the title is a problem your target audience has or an outcome they want, you’ll get a ton of sign ups.

If the title is abstract, conceptual or not related to their pains and desires. You’ll get people showing up who are not your ideal customer.

Good luck trying to convert them.

Keep your title aligned to what your audience wants and needs. Make it obvious.

#8 - No Shows Are Profitable

I’ve had so many people book calls with me even though they didn’t come. The reality is carving out 30-mins even to sit on a webinar these days is impossible.

Some people have every intention of coming and then on the day, they forget or another priority comes up.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t interested, it just means they didn’t make it. Even a no show is valuable as it is someone signalling they resonate with your topic.

Don’t write off the no shows.

Why do I do Lives?

At heart, I love sharing my ideas in a format which connects me with people. Often post’s it’s hard to do that….and do it well. Short form video and posts often dilute ideas and the medium itself is suited to short soundbites.

Lives… you have the audience for longer. You get more time to share your ideas and flesh them out.

But… importantly…. they are also a filter.

They filter my ideas and my personality. If someone enjoys the lives, get’s value from the lives and connects with me, it’s a more meaningful encounter.

I love them and I’ll keep doing them. They have been instrumental in my business and my clients growth.

But one word of caution, you have to treat them as a marketing activity - they need a strategy - don’t be gung-ho. Plan it, your bank balance will thank you for it.

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Want to know how to get 2-3 clients per month doing a simple LinkedIn Live?

Join me for next weeks edition.

I’ve been using LinkedIn properly for 14 years.

And I’ve made some horrific mistakes.

When I look back, I can see exactly where they cost me. Where I’d be now if I’d done things differently. Where I could have been if I’d just stopped dithering and committed.

These are the seven regrets I have about how I’ve used LinkedIn:

1. Not picking an audience

2. Emotional posting

3. Adding irrelevant people to grow numbers

4. Posting for engagement, not conversion

5. Not having enough conversations

6. Playing it safe

7. Not owning my lane

If you’re making any of them, stop. I made them so you don’t have to.

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1. Not Picking An Audience

This one plagued me for at least 10 years.

I avoided picking an audience because I was afraid. If I went all in on one group and it didn’t work, I’d lose out. So I thought if I appealed to more people, I’d do better.

It cost me massively.

Instead of saying “this is what I do and this is who I do it for”, I tried to keep all the doors open. And keeping too many doors open left me distracted. It messed up my message. It messed up my focus. I’d end up doing things that added nothing to the business because I was hedging.

I preach this from the rooftops now because for 10 years I didn’t do it. I would have been way further ahead if I’d just picked an audience and made everything about them.

My fear of cutting people off actually cost me more than cutting them off ever would have.

Every time a client comes to me now, I tell them: do not make this mistake. Pick an audience. It really matters.

2. Emotional Posting

This is still a problem to this day.

I would only post what I felt. If I wasn’t feeling it, I wouldn’t post. I’ve written a week’s worth of content and then on the day, just binned it because I wasn’t in the mood.

It sounds like creative integrity. It’s actually destructive.

Think about it. We’re all media companies now. We’ve all got a schedule to fill. Imagine if a newspaper said “we’re not feeling it today, so the front page will be blank.” That’s what I was doing.

I’ve also learned that some of my best posts have been things I didn’t invest much in. The ones I over-engineer because I care too much about them? They bomb.

What I do now is have a schedule that goes out like clockwork.

That’s my TV show, my newspaper.

But I also leave space to share what I think when I feel like it. The schedule handles consistency. The spontaneous stuff handles creative expression. That balance took me years to figure out.

3. Adding Irrelevant People To Grow Numbers

I can’t believe I’m telling you this.

Years ago, LinkedIn had a feature where you could upload a spreadsheet of email addresses and send thousands of connection requests at once. We used to have competitions in the office about who could grow their network the fastest.

I’d get 4,000 connections in three or four days. And the amount of irrelevant people I added to my network is embarrassing.

I’m still paying for it now.

There are probably 10,000 people in my network who are completely irrelevant. Systems engineers. People who couldn’t possibly need my help. Nowhere near my ideal client. But I added them because the number looked good.

I’m convinced this has depressed my engagement and visibility. Irrelevant people see my content, skip it because it means nothing to them, and the algorithm takes that as a negative signal.

Seven or eight years later, I’m still cleaning up the mess. That’s how bad it is.

