Why Finn McKenty ditched 760k YT Followers to Start Fresh on LinkedIn

Speaker A: I decided I would start a YouTube channel. And so I did. The goal was just to get as many people as I could to know who I am. Said I ended up getting, um, 750,000 subscribers between two channels. Like, 130 million views. Way more successful than I thought it would be. But I never wanted to be a YouTuber per se. I just started to solve a specific problem for me, which is that people didn't know who I am. And I also made a lot of money from it. I sort of knew that I was going to quit YouTube, uh, in the near future. As YouTube is winding down, I'm going to ramp up LinkedIn, because generally that's how I like doing things.

Speaker B: I gotta ask, man, you, uh, seem very strategic about what you do, and I'm, I'm really curious about this. Was this strategic? Everybody's talking about you on YouTube.

Speaker A: After I quit, I did an interview. Um, I didn't think anybody would see it. They did see it and they got really upset at me. So there's whatever, like, dozens of videos about me with millions of views about what a terrible person I am and how I'm such a bad person because I just YouTube for the money and blah, blah, blah. Especially with LinkedIn, one of the great things about it is, like, you don't need a large audience to have a great business. You can have a couple thousand followers, which is not a lot, and be killing it. So you don't have to sort of deal with all the nastiness that comes with being like a big public figure, which, like, it's not great. I'm not here to sell anybody on anything. I'm here to help people.

Speaker B: If you had to share a beginner's guide to LinkedIn, what would that be? If you don't know, uh, who Fin is, Finn built two highly successful YouTube channels, like totaling 760,000 followers, uh, 100k followers on Instagram. And he just dropped everything to start fresh on LinkedIn. And now he's helping others, specifically entrepreneurs, grow on YouTube and LinkedIn. And there's one thing that Fin says that I find it myself. LinkedIn for creators is easy. Finn also has, uh, 20 years of marketing experience. He worked with brands like Nike, Element and Red Bull before, basically. Finn, I didn't know all of this about you before I invited you here. Then I started my research and I found a lot of noise about you. People are very upset on YouTube.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What made you give up everything, all that you built in the last seven years, and actually start building on on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: Well, I started. So let. Let me back up. The reason I started doing YouTube back in 2017 is because I found myself in a place where probably, you know, a lot of people listening to this would find themselves, which is at that time, I had been doing, you know, call it product design and product marketing for about 15 years and started out kind of in the agency world. Did some stuff for brands like Nike, Nintendo, Red Bull in the beginning, and then, uh, moved on to some other agencies that did work a bunch of work for like, financial institutions that don't exist anymore, like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and stuff like that. You know, back in the 2000s, did a lot of. At the time, I was writing a lot of cod, doing a lot of, like, you know, you know, websites and stuff like that. I. After that I went to an industrial design and engineering agency where I probably did what I would say is like, kind of the defining work where I really kind of learned this stuff. Working on a lot of big brands. Procter and Gamble brands primarily, like Febreze, Swiffer, Bounce Tide, you know, these just giant, giant, giant, like, consumer brands that, uh, you know, I think people in the SaaS world have no idea how big these businesses are. Like, when I was working on Bounce, which is like fabric softener sheets, at the time, they were doing 400 million units a year, you know, of that little box of fabric softener. It's probably many times that now. Like, the scale of that and like, the complexity of that is crazy. Um, after that I worked for Abercrombie and Fitch doing design and marketing at a time when we were really kind of. That was like the number one, like, mall brand in the world. At the time we were opening, you might have seen some of this stuff. We were opening a lot of flagship stores in Europe at the time, in like, Barcelona and Madrid and, you know, Copenhagen and, you know, just all over, like, Western Europe and Asia. So I did that. Spent a lot of time at factories there. Also doing some, like, quality assurance kind of stuff, which is pretty interesting over in, like, China, Indonesia, Korea, stuff like that. Um, and then went to that, uh, startup I mentioned, Creative Live, where we did online education for creative people. Did a lot of cool stuff there too. Um, and so I'd done. And. And I'd also done a lot of, like, writing. I mean, the whole time. I started writing when I was like 15 years old. And, uh, so, you know, by the time I started YouTube when I was, I think 38, um, I had written thousands and thousands of Blog articles been published in a bunch of magazines in addition to all the other stuff I said. So I feel like I did stuff that was pretty cool. But the problem is, nobody cared. Like, nobody knew who I was. I mean, I think anybody that worked with me probably thought I was good at my job, but nobody knew who I was. Nobody cared about me. I felt like my network was not good. I couldn't, like, get anywhere applying for jobs. It was just like bouncing off a brick wall, just made no headway. And so I said, well, I got to do something about this. And it became obvious to me at the time, you know, like, I said, I'd done some blogging and stuff. I started out doing, like, print writing back in the day. I did blogging after that, and it became obvious to me that YouTube was sort of the place where, uh, you know, attention at scale was at that point. I noticed that when I went to warped tour in 2015, I think, um, which for anybody who doesn't know, is like a alternative music tour kind of thing that would happen every year, and there, you know, be, whatever, 20 or 30,000 kids there. And so there'd be a tent where you can meet all the different bands, and so, you know, go get their autograph or whatever. So kids would line up at these tents to go get an autograph from their band. And I noticed the biggest lines by far were actually for YouTubers, not the bands. The YouTuber lines were, like, literally five times longer than the lines for the bands. I was like, whoa, something is going on here. Because I. At that time, I thought of YouTube as being, you know, cat videos and stupid vlogs.

