LinkedIn doesn't work like they told you (try this instead)

Speaker A: Is LinkedIn the ultimate tool to grow your business? Let me give you a bit of a spoiler. No, it's not. All right, are we done? But it has a place in, uh, in marketing your business. And that's what we're going to be talking, uh, about today.

Speaker B: But the worst LinkedIn advice I've ever heard, probably trying to post seven days a week. And people, people have got this m misconception that you just need to post every single day. Burn themselves out trying to achieve that, that goal. And it's not necessarily always the right way to go.

Speaker A: This is the final episode of the LinkedIn Marketing Mastery Podcast. And, uh, the idea here is to share a few perspectives of, uh, people who've been using LinkedIn to market their business. And these people have been very strategically chosen, especially, uh, Alex.

Speaker C: Ah, well, first of all, hi and thank you for the invitation. I'm, um, happy that I'm about to close the LMM series. Every ending is a new beginning or something along those lines. And absolutely I'm very much curious to see how this unfolds.

Speaker A: Awesome. Okay, Darren. There's not much introduction needed. Darren started this, uh, podcast with me and the live events. We started live events when, when they were still audio events. That, uh, that was a fun, uh, one there' such thing anymore on LinkedIn. But Darren has a very unique experience. He's been on a lot of sides of the coin. He's done recruiting, designing and then back to recruiting. And he's been doing all of this using LinkedIn to, uh, market his businesses. And we're going to talk about exactly how. A very unique experience. So introducing Alex is a very hard thing to do because I've known Alex for quite some time now, but I still struggled, ah, to define you, Alex, which is, I suppose it's a good thing, right? You can't be defined easily. Alex is, um, a mystical creator who helps other creators and entrepreneurs find their voice, find their mission. Yeah, he's an alchemist of sorts who helps people find their path through alignment. And not just the money making, but where he blends everything. Alex, you want to correct something here or.

Speaker C: That sounds mysterious enough. I've always, as a young boy, I've always hated when somebody would put me in a box. So I guess that kind of ripples through even later now in life. But, um, yeah, like there is a certain mystery to it. I wouldn't change much. I would just add that, you know, it's, it's both a science as well as an art. It's not like, we're saying no to business principles. Those still very much apply. I'm still running a business. And, um, there is the other side of the coin, which is, well, how do I know myself? Like, you know, everybody on LinkedIn as well as other social media platforms says, build a brand, just be you. And that's all fine and dandy, but, like, who are you anyways? How do you define yourself? How do you know who you really are? And that's really where the magic starts. Right? Um, but yeah, I'm not going to give everything away.

Speaker A: So, so basically we're going to be talking about how both of you and even myself, how we, you've used LinkedIn to market your business and uh, how your experiences looked like and felt like. So that's basically what we're being going to be touching on this episode. Darren, what is the worst LinkedIn advice you've heard?

Speaker B: Oh God, the worst LinkedIn advice I've ever heard. Probably trying to post seven days a week. I think people, people have got this misconception that you just need to post every single day. Like, don't get me wrong, at uh, the minute I'm posting like twice a day sometimes. But like a lot of people, they try to burn themselves out trying to achieve that, that goal and it's not necessarily always the right way to go. So I think, yeah, posting seven days a week and trying to hit that target all the time is just really bad advice.

Speaker A: All right, I can see why. Alex, what's the worst advice you've heard?

Speaker C: Hmm. Wow. Well, I've heard many very bad advice on LinkedIn. And, uh, yeah, I guess one of the worst things to, that I've run across is focusing on creating content and focusing on building like a media empire. Right? Like you're, you're trying to build Warner Bros. Instead of connecting with people and treating it as a, as a CRM, essentially.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: all right, that's a good one. Honestly, I didn't even plan to answer this myself, but if I had to say something, for me is the. It's similar to what you're saying, but it's the fact that the disconnection from, uh, putting content out there and the rest of your ecosystem, so most people don't even have an ecosystem, actually. They refer to LinkedIn and, and their LinkedIn activity as their LinkedIn business. For me, that, that is one of the worst things you can do. Obviously if the LinkedIn changes something, for example, you can't verify your account and they, they start refusing unverified accounts Then you're gone, your business is gone, your entire business is gone. Or, or, uh, they just change something about the algorithm or how things work. I've seen this happen. Businesses in the 50k per month above that, and they just go broke from one day to the other. So, yeah, that's mine. Darren has very interesting experiences with this. Darren, you've marketed different businesses on, on LinkedIn and you've found clients for, for both or more than both, actually. If you had to summarize how to find clients for your business on LinkedIn in two minutes, how would you do it?

Speaker B: Um, so the approach that I've gotten there is working best. I used to do a lot of content, and content used to get us a lot of work, but it was a lot of work to get a lot of work. Um, but I think the best approach now for me is, um, is to very highly target your ideal clients. Like we change our business model to a retainer model now, so we don't need like mass amount of clients. We just need like 5 or 6 consistent times at 3k a month, and that's what we get. Um, I think the best thing to do now is to target specific individuals or decision makers within a business that you want to work with. And don't, don't mass outreach, uh, anymore. I don't do it anymore. Like mass outreach. Just trying to get as many people in as you can, like connections and DMS and all that, and just build those relationships properly. You know, take your time. Like it's different if you've got, if you've got a low ticket offer. Everybody's in a rush all the time. I think your business model can dictate how you approach LinkedIn. So the bigger ticket, you need less clients. If they're a retainer, you need even less clients because you start to scale the business slowly. Um, and then that, um, affects your approach of how your outreach is going, your outbound outreach. So I think for bigger ticket clients, it's just focus solely on quality, not quantity. For lower ticket clients, it's just spray and spray and pray. I think that's the difference between the two. The two levels.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love, I love that. Actually. I think that connects a lot with, uh, how Alex approaches LinkedIn. We'll hear from Alex in a second on that. But first, I wanted to ask you something that I think is very significant here. You did, you said that you used to put a lot of effort on content and that used to work for you, but do you reckon that was because of the Specifics of exactly the niche or the industry you were working in. Because being a designer is very easy to showcase your work, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. So it's not necessarily just being a designer because, like, as you know, we used to specialize in building LinkedIn profiles. Right now building LinkedIn profiles means everybody on LinkedIn is your market. Like, everybody needs a profile if they're trying to build a business, they need an optimized profile, whether, you know, to make it look better, read better, you know, a better, um, what we call prospect pathway through there to, uh, push the people through the profile to the next step. Um, that was a massive market for us. So content worked and we were able to produce a lot of shareable content like advice, tips, tricks, and that got us into the eyes of the right people. But it meant that because it was one done job, you'd work with a client, you'd never see them again. You know, they get the profile done, they don't need anything else. Type thing that you care about. The day where the retaining model again come back to. That is a lot different where you get one client, they stay with you. But yeah, I think for me, content, it worked really well back then. Now, not so much. It's my DM outreach that's working better than content.