If you’re accepting anyone just to grow your numbers, stop. You’re hurting yourself.

4. Posting For Engagement, Not Conversion

I know the exact formula you can use to blow up your posts every single day. For a long time, I did it.

I did outbound engagement, commenting on people’s posts so they’d come comment on mine. It works, but as soon as you stop, they leave you in the dirt. It’s just a merry-go-round.

I also discovered that highly emotional content gets loads of engagement. I used to love doing it because the high felt so good. My best post got 24 million impressions, 220,000 likes, and about 14,000 comments. It still holds a special place in my heart.

It got me no business.

Didn’t build my brand. Didn’t do anything useful.

Content can become an addiction. Comments feel like approval. It’s nice when people appreciate your work. But the stuff that performs best often doesn’t lead to any business outcome.

A friend of mine does this every day. Insane engagement. He openly tells me he gets zero leads from it.

I did this for years thinking “if I do enough of it, it will flip over into clients.” It doesn’t. If I’d done what I do now 10 years ago, I’d be unstoppable.

5. Not Having Enough Conversations

I neglected this for too long.

I don’t mean pitching. I mean actually talking to people. Deepening connections. Building relationships with the people who can refer you, advocate for you, support you, do business with you.

I put more effort into content than conversations. That was backwards.

Content doesn’t naturally lead to clients. Conversations do.

Now I start five conversations a day on LinkedIn. Every single day. Some go somewhere, some go nowhere. But I always get referrals and opportunities from them. Curtis on my team does the same. JC does the same. Josh does the same. It’s just what we do.

Starting a conversation is not selling. It’s starting a conversation and seeing where it goes. I used to think “I only want to talk to people who want to buy.”

That doesn’t work.

Nobody’s thinking about buying right now. But more conversations create more opportunity.

If I’d set a goal 10 years ago to start five conversations a day, I’d have more money in my pocket now. Business is about relationships, not just content and marketing. I neglected that, and I wish I hadn’t.

6. Playing It Safe

Worrying about what people think. Worrying about looking professional. Worrying about people who don’t even matter having opinions about me.

This dominated me for too long.

I played it so safe with what I said and shared because I didn’t want to rock the boat. Imagine a newspaper saying “we’re going to play it safe with the headlines.” Nobody wants to read that. Nobody cares about that.

I didn’t tell people “if you do that, it’s going to fail.” I’d say “it might not be the best thing.” Why didn’t I just say what I meant?

Maybe it was because I was younger.

Maybe it was the corporate world where you don’t draw attention to yourself.

But I didn’t want to be disliked. And that made people feel nothing about me. Not dislike. Not like. Just indifferent.

That’s the worst thing. People feeling nothing.

When you share your opinions, people who agree are drawn to you. That’s how you build a crowd.

I was so afraid of being disliked that it cost me being liked.

Mashed potato is mashed potato. It’s a side dish. Jalapenos, people either love them or hate them. I was mashed potato for too long.

7. Not Owning My Lane

When I started on LinkedIn, I wasn’t selling LinkedIn help. I was a marketing generalist. Websites, branding, social media content, brochures, print design. All of it.

But people kept asking me about LinkedIn because that was the channel I liked most. We morphed into it gradually.

And I fought it. For years.

I didn’t want to be “the LinkedIn guy” because I’m more than that. I can help with email copy, positioning, messaging. Being labelled as the LinkedIn person felt demeaning. It grated on me.

So I actively fought owning that lane because I felt I was capable of more. I didn’t want to close the door to other things.

That was a mistake.

Look at Liam Neeson. He made his name properly with the Taken films. Since then he’s done variations of the same thing. He’s typecast. And he’s made a fortune from it. He went from supporting actor to major Hollywood star by owning that lane.

Tom Cruise did the same with Mission Impossible. He owns that lane. And because he owns it, he gets to choose what else he does.

I spread myself thin protecting against what might go wrong instead of going all in on what could go right.

I was trying to build a broad base all at once. It doesn’t work. If I’d nailed the LinkedIn thing, owned the social selling thing, I could have built out from there.

The Pattern

All seven of these come from the same place. Protecting against what might go wrong instead of committing to what could go right.

Fear of losing out. Fear of closing doors. Fear of being disliked. Fear of being labelled.

I was so busy hedging that I never fully committed to anything. And that’s probably the biggest regret of all.

I see the same patterns in my clients. When I do, I tell them what I’m telling you now.

