How LinkedIn Is Helping Me Build My Dream Business
Somewhere along the way, that business became me sat behind a desk, staring at a screen, doing work I didn’t enjoy.
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.
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.