Speaker A: So, so even the, uh, the, the content production you were doing before, it was working actually, because the, uh, the market was everybody. It doesn't matter because that's the hard part, right? When having the right people to read your content, because that, what's. If you have, if you're paying for advertising, you can target it, target to who you want, but with organic content, it's very hard.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, this is what I've come to sort of realize on LinkedIn. Like, everybody is just in survival mode on LinkedIn. And if you can give them one little offer that they think's gonna take them into that next step, that next level, everybody's biting at the bit all the time and it's just like constantly chasing, chasing, chasing all the time. And it's like, um, the content at the time, we give a lot of tips and tricks. A lot of people who couldn't afford our services then take those, those tricks and go and do you do it for free? People who had the budget come to us and say, why would we do it? Would you pay you to do it for us and get, you know, professionally built profile? But yeah, I just think, um, I think the content, the content side works for some people, it doesn't work for others, and it all depends on your offer and what you're trying to do.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that, actually. And, uh, that's where I'm going to bring Alex into this because I know Alex has a holistic approach to business and, uh, he's very close to the way I practice, uh, marketing. So I know specifically the way you work with, uh, LinkedIn is basically just building up those relationships like Darren was talking about. So do you want to tell us a bit about that?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and, you know, just to say that I absolutely agree with what Darren was saying in terms of it truly depends on what you're trying to do. And based on that, there's going to be different strategies that actually work for you. So probably if we want to add, the second worst advice that you can hear on LinkedIn is to have a silver bullet, um, you know, the playbook or the strategy to follow, which is very commonplace as well. But, yeah, I should probably start by saying that I don't come from a marketing background. I come from a sales background. And that is very much determining how I approached and how I started off on social, um, media, because I was looking at it and I don't know whether you know, people, how familiar they are with the sales domain, but there was such a thing as the single tool in sales called a CRM. Now CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. And what it was basically is an Excel file where you have names, surnames, and if you're in B2B, you have a company and the position that they're working in and you put in some context based on all of the interactions that you had with this potential customer. Right. And that was really the, you know, the Hail Mary of sales, where you could keep track of the chaos that was actually a part of your daily job. So I see this as a CRM. LinkedIn is much better than a CRM because you don't have to upkeep, update and keep track of everything, what everybody's doing. Because most of the people who are active, especially if that is in your target audience, the target individual that you're wanting to do business with, they will do that by themselves. So they keep you up to speed with regards to what they're doing, how they're thinking, how they're approaching life, and all of the updates are there. So this is much better than a CRM. Um, this is actually a lifesaver for a sales individual. Right. So this is how I approach it. You know, you mentioned it, Fran, you said a relationship building proposition and I love that because I feel like relationship is at the core, at the crux, especially if you're in service. And I believe all three of us are in service in the service industry. This is a relationship industry, right? Everything is hinging upon relationship. So I would say social media, first and foremost, it's in the name, it's about the social part and the media part is the second part and how I treat media. And it's, this is particular for me. I call myself an artist entrepreneur and that is because I use social media as a sort of a medium to express whatever is happening in my mind and I do that very intentionally. First of all, I do it because it's self therapeutic because I use LinkedIn and other social media in order to help clarify what I'm thinking, how I'm thinking about it. Secondly, I'm using it to process my emotions. And thirdly, and this one is the most important, I use it to connect with others who relate to what I'm sharing. Right. So it's uh, the big filtration mechanism for people to be magnetized to what I'm going through and how I'm experiencing and how I'm describing my journey of the artist entrepreneur. And that is the conversation starter. Right. But at the same time it's self therapeutic. I can throw spaghetti at the wall, I can experiment, I can play, I get to create. And uh, you know, sometimes I create for the sake of creation. It's not for the sake of, oh, this is going to be put into a very particular commercial container. No, fuck that. So that's a very unique thing that defines how I approach it.

Speaker B: Yeah, right.

Speaker A: That makes a lot of sense. Uh, actually I want to backtrack a little bit, uh, before we, we dig deeper into this because there's something that Darren mentioned that is very important. Even before that relationship, Darren said in different words, the offer is what defines how you can approach your marketing strategy. Right. So it starts with the offer, the retainers, they make a big difference in uh, in how you approach your marketing. Because, and Darren, if you want to touch a bit on this, like with your design business, even though you had a lot of clients, you did feel that feast and feminine cycle, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. So like we, we did um, profiles and design for about three and a half years and in, in that three and a half years, we did over 360 profiles and most of those were like 1500 pound each. As you can imagine, we did a lot of turnover. But the problem came was like, you know, you pay a content creator to manage your content You've got a team to help with. We've managed some of the design work. You've got all that outgoing. Um, but that billing doesn't stop. That's a constant outgoing of the business all the time. Where the income was like, okay, we've got a profile to do now I've got to find another one. Another one, another one. It's like you need to find 3, 4, 5 clients a week every single week. Um, and the problem with that is you're just constantly putting fires out because every week you just drain from just trying to find new work with a, with a retainer. Like, I charge $4,000 a month for recruitment now, 3,000 pound as soon as I get one client who's on a retainer. Uh, I'm no longer in that survival mode for fighting to find clients over and over again. So I've stabilized the business financially and now I can just take my time to build relationships and not have to rush the process of I need to find the next client, hurry and buy my stuff. You know, when you get, when you get into that mindset of having a more stable and financially stable business, I find that you're a lot more calm, a lot more approachable, less pushy. You're less pitchy in the DMS because you're no longer trying to get that sale. You're just like having a chat, you know, with me now. It's like, are you recruiting in 2026? You know, what's your current pipeline looking like? And it's, I'm, I'm, you know, some. I've had like, conversations now for three or four weeks with some potential prospects, and I'm not in a rush to close them because I'm just building that, that trust and that knowledge about their business and what they need. And that's helped me a lot more where, like you say with the, you know, the one and done jobs, man, it's just like, it's depressing. It's really depressing. Like, it's so stressful.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I agree. And actually, for context, Darren is now, uh, in recruiting specifically. Do you want to tell us the specifics of your business, just for context for everybody to understand why it works that way?

Speaker B: Yeah. So shall I give you a little bit of an overview about business model I've decided to go with instead?

Speaker A: Yeah, please.