Speaker B: Which year was this?

Speaker A: This is 2015, you know, and, uh, I. You know, and YouTube was. I thought it was like, it's for kids at, uh, I thought. And then seeing these lines, I was like, okay, there's something more here. And so I paid attention to it, and I realized that YouTube had matured into something different. And so in 2017, when I was, like, sort of at this crossroads of, like, man, I gotta do something. Cause, like, nobody cares about me. Nobody knows who I am, and nobody cares, I decided I would start a YouTube channel. And so I did. The goal was just to get as many people as I could to know who I am. And so I started the channel. To make a long story short, like you said, I ended up getting, um, 750,000 subscribers between two channels. Like, 130 million views, which is way more than, like, I thought if I could just get, like, 5,000 people you know, 5,000 views on my videos, like, that'd be awesome. I'd be happy with that. And I ended up getting hundreds of millions and way, uh, more successful than I thought it would be. But I never wanted to be a YouTuber per se. Like, at the end of the day, I am a product designer and a product marketer. I never stopped doing that stuff. I'm also a partner in a company that does online education for music producers. So I do like product management. I never stopped doing that. I never wanted to be a YouTuber per se. I just started to solve a specific problem for me, which is that people didn't know who I am. Um, and I also made a lot of money from it. And I was like, all right, I'm making five times more from this than I did at my last full time job. I should probably keep doing this for a little bit. Um, but, uh, I solved the problem that I started YouTube to solve. And so I was like, all right, time to move on. Um, I joined LinkedIn in 2007, I think. Although back then it was very different from what it is now. Um, you know, back then it was just basically your online resume and you would like connect with people you worked with for. No, I'm like, I don't know why I'm connected with these people, but I guess I will. Cause that's what you're supposed to do. And so I didn't, like, I had an account, but I probably logged in once a year or something like that. And then around 2020 I saw that it had evolved to more of a creator platform. And so I started posting on there a little bit, but it was very sporadic. I post like 3 times a week and then not for like 6 months or whatever. And I didn't really take it seriously. I just. But I did have a link to my LinkedIn in the bottom of all my YouTube videos. And so even though I didn't really do anything with it for, you know, all those years that I was on YouTube, I got maybe seven or 8,000 followers or something just purely, uh, passively from LinkedIn. Now, are those the exact right ICP for me? Probably not. And that's a whole other conversation. But it did help me kind of hit the ground running. And so then when I started taking it seriously at the end of 2023, like, I sort of knew that I was going to quit YouTube, uh, in the near future. And so I said, okay, well, let me. As YouTube is winding down, I'm going to ramp up LinkedIn because generally, that's how I like doing things. And so, um, it sort of allowed me to hit the ground running a little bit. Um, um. And so in 23, started ramping that up. And then in 24, you know, I quit YouTube in September, I think. And so, you know, that transition was like kind of doing two things at once. And that was a lot. But it worked out.

Speaker B: That's awesome. And, uh, I gotta ask, man, as, uh, a marketer and I've, I, I saw some of your content. You seem very strategic about what you do, and I'm, I'm really curious about this. Was this strategic? Everybody's talking about you on YouTube. Was this part of your visibility play?

Speaker A: No, no, no, no. So for anybody who doesn't know, like, basically I did this interview after I quit. I did an interview that some people. So, I mean, where basically I just said. Well, I, I said the same thing I just told you is, like, I did YouTube, you know, to solve this problem and to make some money. And I solved the problem, so I quit. And, uh, it's a. Not a big channel, so I didn't even think anybody was going to see it. Like, to be honest. I did it to be nice to the guy because he's a nice guy. And so I said yes, even though I didn't think anybody would see it for whatever reason, they did see it and they got really upset at me. So there's whatever, like dozens of videos about me with millions of views about what a terrible person I am and how I'm such a bad person because I just did YouTube for the money and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker B: Well, that's not all there is. I actually took a screenshot.

Speaker A: Why didn't. I haven't watched. I haven't watched any of them, to be honest.

Speaker B: No, there's a lot of reaction videos to that interview. But, uh, yesterday I took a screenshot from one of those videos. I miss you, Finn. Where do you go? There's. There's people who love you, man.