LinkedIn’s algorithm changed in 2025. It now checks your profile to verify your credibility before distributing your content. Your profile tells the algorithm whether you have the authority to talk about your…

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You want to post.

You know you should post.

But every idea feels stale. Someone else said it last week. Or you said it six months ago.

So you close the laptop and tell yourself you’ll do it tomorrow.

I get it. I’ve been teaching social selling for 14 years. I’ve talked about LinkedIn profiles more times than I can count.

And I still find ways to make it interesting.

Not because I’ve discovered something new. Because I’ve learned to look at the same thing differently.

You don’t need new topics. You need new dimensions.

Let me show you. I’ll take one topic, LinkedIn profiles, and turn it into three different posts.

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Dimension 1: Change The Angle

TOPIC + FAMOUS NAME / BRAND

“How I’d optimise Captain Kirk’s LinkedIn profile.”

I borrow a familiar face and apply my expertise to their situation. Same advice I always give about headlines, about sections and banners. But the Kirk angle makes people stop scrolling. It’s fun. It’s unexpected. The lesson lands because it doesn’t feel like a lecture.

I could do this ten more times. Darth Vader’s profile. Hermione Granger’s profile. Gordon Ramsay’s profile. Each one a fresh post.

Try this: Take your core topic and apply it to a fictional character, a celebrity, or a historical figure. The advice stays the same. The packaging makes it new.

Now, I could make 10 posts mapping out different “known names” could approach their profile.

Other Examples:

• Accounting + Famous Name: How Elon Musk pays no tax.

• Accounting + Famous Name: How Starbucks moves it profit around the world

• Accounting + Famous Name: How Donald Trump lost $900m and was worth $2bn.

Dimension 2: Add Perspective

TOPIC + YOUR BELIEFS / OPINIONS

“I’ve reviewed thousands of LinkedIn profiles. These three mistakes show up every single time.”

I share the patterns I see from the outside. The errors people make without realising. I’ve looked at thousands of profiles. They’ve looked at one. Theirs. That gap is the value.

I could write ten more of these. Three mistakes in headlines. Three mistakes in about sections. Three mistakes in banners. The patterns keep coming.

Try this: What do you see repeatedly in your work that your audience doesn’t see? What mistakes show up again and again? Your outside perspective is content gold.

Other Examples:

• Coaching + Beliefs: Why I believe manifesting is junk

• Coaching + Beliefs: Why I think the coaching industry should be regulated

• Coaching + Beliefs: Most mindset work is just wishful thinking

Dimension 3: Add Experience

TOPIC + PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

“I was working with a client who couldn’t figure out why her inbox was empty. Then I looked at her profile.”

I tell a real story. She was posting great content but her profile positioned her as a generalist. We fixed it. Three discovery calls in two weeks. The lesson lands harder wrapped in a story.

I could share ten more client stories. Different situations. Different fixes. Same core lesson about profiles.

Try this: Think about a recent client win, a conversation that shifted someone’s thinking, or a problem you solved. Wrap your expertise in that story.

Other Examples:

• Cybersecurity + Experience: One of our clients decided to cut corners, here’s what happened.

• Cybersecurity +Experience: Client’s careless employee cost them $20m getting hacked.

• Cybersecurity + Experience: When we audit clients, these are the 3 vulnerabilities they ignore.

The Maths

One topic. Three dimensions. Thirty posts minimum.

And that’s just LinkedIn profiles. I also talk about content, conversations, connection strategies, events, newsletters. Each of those topics multiplied by three dimensions.

You can dig down deeper and deeper into one topic and find endless ideas.

The best part is, they are all unique and we’ll have never been shared that way before.

I’ll never run out of ideas. Neither will you.

Your Next Step

Think about your expertise. What’s the topic you’ve already said everything about?

Run it through these three dimensions:

• Change the angle. Apply it to someone unexpected.

• Add perspective. Share the patterns only you can see.

• Add experience. Wrap it in a real story.

You’ll never stare at a blank screen again.

What’s your “said it a hundred times” topic?

Tell me in the comments and I’ll show you how to find new dimensions in it.

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In 2013, I was working as a consultant for a media company.

I got to travel all over the world.

The Middle East. America. I loved it.

For somebody from a working class background, son of a coal miner, my first big international trip changed everything. I went to the US on my own.

It changed my life.

Changed the way I saw the world.

