5 lessons learned crossing $1M in income on LinkedIn.
Justin Welsh
Building my one-person business to $10M in revenue and sharing everything I learn along the way.
Last week, I crossed a major milestone in my self-employment journey.
I reached $1M in organic income through LinkedIn with ZERO advertisements. It's been quite a ride, and the lessons have been aplenty.
Here are 5 of the biggest ones I learned during this 24-month journey:
Lesson 1: Create a LOT of noise
When you're just starting out on any platform, you need to figure out how to get attention.
To be clear, that's what social media is all about. It's millions of people jostling for attention.
In order to get some attention, you need to create a LOT of noise. When you're just getting started on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, or any other social media platform, quantity is your friend.
So, make a ton of noise. Write, record, publish, etc. every single day. Multiple times per day. The more people see your face and hear your thoughts, the more they become familiar with who you are and what you believe in. This is critical for building something meaningful online.
Lesson 2: Hone in on the signals
Inside of all of that noise will likely be some "signals".
Signals are simply things that stand out as being more well-received than others. Some of your content will bomb, while some of it will resonate deeply.
It's your job to look for the signals and let them guide you into creating more meaningful content for your audience.
But, don't mistake any old engagement as a signal. Make sure that when you're reading for signals, that you're looking for content that resonates with your core audience. Not something that was well received because you used a "hack" or shared a "feel-good story".
Listen for core audience signals.
Lesson 3: Say "yes" early, say "no" later.
When you're just getting started building a business online, it's important to have as many conversations as possible.
Here are some reasons you might want to say yes early:
But, deeper into your business build (especially if you gain popularity on social media), you will have to choose between saying yes to someone irrelevant to your business or moving your business forward. It MUST be the latter.
Even 30-minute meetings come with concentration breaks, and that context switching ends up costing you 1.5 hours, instead of the originally intended 30.
Write out templates for saying no to everything.
Lesson 4: Build automated income
Once you've serviced customers, look for patterns to automate.
After servicing clients as an advisor for 6 months, trading time for money, I decided to build my first course in March of 2019, called The LinkedIn Playbook.
I had witnessed enough "signals" from my LinkedIn audience to know that they were looking for more information about how to grow on the platform.
I time-boxed the course to 20 hours and started building. I used low-cost tools and technology to basically build the course for less than $100.
18 months later, the course had 2,500 students and has netted over $70k in income. Any time I promoted the course, I usually did around $2,000 to $3,000 in sales in one day.
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Lesson 5: Having an operating system is the most critical piece
The most important lesson I've learned is about creating an operating system.
An operating system is the backbone of how your business works. For example, my weeks are scheduled out to execute the same behaviors each day, and my technology automates the rest.
Everything I do is intentional. And the results are highly predictable.
The way I use LinkedIn to build my business is my favorite operating system. From choosing a niche, to building a character, automating my profile funnel, generating inbound and outbound leads, and making sales...it's all part of an operating system.
Did you miss the announcement last week?
In case you missed my announcement last week, I'm documenting and sharing everything I do each day, week, and month to run my business on LinkedIn, and putting it in my new course, The Operating System.
Here's what you'll learn:
?? How to develop a profitable sub-niche
?? 3 traits you need to grow an audience of fans
?? How to re-program to get rid of "writer's block" forever
?? 2 critical tricks to iterate and produce rapidly
?? How to repurpose rather than writing a high volume of subpar posts
?? The biggest problem with all LinkedIn profiles and how to fix it
?? How to get more leads in your inbox
?? The only type of CTA to use to attract buyers
?? 2 prospecting techniques to earn income through Linkedin
?? How to create weekly sales without turning off your audience
The course launches on August 4th, 2021.
It's available for pre-order for $150. Once launched, the price will likely go up.
Join the 700+ motivated students who have already pre-registered in the last 7 days to grow their audience, and build income on LinkedIn.
See you inside.
Cheers,
Justin
Finance Executive
3 年100% agreed thank you for sharing
Operations at Alliance International Shipping
3 年Hot damn Justin! As they say in my country, “chapo ba” (hats off) to you my friend.
Band Booker, Promoter, Manager and Irish Tours Organiser / High Nature Value and Organic Farmer / Innovation & Entrepreneurship Writer-Researcher
3 年Congratulations Justin, your courage and consistency are to be applauded and the 5 key lessons provide a rock solid overall framework for LinkedIn growth strategy development. Thanks so much for the ongoing advice and inspiration, they are helping me to see the light at the end of the tunnel and I look forward to discovering more gold nuggets in The LinkedIn Operating System.
Just f*cking post it ? Founder at Klowt - The Personal Branding Agency
3 年Love the practicality of your advice - A lot of people can learn a lot from your approach.