Speaker A: Well, that's great. I'm happy to hear that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: Like, I, I, like, I block anything that I see coming up about me on YouTube. I block the channel because, like, I don't want. Yeah, very bad. For your mental health to, like, experience. I've experienced more hate on the Internet than probably anybody you will ever meet in your entire life. Like, there are millions and millions and millions and millions of views on videos about what a terrible person I am. You can't pay attention to that stuff. It's horrible. For your mental health. But, yeah. So, um, I would never do that. Like, people. I don't know why people think, like, oh, that was so smart that you did. I'm like, that was not my intention. Like, I answered a question.

Speaker B: If it was, it would have been smart.

Speaker A: No, it wouldn't be. No, it wouldn't be smart. It wouldn't be smart. Like, it's not smart. It's a terrible idea. To, like, deliberately say things that are going to make millions of people angry is a terrible idea. It might not be a bad idea for your pocketbook. I mean, for your bank account. Yes. Like, if. I mean, you can think of lots of people who run this playbook, you know, if you want to just get attention. Yeah. Just say things that make people angry. Um, and you'll get a lot of attention for that. And you can find a way to monetize that. But is that, like, do you think that's gonna make you happy?

Speaker B: Michael Larry, the CEO of Reiner, is a master at that. He says there's no such thing as bad advertising. So he just gets people talking about him.

Speaker A: Well, I think the people who are okay with that, uh, are. I mean, I don't know who that is, so I'm not gonna, like, diagnose him. But, like, if you're truly. And I know some people who are like this that genuinely don't care, I know people who have, like, you know, many, many, many millions of followers that genuinely don't care what people think about them, and these people are not.

Speaker B: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. I get it.

Speaker A: If that's, like. I totally reject the idea that it's smart to make people angry on purpose. I completely reject that now. It's okay. There's going to be times where you may have a point of view.

Speaker B: Well, something I would never do, but I do appreciate seeing the widths behind it.

Speaker A: You know, I don't. I completely. I think that is. I think that's, like, midwit logic to think that, like, I'm, um, playing 4D chess, won't. Trust me, it will not make you happy. To experience. To experience, like, having thousands and thousands of people say nasty things about you. You will not enjoy it, I promise. And if you truly don't care, you're a sociopath.

Speaker B: Yeah. You make a good point. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: And a lot of those people are like, do have, like, you know, psychopic,

Speaker B: like, And, I mean, I never. I never lived through it, and you did, and you lived through that. All that hate online. So, you know, Better than anybody.

Speaker A: Most people, if you get one nasty comment on a post, it'll like, rattle you for the day. Yeah. Now, uh, multiply that by hundreds for a decade.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: If that's, that's what you want to

Speaker B: your business, especially now, I don't think

Speaker A: you're gonna like it.

Speaker B: Yeah, especially now that the personal brand is more important than ever. I mean, uh, whatever you do right now might, might give you some financial rewards immediately, but how is that gonna pay off in two years from now? That's gonna hurt for sure.

Speaker A: Well, there's more to life than money. Like, do you want it? Like, do you want to be a person that just, like, attracts rage for money? No, you don't want it. That's no way to live. That's a, that's, that's incredibly unhealthy. Like, why do you think everyone in Hollywood is so fucked up? You know, X number of people in the world are crazy and unwell, and if there are, you know, whatever, call it 1%, I don't know what the number is, but if you have a hundred million fans, then that means 1% of them or 1 million people are unstable and unwell. And it's not enjoyable having that in your life.

Speaker B: Yeah. I can't imagine.

Speaker A: Ben Affleck just did an interview with Theo Vaughn about this where he said something about, like, you know, being rich and famous. He's like, why don't you just be rich? Like, being famous sucks. So for anybody listening to this, you know, there, like you do not, especially with LinkedIn, one of the great things about it is, like, you don't need a large audience to have a great business.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: You can have a couple thousand followers, which is not a lot, and be killing it, you know, no problem.

Speaker B: I'm running my business with 4,000 followers.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, for most, you know, every business is different. But I don't know, for example, there's a guy I know, um, who his audience is financial planners who typically run, like, family offices, you know, that are managing tens of millions of assets and he only has a couple thousand followers. But, like, think about how valuable that audience is. Right? If he's, if he's the gateway, because there's not that many of those people. Right. I mean, how many family offices are there like that in the U.S. like, I don't know the number, but it's not a lot. And if he is the gateway to those people, you know, for all these, like, financial institutions and stuff, for them to give him, you know, tens of thousands of dollars in order to have access to this audience of people who, you know, the lifetime value of them is in the millions. Like best money they ever spent.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: So it's a, it's a little bit of this is the reason why LinkedIn I think is so great is because number one, the culture is just way better. People on LinkedIn like are by default like supportive and nice as compared to literally everywhere else in the Internet. By default they're like nasty and horrible. And the people who are on LinkedIn are very like high value people. So you can have a great business with a relatively small audience and so you don't have to sort of deal with all the nastiness that comes with being like a big public figure which like, it's not great. Yeah.

Speaker B: People are here to, to do business.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: This leads us to a question that I wanted to ask you. Are you all, your question, are, uh, all your clients coming from LinkedIn right now?