Speaker B: Okay. So for those of you who don't know recruitment, typically a recruiter would charge between 15 and 20% commission on a placement. So if they've got 100 grand a year, role that they're recruiting for. When that role gets filled they bill 15 to 20,000 pound or dollars depending on what country you're in. So with recruiters they're always fighting against other recruiters because the company's gotten a risk because they could put it out to like five agencies and the only one that gets paid is the one that fills the role. So they've got no list like that. But all the recruiters, the reason their commissions are so high one it dates back to like the 80s where they had to newspaper ads and everything's slow and um, funky. But now you've got so many recruiters fighting against each other. So the problem with that is then they're commissioned to hide cover the times where they don't fill those roles and somebody else filled it. So what that did then that means the companies who are hiring they've now got a 20% commission for per role which on 100 grand is 20, 20,000 pound or dollars. With my model now I do a 3,000 pound per month for four placements. So we cover four placements for 3,000 pounds if it rolls into another month. The role that doesn't get filled, we roll it into another month for free. Okay. So typically we do fill most of them within the first month. Um, and what that means now, um, based on four roles my business model saves about 85% in costs on recruitment for a company which is massive. Like the, the one company I'm working with uh, in, in um, South Carolina at the moment in Korea, um, we saved them about 150, 160 cases. November you know, and that's over. Like it's going to be six rolls, six, seven roll, you know. So my model now is the retainer allows me to not be in a rush because I'm not fighting against other recruiters. It means I got stable income and it means my client gets a better service, a better relationship and they haven't got the overhead of a commission based recruitment company. So we, I don't do recruitment such I do talent sourcing. So my job is to find them and get them in front of the right people. Where recruiters tend to do like initial interviews and all that as well. So I find them, I screen them, process them, put them in front of the hiring manager or the decision maker. They interview them, they've got, they've got control of the last part of the process. So that's how I've sort of, I've started to change the uh, recruitment industry a little bit because I'm Going through the retained model. And since starting in November, I've had like six recruiters who are already transitioning to a model similar to mine because of the less stress, the better relationships.

Speaker A: That's beautiful. And that actually illustrates what I was looking for, which is it all starts from the offer, right? So that peace of mind that you have nowadays, uh, the fact that you can slowly build the relationships and actually do it properly. And that's where we can, uh, listen, uh, to Alex, how he does it, because. Because I think that's very important. And it's Alex's expertise. So it starts with the. It's not because of the industry. It's not because you changed from designing to recruitment. It's because of how you positioned your offer. And actually, you did position your offer completely different than most of the industry. Right. So that's where it all starts. Uh, and that's where I want to now get Alex's opinion. Uh, Alex, first of all, before we even go into the relationship building aspect of this, how do you. How do you craft your offers and do you. Do you consider all of this and, uh, tell us a bit about your business offering and, uh, how that plays into the relationship building and everything.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I just love what Darren shared, and I'm a hundred percent on board with that. First of all, if you don't have the space as well as the Runway to feel like, grounded, to feel like you can have a normal conversation and be on sales calls or in relationship building activities very much stressed to get the sale, that's exactly the energy that you're bringing to the table, which makes the prospect on the other side, well, very skeptical because we can all feel the energetic side of it. So I build my offers or structure my business model in the same fashion. I have a similar thing which takes about a year and a half on average. So a year and a half is the length. An average length where I will work with a, uh, with one particular client, sometimes even longer, sometimes shorter. It really depends on where they're at. But the real unlock for me was when I decided to structure or to productize the service rather than having an, um, you know, I will show up and I will customize and do whatever it is that I need to do for the client. I reverse engineered that and said, okay, this is what I've made work in my process. And I distilled the frameworks, the milestones, the steps, and made it in consecutive ways. In which. How you would approach building a business, because all of the business Building activities do have priorities, right? So it's a matter of arbitrage. So it is important how you start, it is important what you do next and how you move the ship to its final destination, which is really launching an offering or building on top of an existing offering for my clients. So within that time, a year or a year and a half, I have sufficient, sufficient amount of space to actually go really into depth. And this is something that I do, which is what I coach or what I guide my clients to do as well, to really understand what their proclivities and what their tendencies as well as where their zone of genius lies. Because based on that, you then shape an offer that actually works with you rather than against you. The whole concept here, the whole premise is that, well, if you're not doing things that are inside of your zone of genius, if you're continuously doing things that are outside of the things that actually bring you joy and fulfillment, you're going to be stressed out and you're going to probably in a sufficient amount of time, want to fire yourself. Right? Because the hustle bro mentality is not really working for us in this day and age. And I think we can all feel that. So that's at, uh, the crux of it. How I love to do things is really go into depth. I like to go into the depth of the psychological motives, the North Stars. What do you really want to do? And this is more than just a business. It is a vocation. A vocation literally means, you know, one soul's calling what you are called to do. And that may sound a little woo woo, but that's really where we find meaning. And um, yeah, that's, that's the core focus. So all of this sounds, you know, like in your introduction, Fran, you said a little bit of an alchemist and somewhat mystical. That is the mystical part because it's not super concrete. Right. So it takes time. We have to sit in silence. We have to allow and employ all of the different modalities and techniques that allow an individual's deeper unconscious stuff to surface. And then we work with those energies and we channel them into a creative venture. Yeah. So I'm not sure if this is too detailed, but um, that's, that's really at the, at the gist of it.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's really good.

Speaker C: I thrive in a relationship building role. I thrive in connecting and really going deep and building breadth and depth of relationship. So this for me feels natural. And I'm not assuming that that's something that would make everybody Feel comfortable. So there's potentially um, different ways how to approach this. Right. Depending on the individual.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's where I want to go next. The relationship, relationship building part of it. Alex, you spoke about the crafting of the offer which for you it's kind of hard to define because from, from what I get it's uh, it's something very individual. So it's bespoke. Right. The way you, you, you create that part. But we have, we have the example from, from Darren which, which was a very unique way to craft an offer in his own specific industry.

Speaker B: Like when we craft the offer, a lot of people tried to craft an offer that's just going to suit the client. And the problem with that, it doesn't suit your own lifestyle. Now I work primarily, I've got a five year old daughter, we've got two businesses from home and she goes to bed at 8 o'. Clock. So I work with US clients only because they are five to six hours behind us. So that means now when she goes to bed I can get my work done in the evening. So the offer doesn't just work for the client, it also works for me. So it's important that it works for your lifestyle. It's all, it's all individual how you build a business in your own situation. You know, like if you're single, if you're single, you live on your own, you've got all the time in the world. You can do nine till five, you can do 12, 15 hours a day. If you've got kids and you work from home, there's situations where you're not going to be able to work. Like my girlfriend works from 12 o' clock onwards. I tend to work in the mornings but I've got to get the gym in that time as well. So I don't get much work done in the morning so I do it 8 o' clock in the evening till midnight. So that's why my business model works. So, and I sort of circle back there but I just want to sort of quickly cover that as well as part of, you know, constructing the offer.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's very important. You actually illustrated very well what Alex was saying in theory. Uh, uh, that's what I think. Where Alex drives, it's basically the purpose first, but also lifestyle first before actually the business is built on top of it instead of your lifestyle becoming a consequence of your business.

Speaker B: Right, right.

Speaker A: Any words you want to say to that Alex?