Then a few years later, I started building my own business. That all stopped. And somewhere along the way, that business became me sat behind a desk, staring at a screen, doing work I didn’t enjoy.

I don’t know whether it was the pandemic or turning 40, but around 2022 something shifted.

I decided I was done with the desk. I wanted to travel again. I wanted to see the world.

Here’s how LinkedIn helped me make that happen.

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The Problem With Building a Business By Accident

I spent almost 10 years building a business unintentionally. I was on LinkedIn. I was making money. I was getting clients. But none of it was compounding into anything I actually wanted.

I was busy. I was successful by most measures. But I wasn’t building towards anything specific.

I’m not alone in this. 45% of small business owners want to quit but feel trapped running their businesses. 42% have experienced burnout in the past year.

Most people start a business for freedom and flexibility. Somewhere along the way, it becomes the very thing that controls their life.

That was me. Reacting to whatever came my way instead of designing something intentional. 56% of small business owners feel like they’re flying completely solo, solving problems with no clear direction. I was one of them.

Activity without intention is noise. And noise doesn’t build the life you want.

Designing the Business I Actually Wanted

I wanted to travel. That was the starting point.

The only way I could travel was to either build a business that gave me loads of free time (still haven’t figured that one out) or to have customers and clients in the places I wanted to go.

Despite me being the ‘master of my own destiny’ I was on of the 35% of small business owners that had no formal growth plan in place. I was winging it and I wasn’t happy with where that had got me.

So I got intentional. I shifted my whole LinkedIn strategy to build my business in the cities I wanted to visit. Miami. Orlando. Tampa. West Palm Beach. Dubai.

I started connecting with best fit prospects in those specific cities. I mapped out my audience by location. I built a network of people in the places I actually wanted to be.

My niche became something unexpected. I help people win clients on LinkedIn. But my niche, for me, is helping people win clients on LinkedIn in warm, tropical locations.

That’s not a joke. That’s my strategy.

Building Services Around Where I Wanted To Be

Connections weren’t enough. I needed reasons to go to these places.

I have some big corporate clients, which is great. But I also have thousands of small business customers. They’re not paying huge amounts individually, so I needed a different model.

I launched in person workshops in those cities.

Maverick now runs 150 of these workshops. We do them regularly in the places I want to go.

I’m writing this from Orlando. On Tuesday I’ll be in Tampa and West Palm Beach. On Friday I’ll be in Miami. Then I’m heading to Vegas.

This didn’t happen by accident. It happened because I was strategic about two things:

What I wanted my business to look like.

Where I wanted that business to come from.

Why This Matters For You

This is an article about social selling and LinkedIn. But here’s the truth: unless you define what you want out of your business, going on LinkedIn and making noise won’t help you.

You’ll get clients. You’ll make money. But you’ll end up like the 45% who feel trapped in something they built but never designed.

Before you post another piece of content, ask yourself:

• Who are the clients who will bring the most joy to what you do?

• Who do you actually want to work with?

• Where do you want to be in five years?

• What does your ideal week look like?

If you had to design your business from scratch today, what would it look like?

I spent a decade building something I didn’t want. Then in 2022, I got clear on what I actually wanted and relentlessly pursued it.

LinkedIn became the tool to make it happen. But the clarity came first.

TLDR

Define what you want your business to look like before you start making noise on LinkedIn.

Get clear on who you want to work with, where you want to be, and what your ideal week looks like. Then build your LinkedIn strategy around that. Your business should serve your life, not trap you in one you never designed.

What does your dream business look like?

I’d love to hear it.

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LinkedIn has over a billion users. Most of them are invisible.

They post. They comment. They send connection requests. Nothing happens.

Here is why:

• The platform is saturated. Everyone is shouting. Nobody is listening. Your content gets lost in a sea of noise. Your profile looks identical to thousands of others offering the same thing.

• There is no differentiation. When someone lands on your profile, they need to understand your value in seconds. Attention spans are brutal. If you look like everyone else, you get ignored like everyone else.

• There is no trust. People buy from people they know, like and trust. Most LinkedIn activity builds none of these. Random connection requests and generic posts do not create relationships.

• The message does not resonate. Too many coaches and consultants speak in vague terms. They talk about “transformation” and “results” without being specific. Vague messaging attracts nobody.

• The appeal is too broad. Trying to help everyone means connecting with no one. When you speak to a generic audience, your words land with zero impact.

• There is no process. Even when leads appear, most people have no system to nurture them. No way to move someone from stranger to paying client. Opportunities slip through the cracks.