Speaker A: Yeah, a couple maybe from referral and one person, you know, I still work with the founder of Creative Live, who I've known for like 20 years. But uh, yeah, like probably 95% of it is LinkedIn inbound.

Speaker B: Going viral makes, reaches a huge broad audience. But then it loses relevance. The more people you reach, the less they have. They're all interested in the same subject. Right. So uh, what are you going to sell to them? The sell to them? Ah, in the pyramid scheme.

Speaker A: It's even true in the context. It's very, it's 100% true in the context of a business modest and say 100. There's a few examples of when virality might actually be good for business. But you know, it, it is a fundamental, you know, dynamic that the larger an audience gets, the lower quality it gets. Like that is just a fundamental. Yeah, that's a fundamental dynamic. And so for a business, you know, you can see the implications of that I think are pretty clear. But I think it's also true of creators. You know, I've had lots and lots and lots of tweets and reels and stuff, get millions of views and it's, it's so unpleasant every time because, you know, it reaches an audience. It's nice when it gets like, you know, one step outside your usual audience. Like so if I Normally get whatever 50,000 views on a reel, if I would get like 75 or 100,000, like that's nice. But when you get millions, then it's reaching people that are so far outside of your circle they don't know who you are they don't know anything about you. Like, they have no respect for you or your audience. And so, yeah, you know, very quickly the default reaction becomes negative. And so you just get a bunch of like nasty comments and people that are just there to basically dunk on you. It sucks. Like there's no business value there. Just, it's really unpleasant. It makes you just want to put down your phone and not look at the Internet for like a day until people forget about you and move on to the next thing to be mad about, like uh, it's going viral is just really not desirable. That said, if we're Talking specifically about LinkedIn, I think their definition of viral is a little different than, you know, what a creator's definition of viral is. Like I HEAR People on LinkedIn say that their post went viral because it has like 800 likes. I would not consider that. I mean it's all definitional, but to me that's not, not exactly viral. But so in that scenario it might be good for you because 800 likes is still a pretty small audience. And so it could be pretty, you know, still be pretty relevant. But once you start getting into like reaching millions of people, probably not very relevant.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And actually uh, I've had, had uh, a client of mine who was focused uh, a lot on virality and I kept telling him like, you're going to lose relevance and you're going to just lose conversions. Because we had, we had a whole system with a lead magnet and people opting into his lead to his uh, email list. And then actually we were getting automated sales and all of a sudden he stopped getting subscriptions to the email list. He then started promoting a newsletter directly. I subscribed to my newsletter. But then even inside the, the email list he lost relevance and we couldn't sell to them anymore. So that, that was, that was a very interesting case study.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll give you another good example of this is the company uh, I worked at before was a startup called Creative, uh, Live, did online education for creative people. Um, and uh, I started right, I started when we were at our series A and did a series B and then some follow on. So we eventually raised like about 60 million bucks. And when I say we, I should say it was Chase, the founder. I mean he, you know, I was there for the ride, but Chase is the one that raised all the money and we worked with a ton of like very big name influencers, like, you know, people like actual, like, like Jared Leto is like an investor, you know, like, like Actual like mainstream celebrities as well as a lot of, we'll call them like niche influencers, you know, like photographers and stuff that are highly respected in photography but you know, you would have never heard of if you're not a photographer. And every single time we saw exactly what you're talking about happen, you would get, you know, if we had one of these like, you know, big name whatever, like Mark Cuban or, you know, Ariana Huffington or something like that on a, uh, Richard Branson, everybody says, oh, wow, that's cool. But they really never move the needle, you know, in terms of revenue because like what are you going to buy from Jared Leto, you know, other than a movie ticket, you know, no disrespect to him, but it's just it. But these photographers, I mean the person that sold the most for us is a guy that had zero audience, who just happened to be a really good teacher. And so when we got him in front of an audience, people bought his classes. The sweet spot for us was people who are well known enough to have a good sized audience, but that audience is still focused enough to be super relevant. So like the person that I think probably moved the needle the most for us is Tim Ferriss.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because he's a well known guy for sure, got a big audience, but he's not, you know, a Jared Leto or Richard Branson or something like that. So the people who followed him are like, you know, they're very, they're especially

Speaker B: this, they're not generalists, they're not interested in everything that he has to say.

Speaker A: Especially 10 years ago when we were working with them, you know, um, that was especially true then. So yeah, I mean this is the dynamic. It's like do not. It is completely pointless to chase reach for its own sake. Yes, obviously you need reach. People need to see your stuff. You know, like that's an awareness is a necessary condition for sales. But chasing like broad reach. Uh, and I can talk about this more later. I've validated this so, so, so many times over the past like 15 years. It is completely pointless.

Speaker B: There's one thing that you mentioned a lot and I read in your newsletters and stuff that visibility, the importance of visibility. But let's, let's hold out on that. Uh, all right. Uh, why do you say LinkedIn is easy?