Speaker C: Yeah, no, I just love it how Darren spoke to that. I too have two children. My daughter is four, my son is two years old. Yeah, so we're, we're all three dads here. And then if we want to be a present father, which is a very popular thing these days versus what the older generation was used to, and the industrial, or let's say the, the peak of the industrial age, um, we approach things a little differently. And I too have most of my clients across the m. You know, across the Atlantic, which means that they typically wake up around my 2 to 3pm which is where my communication part really starts. Um, and before that I have the, you know, the pleasure to spend a lot of the time, uh, with the family. So my business, my offer, the architecture, the design is very intentional to suit my lifestyle first and foremost. Yes.

Speaker A: Beautiful. So now I want to talk to the, to the relationship building part of it because it starts with, with the offer as we spoke. And Darren defined this very well with his examples from his past, uh, business. But now we had actually had a, an episode that we spoke a lot about this. It was all about sales. And it was. And basically the idea here is that if you have to stress out to make a sale, if you're, if you need that sale, you're going to close a lot, a lot less of them than if you're actually just doing it in a relaxed manner, that you don't need to close that sale because your business will be fine if you don't once you step into them, that mentality. And I'm not a salesman, but actually I'm the opposite. That's where you did, um, give your background before, Alex. So you're a salesperson, not a marketer. And your marketing, um, expertise then comes from that, right? I'm the opposite. So I'm a marketer first and not a salesman. And I always say that, um, the better I perform my role as a marketer, the less I have to sell. So that's, that's where I do everything. As everybody knows that marketing and sales go hand in hand, right? The, the better your marketing, the easier your sales. And every big company knows this. So, so basically now let's say, let's assume that we've got to a part where someone who's trying to build a, a lifestyle, first purpose, first business. They're, they, they found this offer and the way to, to work that they don't need to stress out about the sales. So they don't need to be trying to pitch someone in the DMs and get on a call in, uh, in three messages, which is first thing I advise against, and I think both of you as well. So, Alex, how do you build that relationship? How does that work for you? Like, what does a conversation like this mean? Like, when you start a conversation, are you thinking, I know, I think I know the answer. But, uh, are you thinking, I'm going to get this person on a call and try to sell them something? How does that work?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. And no, I actually am the worst salesman or have become the worst salesman in, you know, under the blue sky, because I don't rush anything. I don't think I'm trying to pursue this QBR or quarterly business results or, you know, fill the pipeline or all of those things that I was exposed to with my previous, uh, directors and presidents and whatnot. Right. All of those things kind of added onto the fire, onto the oil. That brought in a little bit of stress onto the salesperson as well. So I don't intend to replicate those things. In my business, we do things in a relaxed way because I know that if this would be the energy from which I would approach a relationship, I would be attracting exactly the individuals who are also chasing deadlines, stressed, eager to do things quickly, and sacrifice quality and depth in exchange for that. And that is just not my style. So what happens naturally? And I spoke a little bit to that earlier when I said I use social media as a playground, as my public, private journal so that people can find resonance with how I approach things, my philosophy. This is where I share how I think about things. This is where I share my unique perspectives on the world and where I put a little bit of my personality into it. And I'm, um, pretty much kidding around a little bit because I think I tend to be on the other side of the extreme example of really bringing a lot of personality into the mix. So obviously, naturally, a lot of the individuals would automatically be repulsed by that. And I want that to be the case because I think strong marketing needs to do that and we need to repulse as much as we need to magnetize or attract. So it just so happens that on the other side of that, when I start a conversation with an individual, chances are that they've already consumed a sufficient amount of my content, at least a couple of pieces. And no surprise, a lot of the conversations really don't start with business. They start with having a laugh. They start with taking a piss at something that we know that we both hate. It starts with sharing very personal, very life, you know, life centered conversations. And that's how I start a conversation. We don't start with business. But then obviously, because I am running a business and my ideal target audience also is in the business of creating a business or revamping a business or building anew, we inevitably come to this conversation around, okay, so what are you building? Right, uh, it's, it's just a matter of curiosity. How can I be of service? And I think, you know, you mentioned this, Fran, in terms of marketing versus sales, I think we're all in sales essentially, and there is no time where we're not selling something. And I don't think selling or being in sales or being a salesperson is really a bad word because all of the associations to, you know, the used car salesman or the, you know, Jehovah's Witness coming and ringing at your doorbell on a Sunday, all of those things are off putting to say the least. But if you treat sales first and foremost as a service to something greater than yourself, and if you do not know what that something is, well, maybe to start with, you're being in service to the clients that you choose to serve. And that's like. If you frame sales from that perspective, then everything is a curiosity. If you lead with curiosity and ask questions and really try to be helpful to the individuals that you profess to serve, then you cannot go wrong and you can, you know, pretty much dispose of most of the jumbo around how to make a sale or how to approach a sale, or how to build a script, a sales script so that you can lead conversations with your clients.

Speaker A: So you're not going to give us the three steps to book a sales call?

Speaker C: I'm not gonna give you the three steps. But if you insist on the three steps, I will tell you there is one place where I employ the three steps, which is when people decide they wanna jump on a call with me autonomously by their own design. They can find my calendar booking link and in the calendar booking link you will find three questions. And those three questions are the three step process where I can gauge where an individual is at, what they're dealing with and what the intention of the call so that we can have a directed call can actually serve the both of us.

Speaker A: That's brilliant. Actually, obviously I was joking. But uh, because that is, I think this is one of the biggest problems that I see on um, LinkedIn actually nowadays is this, especially in content. I mean, we're all trying to get someone's attention with like a little bit of like, with three sentences and not too long because people Won't read them. So this is where everything becomes so generic and like, oh, here's what you have to do. Step one, step two, step three. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that in marketing in general. It doesn't work like that in sales. It doesn't work like that anywhere. Um, and that's why I think what Alex just shared here, it's much more important than any three step or four step or five step process. Or do this after this, after this. But anyway, we do have an episode with Dana earlier in the podcast where we, we do share breakdown the sales strategies, how to, how to book a sales call, and then on the sales call how to actually we actually role played and uh, did a fun episode there. So if you want you can go and check uh, the previous episodes and if you just go to create an iron, uh.com forward/sm m, you'll find all the episodes there. And uh, and, and you can go back to check all of that. And that's one of the reasons why this is the final episode of this podcast. Because this podcast was centered around LinkedIn first as LinkedIn marketing mastery. When LinkedIn is just a platform, LinkedIn is just a medium to reach your audience. And there's a lot more to marketing. This name of this episode as well. Is LinkedIn the ultimate tool to grow your business? I did spoil it before and said no, it has a lot of purposes to help grow your business, but it is not the ultimate tool. Not at all. Actually they're much more important assets for your business than using LinkedIn. But we're assessing exactly, uh, how we, the three of us use LinkedIn to um, grow our businesses and uh, what is the actual purpose and how we can use this platform to leverage what it has best. Right. Again, all of this, this is the last episode because I'm starting a new podcast and it's going to be marketing with integrity. It's the first time I say this publicly. Didn't even think about it, but okay, that's the one. And uh, so if you just follow this podcast you will see and follow the link I gave before the URL createinern.com sm m you'll get to our substack and over there you'll see the announcements and the transition to the new podcast. Okay, so I want to go back to I love what you just shared and I think we have a really good dynamic here because Alex gives us this essence of how he does things. And now I'd like to hear from Darren, how he approaches these conversations without the stress of closing a sale. Uh, Darren, you want to break it