The problem is never LinkedIn itself.

The problem is the approach.

The Fastest Way to Make Money on LinkedIn

I call it the Five Ones.

This is the foundation everything else builds on. Get this right and everything becomes easier. Get it wrong and nothing else works.

• One Problem. Choose a single, specific problem you solve. Not five problems. Not a category of problems. One problem that keeps your ideal client awake at night.

• One Offer. Productise your expertise into a clear, packaged solution. People do not buy “consulting”. They buy a defined outcome with a defined process.

• One Audience. Pick a specific group of people who experience that problem. Not “business owners”. Not “leaders”. A defined audience you understand deeply.

• One Message. Develop a clear, simple message that speaks directly to that audience about that problem. When people hear it, they should think “that is exactly what I need”.

• One Process. Build a repeatable system for finding leads and converting them to clients. Something you do week after week that consistently generates opportunities.

Most people spread themselves thin. They chase multiple audiences with multiple offers using multiple messages. They wonder why nothing gains traction.

The Five Ones forces focus.

Focus creates clarity.

Clarity creates results.

5 Ways To Make Money On LinkedIn

What Is Productisation?

Productisation means packaging your expertise into a defined offer with a clear scope, clear deliverables and clear pricing.

Instead of selling “I will help you with marketing”, you sell “I will audit your LinkedIn profile and give you a 30-day action plan to generate leads”.

One is vague and hard to buy. The other is specific and easy to say yes to.

Why Productise Instead of Bespoke?

Bespoke work means every project is different. You scope each one individually. You price each one individually. You deliver each one individually.

This is exhausting. It does not scale. And it makes selling harder because prospects have nothing concrete to evaluate.

Productised offers sell faster because buyers know exactly what they get. They deliver more consistently because you follow a proven process. They scale better because you are not reinventing the wheel every time.

The 5 Models

Here are five ways to package your expertise:

1. The Audit. You analyse their current situation, identify the gaps and give them a roadmap. “I find the problems and give you the plan.” Example: A LinkedIn profile audit with recommendations, or a sales process review with improvement priorities.

2. Productised Done-For-You. You build the thing for them using a standardised process. “I create the asset.” Example: Writing their LinkedIn content for a month, or building their lead generation system.

3. Consulting and Advisory. You guide their decisions so they move faster and avoid mistakes. “I advise so you execute better.” Example: Weekly strategy calls to review their approach and course-correct.

4. Implementation Support. You work alongside them as they execute, providing hands-on help. “I help you do the work.” Example: Co-working sessions where you guide them through building their system.

5. Fractional. You take ownership of a function and its results on an ongoing basis. “I own the outcome.” Example: Acting as their fractional head of business development, responsible for pipeline generation.

Pick the model that fits your expertise and your lifestyle.

Each has different time requirements, different pricing potential and different client relationships.

What Makes a Good Productised Offer

A good productised offer answers three questions instantly.

• What do I get? The buyer should know the deliverable in one sentence. “A 60-minute audit of your LinkedIn profile with a prioritised action plan.” Not “I help with LinkedIn strategy.”

• What does it cost? Fixed price. No “it depends” or “let’s scope it out.” A number they can say yes or no to.

• How does it work? The buyer needs to understand the process. How long does it take? What do they need to do? What happens after they pay?

Deliverable. Price. Process.

If your offer is missing any of these, the buyer has to ask questions before they can decide.

Every question is friction.

Every bit of friction reduces the chance they buy.

Make it obvious and you make it easy to say yes.

Why High-Ticket Wins on LinkedIn

Here is something most LinkedIn gurus will not tell you: selling low-ticket offers as your primary revenue source is brutal.

To make $10,000 per month selling a $100 product, you need 100 buyers.

Every single month.

That requires massive reach, constant content and a large audience.

To make $10,000 per month selling a $2,500 service, you need four clients. That is achievable through conversations, not volume.

LinkedIn is built for conversations. It is a relationship platform, not a broadcast platform. The algorithm rewards engagement, not reach. The format favours depth over breadth.

High-ticket services sell through trust. LinkedIn builds trust through repeated contact, valuable content and genuine connection. The platform and the pricing model align perfectly.

Low-ticket has its place. Use it as a “land and expand” strategy. A small purchase opens the door to a bigger engagement. But do not build your business around volume sales on a platform designed for relationships.