Speaker A: Well, I mean, I'm being a little facetious because, you know, nothing worth doing is easy. But relative to other platforms, LinkedIn is on is easy mode. I don't know if that's going to be true forever but, but it still is for now. So the reason I say that is think about, let's say you want to get big on uh, TikTok. Think about who your competition is. It's like every like good looking 19 year old with a ton of free time and the willingness to just, you know, be ridiculous on the Internet for, for attention. Right. So huge number of people and, and if you can't compete with like literally the best looking, most charismatic people in the world, like that's your competition, that's tough. Or on YouTube it's all these people who are like actual professional creators with a team of, you know, like I had three editors for example, you know, between my two channels and my short form content and stuff, people have been doing it for a long time with, you know, they're making probably millions of dollars a year off it so that it's like a real business. So you're competing with like professional creators. Can you be successful there? Yes, but it's, it's, it's hard, right? And there's tons of people who want to be tick Tockers and YouTubers. If you're on Twitter, you're competing with you know, politicians and celebrities and really well known journalists and stuff for attention, um, or onlyfans girls also hard to compete with. Um, but LinkedIn, you know, the people on LinkedIn are typically like not professional creators. There's very few of them that have like a team behind them. It's mostly just one person with a day job, uh, you know, who's just sort of making content when they can. And you know, most of them are like kind of not really, like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just trying to, trying to put myself out there a little bit. So there's a lot less competition and the competition that does exist, I'm not saying this in a judgmental way to put them down, but they're just less sophisticated. Sophisticated as creators versus other platforms. So I don't know what the number is exactly, but I think it's something really, really small that like only like 2% or something of LinkedIn users post. I think even once a month, once

Speaker B: a week is 1%.

Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. So it's a tiny fraction of people are making content on a regular basis. And making content is only one way of being active on LinkedIn. You know, commenting is a really good one, but again, not many people are commenting. More people than are more people are commenting than creating, but still a relatively small number. And the people who do Comment, a lot of it is not super high value stuff, right? So if you're, if you're leaving thoughtful, substantial comments, you're already, like, in the top, like, 1% of the top 1%. And same for DMs, like, everybody here gets DM'd, like, annoying, spammy pitches, right? But if you get a message from someone that actually seems like a normal, cool person that's telling you about something relevant, that talks like a normal human, you're gonna, that's gonna stand out, right? So, like, again, just by being like a normal person, saying normal things and just being consistent and active, you're in the top 1%.

Speaker B: Especially the more people try to hack the algorithm and add, uh, AI comments, the more your, your real comment stands out.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. You know, again, anything valuable is hard, so I'm being a little bit facetious, but relative to the other platforms where you could be a creator, LinkedIn is for sure the easiest one, and it's also the highest value. So to me, it's like, that's amazing. What a great combination. That's like, it's, it's almost like too good to be true. It's easy and you can make the most money. Sign me up.

Speaker B: Yeah, especially B2B. I mean, it's 80% of all B2B deals start on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: Wow. I believe it.

Speaker B: It's crazy. It's crazy.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, all right, right now, are you only active on LinkedIn or do you still post on other. Other.

Speaker A: I, uh, post on Instagram, a story very occasionally, but, like, basically don't post anywhere else.

Speaker B: All right, so all you're doing is LinkedIn. Okay. If you had to share, like, um, let's say like a, uh, beginner's guide to LinkedIn, what would that be?

Speaker A: So, first thing is, you want to figure out, we'll call it your positioning, but just basically like, what are you selling and who are you selling it to and why would they want to buy it? You know, which is. It seems like an obvious question, but that's actually pretty tough to answer. For a lot of people.

Speaker B: It is.

Speaker A: And so the way I would think about that, at the most basic level, we'll think about in the context of optimizing your profile, but the work you do here to optimize your profile or to your. Your tagline, rather, will apply in lots of other places. So think about it. Uh, if your tagline should have two pieces, one is your offer, which is what you sell and who you sell it to. The second piece is what I Call the persuader, which is the reason why they would buy it. So, for example, and you want to say that your offer should be in the most clear, concise language that leaves absolutely no questions in the mind of the person who is looking at it. Because you have maybe a couple seconds. Like if someone's scrolling through their feed and they either see your post or see a comment or something. The first if, let's say you leave a thoughtful comment, first thing you're gonna do is like, oh, okay, that person's pretty smart. What's she all about? Look at your headline. If they're. If. If your headline, yeah, then we'll call that like a proctor and gamble. Call that the first moment of truth. You have like a couple seconds where you either win them or lose them. And so it should be just the most absurdly intuitive clear language you can possibly come up with. So, uh, what do you do? Who do you do it for? Like SEO for, uh, D2C healthcare companies, whatever. Like, just make it as crystal clear as possible. Do not try to get clever, don't try to get fancy. Run that by a few people to get their feedback on. Like, hey, does this make sense? Do you think this describes what I do? Um, don't worry about capturing every nuance, just get it super clear. That's the first part of the offer. The second part is the persuader, which is, why would people. Like what? Basically, why should people buy from you? So there's a couple different ways that that could work. Um, one could be, like, I would say the best version of that is like, demonstrated proof of results. Like, so, you know, whatever X revenue generated or, you know, so many 300 clients helped since 2017 or whatever it is. Like, if you can drop a big number, that's generally ideal. Um, but if you don't have that, that's okay. Um, a second way you can do that would be like, how you do it. So again, if it's SEO for, you know, DTC healthcare startups or whatever, what is the particular methodology that you use that's different? And like, I don't know what that would be off top of my head, but, you know. Yeah, yep, whatever you think about that. Um, and then the third one would be who you are. And I would say this is sort of an order of preference, but not always. But. So, for example, one of my clients is a, uh, he does like product strategy slash user research. And he was a cop for like 10 years. And so his sort of research methodology is informed by, you know, the work he did as a cop. And so like that could be your differentiators, like, you know, a former Metro police detective for 10 years. Right. So offer plus persuader and figure that out. That's a, that's the place to start. And then once you figure that out, that's going to sort of guide all the other things that you do. Whether that's making content content, whether that's leaving comments or sending dms. Like it should all ladder up to that, more or less, that's the place to start. Like figure out who, what are you selling, who are you selling it to and why would they care?