Speaker B: down for us, right? Okay. So full transparency. I have two live approaches. All right? Now, one is, I do use automation for outreach. Okay? Uh, it doesn't send a personalized note. It just sends a connection request. When they accept the connection request, it just says, a quick question. Um, are you hiring in 2026? If you are, would you be open to quick conversation? That's all it is, you know, so all I'm asking, are you hiring, you know, engineers? Hiring engineers in 2026? If they are, nine times out of 10, I'll at least say, yeah, we are, or not quite yet. You know, could we have a chat maybe later on? And then the. The other approach is. That's how I got my. My first. First client who's still with us now, is. Is literally the cold outreach, um, on automation. And within four minutes of me sending that. That message or the. The system sending that message, within four minutes, four minutes, he come back to me, go, yeah, we need six engineers. Like, it was an instant boom. Like, just straight in. Like, it was so easy to get that, that. That client. Now the other ones that take a lot more and give you a few examples. So there's a guy that, um, I'm connected with now. He's based in Texas. He wears a really nice cowboy hat in this photo. Um, you know, my dad loves the cowboy hats. And I just reached out to you and said, I love your truck. Um, love the cowboy hat. You know, what truck is it? Didn't even mention recruiting. He owns a company that works with. With NASA Engineering. With NASA. So I'm like, all I did was just start a conversation, whistle. This is, like, two months on, we're still chatting. I haven't even mentioned recruiting for him at the moment. You know, I'm just having a conversation. We're having a laugh, um, and just building that, you know, we're kind of like friends now on that. On there. He's an older guy. He's probably, like, mid-60s, you know, CEO of a company. Uh, another guy, uh, been connected with him for two months now. He rides a Harley, I ride a Harley, you know, and I'm just, like, having a laugh about, you know, how the weather is and UK and the fact that we can't go out on a bike all the time and, uh, how lucky he is over there with the weather and, you know, talking about bikes and, you know, past experience and stuff. So just. That's my two approaches now, one's working on one side, but it's a very, um, conversion rate because you're sending out, you know, 50 connection requests a week, you may be only getting three or four conversations through that. And out of those over three months, closing three clients. What I mean, so you can see that that's, that's a very, very low conversion rate. And I will probably, you know, circle back to some of those in the fe. Um, as a proper conversation. But the ones that are going through conversation, I find it very hard to start a conversation unless I've got a, something I can relate to that they're doing, they're into. I can't keep a conversation going unless I've got that thing that we both, we both like. You know, if somebody likes a football team, you have a conversation, you just build a relationship based on you both like that football team or you both like different football teams. And they have a bit of a debate about who's better and the fact we're going to kick your ass next season or whatever do. I mean, it's important to have those, those, those conversations. But they're a lot, lot longer term warming up. Like, I can't, I couldn't show the interest. Yeah. And I couldn't go in with the kill now and just say, oh, uh, you know, do you need, do you want us to recruit for you? Do you plant source? And I'm like, I'm sort of waiting and waiting and waiting until the time feels right around, you know, if they put a role now, say they post a role. We've been talking two months and they post a role that we need two engineers. I can reach out and go, I saw you, you're looking to hire engineers. You know, do you want to have a chance? If we can help you in any way, Joey, then I can start to open that ball. But I don't want to. The clients I'm speaking to at the moment, they've got such high profile companies with NASA, um, you know, different kind of space programs, not even with NASA, but other individual independent space programs. One in nuclear engineering, another one in like the um, green side, you know, like wind farms and stuff like that. They've got very high profile companies. I don't want to go in for the kill and ruin that relationship. So I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting until that, uh, time's right so I can go and just approach them and say, you know, do you want to have a chance, see if we can help?

Speaker A: Yeah. You mentioned something very important there so basically that the relationship is more important than the sale itself. Right. Because uh, and, and once you build that relationship, you've already started it. So at a time where you see the opportunity, they're much more likely to listen to you or to get on a call with you than with someone else who just DM them. Call, call. Without the relationship being built.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So, so that's a very important one. Uh, and I think, uh, I think, and what you said about the shared interest, like, ah, talking about shared interest, I mean it's normal human relationship building honestly. And people take this out of content to context and they try to. I had someone approach me uh, a while back like hi Fran, uh, to follow Portuguese. And I'm like what? And with a bunch of broken stuff in Portuguese. Oh, sorry about my Portuguese. Blah blah blah. So they basically, they were trying this idea of the shared interest and also at the same time trying to be funny about it. But like, what do you mean if I speak, I'm Portuguese, uh, how am I not going to speak Portuguese? You know, so it's such a stupid question because they go with this step by step process. They were taught find something that they're interested in or whatever. I'm not interested in speaking Portuguese. Uh, I grew up speaking Portuguese, you know, it makes no sense. So what Darren is saying is really important. It's like it's genuinely wanting to have a conversation with someone with sharing interests. Like you're a Manchester fan. Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm, I hate Manchester, I'm from Liverpool. But whatever. It's like, you know, like you, you actually, that's how you build the relationship out in the real world when you put your feet on the grass. Right. So yeah, that's, that's really important. I love that it went in that direction and um. Because I do think that Alex is, approaches this very similar. Am I right?

Speaker C: Yeah. I don't necessarily speak about Harleys and I do love cowboy hats by the way. But um, for me it's, it's a lot easier because typically when I look at a profile of an individual, I will find telltale signs that they're either into metaphysics, philosophy or you know, just um, esoterics and things of that.

Speaker A: That's where I want to go actually. And sorry to interrupt you. So just to guide your, your response right direction. I'd like to hear exactly how you, how you find those topics and how you, how you don't say stupid things like to a Portuguese person. Do you speak Portuguese?

Speaker C: I'm not sure. I have an answer to that. But um, how I do approach things is. Well, I know who my ideal client is, right. Typically it's going to be an entrepreneur, maybe a serial entrepreneur. They have already built some things, it's already visible. Typically if you do a little bit of um, you know, intro, bio profile or some even content, if you read through it, you will see based on how they express themselves, based on how they write, unless it's a very clear AI generated post, you will immediately see, you know, where they are philosophically, where they're anchored or what their world building or philosophy, philosophical perspective, what their outlook on life is. And that's really my forte. Right. I can go deep into philosophical conversations. I like to make jokes on all, all things metaphysics, spirituality, alchemy and things of that nature. And I do enjoy talking about psychology and going deep into Jungian territory. So I can immediately tell based on somebody's profile whether they are, there's a good chance that they're also, you know, in that particular area. And that means a conversation starter is, is very clearly something that lends itself. We have a lot of common ground in, you know, in a very quick fashion, I can tell. But even if that's not the case, you know, just being human and you know, making a joke, humor is usually the best way. I do intend to share that. I do a lot of my comments and a lot of my content on LinkedIn through wit, through, you know, puns, through using humor, pun master. And that's, that's something people can relate to. We all like to have a good laugh, right? Especially in this fast paced, AI driven world. Um, but yeah, does that, does that cover it? Think. I think it's pretty self explanatory, but

Speaker A: I still want to, still want to go deeper on that because basically what you're telling me is you only want to work with people who you, who you'd relate regardless if it wasn't for business, right?