The sweet spot for LinkedIn is $2,000 or more per deal. At that level, you need a handful of clients to build a substantial income. That is achievable. That is sustainable.

How To Sell Your Productised Offer

Now for the practical part. Here is exactly how to make money on LinkedIn.

Step 1: Optimise Your Profile

Your profile is your shopfront.

When someone lands on it, they should immediately understand who you help, what problem you solve and why they should care.

Align everything to your Five Ones:

• Your banner should communicate your value proposition visually. Not your logo. Not a generic image. A clear statement of what you do for whom.

• Your headline should speak to your audience and their problem. “I help [audience] achieve [outcome]” works better than your job title.

• Your Services section should list your productised offers. Make it easy for people to see what they get.

• Your Featured section should showcase proof, resources or ways to work with you. This is prime real estate. Use it.

Step 2: Grow Your Network

Your network is your audience. The bigger and more targeted your network, the more opportunities you create.

Use Boolean search or Sales Navigator to find your ideal prospects. Boolean search uses operators like AND, OR and quotation marks to filter LinkedIn’s search results.

Example: “Marketing Director” AND “SaaS” AND London

This finds people with “Marketing Director” in their profile, in the SaaS industry, based in London.

• Add 20 connections every single day. Be consistent. Stick to one audience so your network fills with the exact people you want to reach

• Send connection requests without a message. Blank requests have higher acceptance rates than pitchy ones. The message comes after they accept.

Step 3: Send Thank You Notes

When someone accepts your connection, thank them. But do not pitch.

Quirky messages get better replies than boring corporate ones. “Hope you are well” is forgettable. Something unexpected is memorable.

After the thank you, engage with their content two or three times before reaching out again. Comment on their posts. React to their updates. Build familiarity before asking for anything.

This builds trust. It shows you are a real person who pays attention. It makes your next message land differently.

Step 4: Host a LinkedIn Event

This is where the money gets made.

Set up a LinkedIn event with a title focused on an outcome or pain point. Not “Marketing Webinar”. Something like “How to Get 5 Clients Per Month from LinkedIn Without Cold Outreach”.

Schedule it three to four weeks out. This gives you time to fill it.

Use the invite feature to invite your connections. LinkedIn lets you invite up to 1,000 people per week. Use that allowance. Every week. Your targeted network means these invites go to the right people.

If your audience and title align with the problems and outcomes your audience wants, you will easily get 150 people signing up. This means 150 people are interested in solving that problem or outcome.

You only need 2-3 clients, so you have more leads than you need.

Deliver a 30 to 45 minute live session. Mix client stories with helpful guidance. Share what works. Be generous with value.

At the end, offer to talk further with anyone who wants that outcome or is struggling with that problem. Share social proof conversationally. Not boring case studies. Real stories about real results.

People on the event have self-selected as interested in your topic. They have given you their time. They are warm.

Step 5: Follow Up

Everyone who registers for your event gets follow-up.

Two or three messages. Not pitching. Offering to talk more.

Your opportunity to make money comes from having conversations about their pains and challenges. Every conversation is a chance to understand their situation and show how you help.

Some will book calls. Some will buy. Some will not be ready now but will remember you later.

That is it. Repeat this process over and over.

This is how I built my business to seven figures. It is simple. It is repeatable. It works.

What Happens Next

You now have the system. The question is whether you will implement it.

Some people read guides like this and take action immediately. They get results.

Others read, nod along and then do nothing. They stay stuck.

If you want help implementing this, I run a programme called the Social Selling Accelerator.

It is a coaching, mentoring and implementation programme designed to help coaches, consultants and small business owners win clients on LinkedIn without cold pitching, chasing engagement or playing the volume game.

The focus is conversion, not attention. Resonance, not reach.

Inside, you get:

• A go-to-market strategy session defining your focus and LinkedIn priorities

• Lifetime access to the Signal OS framework and all five conversion paths

• Lifetime access to weekly live group coaching calls

• Implementation guides, templates and checklists so you know exactly what to do

• Lifetime access to the private community for ongoing support

Our clients typically sign two to three new clients per month once they implement the system.

If you want to learn more, book a call with my team. We will talk through your situation, your goals and whether the Accelerator is the right fit.

No pressure. No hard sell. A conversation to see if the Accelerator is a fit for you.

[BOOK YOUR CALL HERE]

Whatever you decide, I hope this guide helps. The system works. Now it is your turn to make it work for you.