Speaker B: Yeah. And then what's your activity? What do you do every day on LinkedIn?

Speaker A: Uh, so the second thing to do is to figure out what your goals are in terms of specific business objectives. So typically that's going to be revenue, but you know, there are times when it, it won't be, but typically it will be. And the reason this is important is because that's going to sort of dictate all your other choices. In other words, uh, if you, let's say you sell some sort of enterprise SaaS product where the sales cycle could be 12 to 18 months, but the average contract value might be 5 million bucks. Well, maybe you only need one deal a year to have a great year. Right. On the other hand, there are people who sell courses and maybe you need to sell a thousand of them a year to have a good business. And so those are going to take you in very different directions. Meaning if you want to sell courses, then you need to reach a very large number of people which is going to dictate the type of content you make and how often you make it. Like you're going to have to make very accessible stuff. You're going to have to do a lot of it because you got to reach thousands and thousands of people in order to sell a thousand courses over the course, over a year. Whereas if you're selling, you know, enterprise, uh, SaaS, well, there's, you don't. How many people are there that are going to buy this, you know, five million dollar SaaS package? Probably not that, you know, let's say you're selling it to like hospital administrators. There is no getting back to what we were talking about earlier. There is zero value in reaching, you know, marketers in Singapore if you're selling to hospital administrators in the U.S. so you would want to be. So as far as like what your specific activity is, that depends on what your goal is. So if I was selling to those hospital administrators Well, I would probably get Sales Navigator and I'd spend a lot of time making a list of exactly who these people are. And then I would figure out like, well, what's the best way for me to make myself known to them. There's a nice filter in uh, in Sales Navigator, which is like active on LinkedIn. Uh, if you like. There's a little thing you have to do to like, it says like show more options or whatever. It's in there. So I think commenting is a really. And so find people who are active on LinkedIn and then comment on their stuff is probably a really good place to start. And I say that because I think commenting is usually the highest leverage thing that people can do because it takes much less time than creating content. And I would say it's arguably just as valuable in a lot of cases because, you know, your goal is like, people get lost in these sort of numbers, like how many impressions did I get? And rah, rah, rah. And that matters. But your goal is to be visible with the kind of people you want to do business with. Right? That's the goal. And there are lots of ways to do that. One way is creating content, but that's only one way. And hope that they find your content and see, you know, sort of inbound. That's cool. But another way is just to go, if they made a post, go comment on it because, you know, creators get hundreds of comments on their post. And so, you know, you'll feel like you're sort of lost in the crowd there. And maybe you are. But you know, these hospital administrators probably are getting 5 comments on their posts. So if you're one of the five and you do that consistently, they're going to notice that. And if you're a thoughtful, you know, it's basically this is like, you know, account based marketing, essentially. It's like it's building a relationship with somebody. Right, exactly.

Speaker B: Becoming visible. I mean, top of mind.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, uh, it's hard, you know, the, the details matter on who you are and sort of what your objectives are, but the goal is visibility. How do you become visible with the people you want to do business with? Lots of different ways to do that, but that's, that's the goal. And then so, you know, from there we move them down the funnel, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if you're posting content, I mean commenting, uh, on the right people is, is also going to get them to see your content. So yeah, it' targeting your content. It's almost like advertising you know, that you can actually target who's going to see your content. It's quite.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's great.

Speaker B: And that's it. And uh, then how do you get them to meet you on a call or something like this? What's your process?