Speaker C: Yes, absolutely. I haven't told you that. But I do take my clients on a journey. You know, once we go there's, that's really like a three step process. So to boil it down, the first stage is know thyself. This is really the ultimate 10 ultimate esoteric spiritual maxim is knowing who you are. And if we start there, a lot of the things are much easier. And then once you do know who you are, then know thy client or thy customer, which means the ICP basically.

Speaker A: And to put it into uh, LinkedIn contact words.

Speaker C: LinkedIn terminology, ICP, exactly.

Speaker A: Thanks.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I Think that's important to be stressed out that. Well, and I guess this is, you know, I'm anchoring that in my own experience as a sales executive. I've been in many industries in the past and have been assigned accounts assigned, you know, different individuals within those accounts to work with. Meaning I was not at liberty most of the time to choose who I work with. As an account manager, it's a little bit different as a business developer, but as an account manager, you essentially have no choice but to make it work with the individuals that you are intended to work with. And for me, that was super stressful. For me, it was super stressful because in order to make the business, you know, with individuals that you have absolutely nothing in common with or even more so that you're not on the same frequency with, that is very stressful. That is super stressful. And it wears you out because you need to project a lot more energy into keeping up a facade and finding ways how to keep the conversation going. So I, uh, flip that script around and say, well, what if you start by getting very clear around who is the individual that you actually absolutely would love to be in a relationship with, that you would love to have a friendship around, that you would actually love to see succeed in the world? Right. And if you get clear around that answer, then having and building relationships is not a task. It's not something that you need to stress yourself around or put a lot of energy and approach and tactics and whatnot. It's very natural, it's very organic because those are the individuals that you actually enjoy spending time with. And it needs to be stressed that the individuals that you work with, your clients, are oftentimes the people that you will spend even sometimes more time than your family with. Right.

Speaker A: Most people don't realize that, but we work more than we are at home with our family. Right. Most people. So, yes, we spend so much time with this person that it should be picked as specifically as we pick a, uh, life partner. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah. And also like to give you even more context. Right. I choose an adversary. Right. If we imagine that life is a game and that this is an RPG role playing game, in every good game you have an adversary and you have your own protagonist that you usually playing. And the adversary is something, uh, that you choose that is absolutely against your values, your principles, it's something that you will plant a flag in and choose to die over it. And in my case, and there's many protagonists in my game world, but one of those is soulless work. Right. It's the painstaking process of doing the work just in order to survive, just in order to pay the bills, just in order to. Whatever that is for me, an, uh, absolute existential, philosophical. No, no, it's no bueno. Easily, easily. Because of that, I can make fun of big corporations, and I do so intentionally. And I really poke the bear. I throw it under the bus. I speak against, you know, the techno broligarchy. I speak against Microsoft, OpenAI, you know, all of the big players that are essentially. We all know what those things are and how they're, you know, not necessarily the most healthy of our business environments and how we approach business. So if you choose a protagonist big enough, you know, it's almost like you're Goliath and you're David and everybody likes to root for the underdog. And that is a way how you can rally something of a movement and really put yourself in a position where, well, we're not just serving clients here. We're actually doing something that is super fucking meaningful because we had chosen a, um, very meaningful objective for what we are doing in life. And, um, yeah, that's, that's what floats my boat. And it very clearly, very clearly delineates who actually is wanting to work with me and who resonates with that and who doesn't. And it takes a lot of the pressure off the table. And because all of the people on the other side who actually agree with my assertion here are going to be a joy to work with and they will say, yes, let's do it. How are we going to do it?

Speaker A: Yeah, disconnect some of the dots of what you were saying earlier. And, uh, I'm going to try to distill this in more of a marketing speech. So basically, it's the common enemy, right? Once, you know, once you know who you are and who you are for, and then you know who you serve, right now you can find a common enemy. Once you have that common enemy, it's much easier. Like, you don't just have a following, you start having fans. Those people will rally behind you against the common enemy. Right? So now what you're doing is what you mentioned earlier, Alex, you're repelling as much as you're attracting. Because if you're not repelling, you're not attracting. It's much harder. But now when you. So you need to know what you don't want, what you hate above all and everybody else. And there's plenty who shares the same hatred. Uh, I wouldn't call it hatred, but yeah. Okay, let's go with that. We'll connect with you and we'll want more from you. So I think this is really, really important and um, this takes us to the next stage which Darren, you have more experience than, than most people on LinkedIn. You've been on LinkedIn for many years. You've done different businesses on LinkedIn. You've used LinkedIn to market different businesses. I want to phrase this correctly. And you've even spoken at events, live events. For those who don't know about LinkedIn, about LinkedIn profile specifically, can you share with us, like what you've seen people doing on LinkedIn or what you've done yourself that you wouldn't do again for one reason or another and why

Speaker B: things that I wouldn't do anymore that I used to do or what people shouldn't be joining. One of the worst damaging things now, like I use AI to create content, right? Um, but I don't think that's anywhere near as damaging as using AI to comment on content.

Speaker A: Oh yeah.

Speaker B: Like I. If there's one thing that people need to cut out completely, it's like I'm seeing it in my, in my content currently at the moment. And it's when you comment using AI, it's. It's so emotionally detached the conversation. Like even if it's on top, it's so emotionally detached it's got no experience. Like right? So I use AI to create content specifically. I never comment on somebody else's content. If somebody comes onto my content and puts a commenting that is likely going to spark my aggression because I can be very impulsive in comments when someone starts to uh, challenge a not necessarily different opinion. But like I'll give you example in a minute. But I tend to use AI then to respond to that. But I always give AI the correct thing, what I want to say. So it puts it more passive, not aggressive. But like I had when I started this business, I had two recruiters in my comments trying to shut down what I was building because it was a threat to their company because of how much I could drop costs of recruitment after I just. Because it was really riling me up, I was using AI to write my comments back. And it controlled to the point where one of those guys came in my DMs. He said, can you help me build my business model like yours? So I just completely gone through two days of responding. But going back to the main question is if you're commenting on other people's post, I'll make it short on other people's content, don't use AI. That's the main thing. But it depends how you're going to do use AI with the rest of your business.