Speaker A: Well, I rely completely on inbound. If I ever need to do outbound, I will, but I haven't yet. In terms like I don't pitch people. Well, I pitch people very occasionally. If, if. So how do you get people to get on the call with you? Well, there's basically two ways, inbound and outbound. So if you want to, uh, Inbound, you should tell people that it's okay to book a call. Like ask people to book a call with you. Like, have it in the footer of all your posts or tell. Or in the con, like you got to tell people because otherwise, like, they won't, they won't. Like people won't know unless you tell them that you are actively looking for people to book calls with you right now. That doesn't guarantee that they will do it, but you have to make sure that they're aware of that. And you have to do it a lot because people are, you know, cognitive misers is a good way of putting it. People do not want to spend, you know, brain cycles unless they don't have to. So make sure people are aware that they can book a call with you. Um, and then hopefully you'll get some inbound. Um, if you're not getting enough inbound, well, then the other way to do that is outbound. Um, which, like I said, I don't really do much of that. Um, I will if I need to. I've certainly done it in the past. Um, but at this point I don't really need to do that much of it. So I don't think I would be like the world's biggest authority on outbound.

Speaker B: Um, um, yeah, we have, we've posted a few episodes on, uh, both on outreach sales calls and all of that. We have entire guides on it. So if you want to, if you want to look at it, we have the. I'm going to post here just the link to our sub stack and you can just, uh, go and check the other episodes out. There's plenty of, there's guides on both, both sides of the, of the spectrum, outbound and inbound.

Speaker A: What I'll say is, like, the way I think about this, um, and maybe I'm lucky because I care about my work and I like it and I like, I Want to help people. Like, fundamentally, I enjoy helping people. There is, like, very few things in life that are more enjoyable or, uh, rewarding to me than knowing that I helped somebody figure out a problem in their business. Like, that's really rewarding and fun to me. And I also, like, I genuinely enjoy getting to know people. I love hearing about, just about anybody's business. I don't care what you do. Like, whether you're a landscaper or a surgeon or a, you know, an email. I don't care. Like, I love hearing about, like, I just. I enjoy hearing about people's work, which maybe that's boring, but, you know, if I. If I'm. Whatever, you know, my wife's, you know, works Christmas party, you know, I find out that someone has a business, like cleaning gutters. I'm like, oh, tell me about that. How do you find customers? Like, what's the hardest part of your business? How do you hire people?

Speaker B: You know, like, you're like me, you're a marketing nerd. So you need to know how it's a business.

Speaker A: I mean, business, like, marketing is where I focus, but at the end of the day, like, it's like, make the good line go up and the bad line go down. That's my job. Um, m. The reason I focus on marketing is because making the good line go up is generally the hardest thing for people. And. And if you have revenue, you can all the other problems kind of solve themselves. And, uh, if you don't have revenue, optimizing the bottom line is, you know, rearranging deck chairs in the Titanic. But so with regard to, like, you know, outreach and stuff like that and commenting, I just look at it as, like, I want to make friends and meet interesting people and try to help them.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I love it genuinely. Like, I never, like, I don't try to sell, Like, I'm not here to sell anybody on anything. I'm here to help people. Yeah. And if that means I can help them, awesome. If it means I connect to them with someone else, that's cool. Like, it doesn't matter to me. I know that if I help people, then ultimately, you know, it's going to come back to me.

Speaker B: Yeah. I love that mentality. I actually, I hate outbound, uh, outreach. It's not my thing. It's. I. I don't. I feel very uncomfortable, like, reaching out to someone. I don't know. It's different to write someone I know and have a conversation. I love conversations. I love this conversation.

Speaker A: But think about it this way. Um, if Someone else reaches out to you, you're actually probably. Let's actually probably you like that, right? If they're a cool person and like, it's not like an annoying pitch, like, that's actually a good experience to get a DM from someone new. You're like, oh, cool. Like this person, I don't know. M. Like took the time to talk to me. Awesome.

Speaker B: Yeah. I once someone, uh, commented on one of my posts with a problem that they had with their email marketing and stuff. And, uh, I reached out to him and I sent a DM and I said, look, I really feel I can help you with this. If you want to get on a call, it's like. But it was so natural. It was my needs to help him with something that I knew I'm really good at. And then he said, look, I'm gonna get on a call with you just because your outreach was so good. And I was like, did I just do outreach? It was so weird, man. It was.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So that's what I was gonna say. It's like, I don't do outbound. I don't exactly. And I don't pitch people exactly. But I do what you said, which is if I see that someone has a genuine need and I believe that I can help them, I'm going to DM them. But it's not like, to me, that's not outreach because, like, I don't have a spreadsheet of prospects that turn into leads that blah, blah, like all that stuff, which that works for some people. No disrespect, like, I get, like, that is a totally valid way of doing things, is not how I do things. And I don't think most people want to do things that sort of like, real like boiler room sales kind of thing. I actually totally respect that because that, like, respect, like, that's a grind and it's hard and I respect it, but it's not what I want to do. And I don't think most other people want to do it, but I think just reaching out to people when you genuinely believe you can help them and talking to them like a normal person, like, like, I think that's pretty attainable and it's very, very, very effective. Like you said, you're like, hey man, I saw that thing you posted about email marketing. Like, this is not a pitch, but, like, I've done this many times before. I'd love to get on a call with you and like, I can talk you through it.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I, uh, love that approach. I love I love the way you think about this man. So in tune. Okay, I have one last question. It's a fun one, but it's a new one. I've never done this, but before. All right, you lost everything. You lost everything, all your accounts, uh, your business, everything happened to me many

Speaker A: times in my life. Yes.

Speaker B: And you have 90 days to start making enough to pay the bills and feed your, feed your family. What's the plan?

Speaker A: Exactly what we just said. Like what am I selling? Who am I selling it to? Why would they buy it? How am I getting it in front of them? Yeah, but like, uh, yeah, I would. I mean that's not the only way to do it, but I would because that's a tool that I know. But there's other people that depending on your business. So like for example, there's a lot of business owners that like, are not really on LinkedIn. Like basically most SMBs are not really very active on LinkedIn. So you know, talking about like let's say you know, the gutter cleaning business or like uh, H vac installer or something like that, they, they might have a multi million dollar business but they don't really use LinkedIn. So how do you get in front of those people? Well, probably going to like, you know, trade shows or you know, associations or conferences or something like that's probably a better way to get in front of them. So I, I don'. LinkedIn is not the, you know, one solution to all problems. But if you're in B2B, it probably is, you know, or especially like B2B, like marketing, it's probably the best place to go. But yeah, I mean that's, it's, yeah.

Speaker B: So basically, who can you help? How can you help them get in front of them?

Speaker A: Yep. And that might mean, you know, so for example, when I did design before, I mean when I did graphic design for years, like it was before, I mean the Internet, you know, the Internet existed, but it wasn't like it is now. Instagram didn't exist. LinkedIn was maybe around, but people didn't use it that way. So like I would physically mail packages with my work in it to people I wanted to work with. I could have emailed them, but I mailed it to them because I knew that would stand out because there's 50 other people that might be emailing them, but I'm the only person that like mailed them something.

Speaker B: Yeah, people don't think like that.

Speaker A: Yeah, so now that was more work. But again like you were, imagine uh, put yourself in their shoes. Like, if someone mailed you, again, not to their house, to their office, but like, if someone mailed you a package with their work and be like, damn, dude, like, mailed. Okay, cool. You have my attention. You're instantly going to go to the top of that stack.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, all right. We're talking that you're only on LinkedIn, but that's not a hundred percent true. You have an email list. You have, uh, a newsletter. Yeah, right.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's true.

Speaker B: I read your newsletters. Uh, it's pretty good stuff. So basically, what's the most valuable means of communication medium that you, that you use?

Speaker A: Well, I think it's LinkedIn. I don't know. You know, attribution for me is like, pointless. I don't. It's a pointless exercise for me. It makes sense for like an E comm company for sure, but for me it's silly. So I don't know where people find me. I don't really care. I guess, like, I don't know, I could put more thought into that, but I don't.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, gotcha. The reason I asked this question is, uh, for me, the email list is the foundation for everything else. Everything feeds the email list, and the email list is what feeds the rest of the pipeline.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's for sure the case for a very, very large number of people. So I think that's a great game plan.

Speaker B: All right. Awesome.

Speaker A: To everybody, the opportunities are going to go to the people who are the most well known, not necessarily the people who are the best at it or who, quote, unquote, deserve it. Right. Like, I, I found this when I was a designer. You know, there's a lot of people who are maybe not the world's best designers, but they're very good at promoting themselves. And that's where the opportunity is going to go to. Because, like, how would anybody even know that you exist? They can't give you an opportunity if they don't know you exist. Right. And so just simply being top of mind, being the first person that people think of for what you do is like, probably the most valuable thing in business. Right. Um, for example, like the attorney that I use, I know of him because he posts a lot of interesting stuff on Twitter about sort of, you know, influencer and E commerce law, which is what I've used him for. And, uh, he just literally was top of mind. And we had a situation where we needed legal review on something. I was like, why don't I DM Rob? Maybe he'll do it. And he did. And I've worked with him several times over the years just because he made content about this, and I didn't know who else to call. And he seemed smart, and he is, and it was awesome, and I'm glad it worked out that way, but it's literally just that he was the first person I thought of when we needed it. Rob, I did not mean to imply that you were not with us, because he is actually awesome. Unfortunately, if you think that simply being great at your work, sitting back and being humble and waiting for people to recognize you, like, well, people. People will see it. They're not going to see it. You got to make them see it. And that's just the way it is.

Speaker B: Many times.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: I've suffered from that many times.

Speaker A: Yep. We all have. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, amazing. Amazing. I love it. Finn, uh, thanks so much for. For being here with us.

Speaker A: Of course. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: Amazing. Awesome conversation. Uh, if you. If you want to find the summary of this, uh, you'll have the important notes and the whole episodes on the substack that I put there. CreateAndEarn.com uh, forward slash SM. Then you can listen to us, uh, or follow us on Spotify, wherever your podcast platform is, or YouTube. But the substack is where everything is centralized. There's.