Speaker A: It brings us back to the idea that it's the relationship building first. Right, and how are you going to build, how are you going to build a relationship with when AI is the one doing the talking for you? So one thing uh, that you said like that you use AI to create content. I'm not specifically in favor of that, but uh, I have nothing against either for I'm, I'm actually building a content machine to repurpose my long form content, specifically this podcast for example, or the next one, uh, and uh, substack publications onto social media publications. It's still my voice, but it's just distilled by AI. Right. So it's not specifically what I do, but it's what we've been sharing here. And actually it's what uh, both of you do in a way specifically. Alex, uh, if we look at content as a conversation starter, then AI can still do that, but then following that conversation in a way that it's not you, how are you going to connect? How are you going to find the shared interest? How are you going to show who you are so that they actually can connect with you as well?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's important, it's important that you always give it context. And the way I built my AI, uh, my custom GPT, it knows everything about my history, my military service, all the experiences, my business failures. It knows everything about, you know, if I've got a new experience within recruitment, I always put it back into its knowledge base so it's got it to refer to like a new experience. I always update the experience part uh, inside like, like to give you an idea. So I put a post out the other week and it was talking about like why candidates, ghost companies, you know, they get a job offer because the company's not working fast enough. Fully AI written. It's had like 86,000 impressions in two weeks. It's just absolutely exploded. One of my, one of my other posts has got 370 odd likes on it, you know, like engagements. So it can write content. But you've got to be very careful. You don't just net it, have the reins. I mean you've got to really guide it. Like I always say, you know, I tend to use Claude for content ideas. When it gives me the ideas, I then put it into chat GPT and say based on my experience and you know, my target audience and what we're trying to achieve. You've got to give it a. What is the goal behind the content? You can't just go write me 30 posts. Yeah, but what is, what are you trying to do here? You know, and with me, a lot of the time it's trying to spark some kind of engagement, comments, likes, whatever, to push that content into the eyes of people who are likely going to be my client. Like I've never seen in my recruitment, not one of my clients has ever commented or liked a post. Not one of them. But they come in the DMs.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So it's using the content to force into, into their eyes, not necessarily make the sale.

Speaker A: Also, there are businesses and businesses obviously I, uh, work with, uh, uh, with a career coach for executives specifically, who barely gets the ideal client to, to even comment or interact with this post. Right. So it's, it's just the conversation starter in a way. But it does work wonders that content still brings in a lot of people into the, into the ecosystem through the systems that we build. Um, like, but a lot of people I'm talking about organically. We can get sometimes, uh, close to a hundred people in a day, uh, or with one post onto the ecosystem, which is, which is really good. Uh, but still they don't interact. But they're there, they're reading it clearly because they're coming in.

Speaker B: Right. Um, I think it's important to understand your business model. Where is content going to be the primary driver for leads? Or is it your DMs? Because if, if, like all my recruitment, um, clients come through dms and relationships, they don't come through content. So why would I put all my time writing content? Well, I can use AI to write that, uh, and just show that I'm active online. And then I could put my time into the DMs, the relationship building. That's where my time spent now. Where, yeah, last, you know, two years ago, all my time went into content because that's where our leads came from. I never spent time. You know what I was like, I never did DMs, never did connection requests. So depending on your business model, you need to understand where which side are my leads likely to come from. And if that, whichever way it is, then that's the time. That's where you want to put your effort. Because it would be a waste of my time going, you know, seven days a week trying to post. You know, I can write all my content in on a Sunday and post 30 days of content using AI as long as it's, you know, I still read the post and make sure it's all relevant but like I'm not going to go spend 30 days a month posting when I can get my leads in the DMs. I may as well just not post at all if that's the case. Like. Yeah, it's just to make sure that when people go to your profile they can see I am active.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Can we go back to the uh, is there anything else you'd, you'd say that you wouldn't do again? Uh, nowadays that you used to do on LinkedIn and this, I'm not saying that, that you think it's wrong. I'm just saying uh, that for you didn't work and you wouldn't do it again.

Speaker B: Um, um, not necessarily on LinkedIn again. I wouldn't. I'd never have an offer now that's not on a retainer. I know it's not LinkedIn specific, it's business specific. But I think for a one and done job business is, it's an absolute soul destroyer like if you can't get a client and, and um, and it's very important as well. I suppose one thing I would do is work with brand new startup creators or businesses because when you're trying to build a business, you need to work with businesses that have got a budget and if you're trying to help startups who are like trying to bootstrap everything, your business is going to struggle so, so hard because they haven't got the money to support you. Like with me now, I'm um, I'm saving 80% of recruitment costs to a 10 million a year company or 20 year. 20 million a year company do you mean?

Speaker A: So I want to stop you there. I don't want you to expand on that for a very specific reason.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: This is still a LinkedIn marketing mastery podcast. So we're specifically about LinkedIn and this is one of the reasons why I'm closing this podcast and starting a new one is because I don't want to be restricted to LinkedIn because their businesses. There's so much to growing a business specifically when it comes to marketing that being restricted to Talking only about LinkedIn is very limiting. So I want to serve people at a higher level. Uh, and that's why. So Darren, you'll come to the new podcast and you'll share all those details later on. So uh, let's stay on LinkedIn. And so I love that you had that you were forced to bring this outside of LinkedIn. So, and this answers the question, is LinkedIn the ultimate tool to grow your business? No. So that's beautiful. Alex, do you want to share your, what you've learned from LinkedIn that you, or what you, or what you've experienced that you wouldn't want to do it again, uh, in your business?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So I always joke about my sole purpose of being on LinkedIn is not to be on LinkedIn. And I, I do really mean that. Um, I've been in the past, you know, uh, I guess it was back in 2024 where I actually very intentionally said, okay, I'm going to take this seriously. I'm going to show up on LinkedIn every single day. I'm going to create content, I'm going to engage, I'm going to grow network. And I did. And it was a lot. It was a lot, let me tell you. And if I would want to do that properly, it's a full time job. It absolutely is a full time job. So I did, at a certain point, maybe four hours of writing comments and connecting with other people and getting into conversations and posting content. And that was just a lot. And I wouldn't do that again. But what I also wouldn't do is not do it right. What I mean by that is I believe the best way how we human beings learn is by actually doing things right. Not mental masturbation, thinking about, thinking about things, but actually doing the things. And I would never take that experience away from me because without having done it, I wouldn't have known better and I wouldn't be able to give a very informed conversation or informed advice or guidance to individuals who are in my daily conversations who are also trying to make something on this platform, on LinkedIn. So the experience was absolutely necessary. I would not do it again. Um, and I now know that I approach things a little bit differently. I still very much do show up almost daily. Um, like I'm probably here, you know, maybe 352 days of the year in 2025 was, uh, which is still a much better performance than in my previous nine to five engagements. None of my former employers would be able to get me to spend so much time in the office. But, you know, one of the reasons why I enjoy doing this is because as I said earlier in our conversation, the sheer facts and the act of creating and writing is something that I am absolutely not giving up. So if that is a, uh, you know, a LinkedIn post, that is how I continue with my writing practice. And I do think that continuing to write is one of the ways how I improve my strategic outset, how I improve how I approach things, how I improve my thinking and how I process emotions. Right. Um, as well as connect with others. So why would I sacrifice that component? But, um, you know, we said on a couple of occasions that these things are very individual. And as Darren was saying, you know, for him it doesn't make sense. Maybe for me it makes sense because of what I just said.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, that, that's uh, that's really good actually. And it brings me back to when I started on LinkedIn. I did the exact same thing and I think, uh, most people will resonate with that, like spending most of their day on LinkedIn. But here's the thing. Um, and everybody else you see, like, let's, let's put it. The gurus up on, on display, right? So everybody you see who's apparently making it right, and hence you're following their advice. Their advice basically like the three steps they share on a post. So those, they seem to, to be making it right because they have a lot of likes, they have a lot of attention on their publications. But that's what Alex just described. Those people are living on LinkedIn and, and then that's where the def. Where this idea that Everybody says, My LinkedIn business, right, because they, they live on LinkedIn and then what is the business? How are they serving someone? There's only one way which actually becomes sort of a pyramid scheme, right? So there's. They're selling you the coaching of what they do every day on LinkedIn and they won't be selling you much of it and they won't be helping you much with it because everything they can, what they can offer is basically a cohort. When, where you're a cohort or whatever they call it nowadays, I think that's the word where you're basically consuming digital, uh, a digital program and you get access to them live once a week or something because obviously they're living on LinkedIn. They could, they, they don't have more time to actually be serving a client properly. This, and this is my, my sort of rant for what I see on LinkedIn and what actually pulled me apart from LinkedIn a couple of times already. So. Yeah, and this, with this, I think we're wrapping up. I'd love just to hear from you guys, uh, if, for those who are watching, what if they want to, if they want to actually build a relationship with you, connect with you, do something, uh, or, or if they resonated with you with what you're saying, what would be the best place to do? So LinkedIn.

Speaker C: You want to go first Darren?

Speaker B: If they want to just connect with me and get in touch just on LinkedIn. So like I'm moving away from LinkedIn for talent sourcing. So I use Indeed. I've got a premium account on Indeed and I can find so many people on there. It's humongous like compared to LinkedIn for talent. That's what I find my candidate. Uh, I am going on Facebook more for finding clients now. I'm finding that I can find engineering groups and companies and people on there as well and they're a lot less defensive. You know, the defense ain't up because they're not being constantly sold on Facebook. So you know, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm still active on LinkedIn. Um, but yeah, most of my work's coming off then, eh.

Speaker A: And it's Darren Palatino on LinkedIn. You'll find the links uh, in the description. So wherever you're watching this, you'll find the links. Alex.

Speaker C: Yeah, so I am very much still active on LinkedIn. That would be the, you know, the easiest place to connect. I did recently uh, endeavor into being more active on Instagram. Um, it's ah, an edge for me to go into more visual uh, content creation. Um, so that's another place. But ultimately um, like my main long form connection and platform is tailored around the email list. I have an email list that people can subscribe to. There's a beautiful introduction in my own special way. There's an entryway on Substack. But um, yeah, that's, that's really where I prefer to connect with people because I feel email is still very much, you know, you're not competing with algorithms, you're not competing with um, the endless feed. There is a little bit more space.

Speaker A: Anybody who's, who's heard any one of our podcast episodes knows that I'm an email first kind of person. It's actually not even the email, it's the list. Right? It's a list of contacts and people just basically go back to, to think that it's the email list. Email is just the easiest point of contact to get from someone. Right? So it's, it's a way to stay in contact. It's a way to own the, the, the contacts who you're going, you're going to reach out to. So on LinkedIn, obviously you're dependent of them letting you explore the platform to reach out to anybody in your email list or any list. If you can have a list of addresses and send letters, you can have a list of phone numbers and send SMS's or whatever. The point is that it's a, it's a list of contacts of people who have actually some interest in you because of the way they came into your list. Uh, and they gave you permission to contact them. That's the most important thing. They actually gave you permission? Yes, you can contact me whenever you want. So. Yeah. Alex, so how do they find your email list?

Speaker C: Uh, my email list is on substack or I'm just building out a new thing. I don't know if I can plug it in here, but I'm building out like an archetypal, archetypal architecture quiz, which gives you a lot of the insight into knowing yourself, knowing what your creative energies and drives, where they're stemming from, so that you can really understand yourself on a level that you can build using, you know, your insight into what are your strong suits, what are your zones of genius and on the other side, what are the shadow sides of it? So that would be archetype architecture, dot creation codes.

Speaker A: Co. And dude, we gotta have a conversation about shorting URLs.

Speaker C: Let, let's have that conversation.

Speaker A: Uh, all right. And anyway, all the links that, that are being mentioned, uh, will be in the description of this episode.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: The other one is the creation codes on, on soft stack. That is much shorter.

Speaker A: All right, awesome. As I said, this will be the last episode. I do believe that as LinkedIn marketing, we've had, uh, we've, we've had everything here so you can find throughout our episodes. We've, we're. I think, I believe this would be episode 46. So we've had all types of guests on uh, and we've shared every single perspective of uh, of, of marketing your business through LinkedIn as far as I'm aware. So just go back to the old episodes. There's no point of repeating this information in my, in my point of view. And again, I want to expand this to give you more, to give you marketing. Marketing with integrity and marketing that is complete, that talks about email lists, how you build your list, how, how your list is your biggest asset, um, and how to protect your business from these platforms actually screwing you, all of that. So basically, if, if that's something that resonates with you, just subscribe to this podcast, substack. Go, uh, to createandearn.com uh, sm m and you'll find that the substack subscribe there and the next publication will have this episode on it and we'll have the link to the new podcast and you'll be able to follow, uh, to follow the premise of this is marketing with integrity. But we'll have guests who will be more or less on what we did today, sharing their experiences with how they, they went from, from starting a business to where they are right now in their business, wherever that that is. It will be specific for service based businesses, coaches, consultants, but obviously it applies for everything. So if this interests you, just follow the substack and uh, you'll have the, all the information in the next publication. You can read Zinzel's comment. She said, well said Darren, when you were talking about the business first, the family first and all that and how you structure your business. She says since, since I got married, I do not have the energy to work with more than two clients unless I go, I go to the agency model of which in this season in my life I'm finding more joy in mentoring and training my juniors. So yeah, it's again building your business around your purpose and your lifestyle and not the other way around. And uh, if you want to know more about this, Alex is the perfect person to talk to. Uh, and we'll have Alex on the new podcast specifically talking about this and that will be fun. So thank you very much for joining us. Thank you Alex for being here. Thank you, Darren.