Hello Networkers! I’m a semi-nomad and spend six weeks a year in Bangkok, Thailand, where I’m headed in September. If you’re in Bangkok or nearby, I’d love to get together with you between Sept 8-26. I’ll also be in Mumbai Sept 28-Oct 5. Hit reply if you’ll be around in either of those places!

This week I spoke with Charlotte Lloyd, a top LinkedIn-er on sales for entrepreneurs and business owners. She’s brilliant at sales without being sales-y, and has great advice for how to use LinkedIn in your sales process. But first, LinkedIn news of the week.

What’s new related to LinkedIn? Here’s what caught my eye this week.

• LinkedIn names set to the music of Pearl Jam. Really. You have to see this. (Boing Boing)

• Up to 40% of job advertisements on LinkedIn are fake, but with good reason? (Forbes)

• Would you ever put Stay at Home Mom on your LinkedIn profile? You absolutely could. (Scary Mommy)

• A few categories of people, including veterans, can get LinkedIn Premium for free, here’s how. (Tech.co)

Welcome, Charlotte. Please tell us about yourself.

I run a business on LinkedIn, the Client Acquisition Club. It’s social selling sales and LinkedIn training for consultants, coaches, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs who want to drive more sales in their business, get more clients in a way that's non-salesy, and allows them to have more freedom and create impact for others.

What’s your industry?

Sales training and coaching.

What does LinkedIn do for you?

Without LinkedIn, I wouldn't be here today talking to you! It's taught me a lot of lessons and it keeps teaching me every single day.

Only a few years ago I thought that being in your 40s, you couldn't start a business, you were too old. That was the narrative that used to go around in my head.

But LinkedIn has changed everything. It's one of the most real platforms, people are there to do business. It's really changed my life in a way that I never thought was possible.

What are your main goals for using LinkedIn?

My goal is to help as many business owners as I can by enabling them with their sales. I’m giving them the confidence to sell well and to treat their LinkedIn as a business tool.

Yes, you can go on LinkedIn and engage with people and make friends, but ultimately at end of the day, LinkedIn is for you to get your next clients. It's really important that people don't open LinkedIn and start doom scrolling. I want people to focus on their content and what a powerful platform it is when used in the correct way.

Charlotte’s content strategy

Who’s your target audience on LinkedIn?

I was originally working with sales reps and sales teams on their sales processes. And then I started to get a lot of solopreneurs and coaches and consultants engaging with my content, and coming to me to ask for help with their sales.

I had to make a decision to focus in one direction, and now I primarily serve coaches, consultants, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs to learn how to sell. This was important, because you can't address too many people or you won’t get the right leads.

Prior to last year, I built my brand on LinkedIn with a lot of sales reps following me, a lot of VPs of sales teams. And a lot of my followers are my old client base, so it's almost like I had to start from scratch when I pivoted.

How do you decide what content to create and share on LinkedIn?

There are several types of content that I lean into:

1. Top of the funnel: Storytelling

   This attracts new followers and makes me relatable. I talk about situations I’ve been in in sales, and how I transformed. This content can also go throughout the funnel.

2. Middle of the funnel: Educational

   This is where I can position myself as an expert and authority in sales. I’ve grown most of my followers from this content just from sharing what I know about sales.

3. Bottom of the funnel: Pain/Problem-focused

   What are the burning problems that my target audience has? Usually it's that they don't like sales. They feel scared about approaching people. They need the confidence. This is what drives the most leads for me.

How do you differentiate your content from others on LinkedIn?

Everybody has a voice, and my voice will never be the same as someone else’s. I can talk about the same topics and problems but the way I communicate it is different.

When I started out, I asked 200 people via DM: “What is it about my content that’s different?” I recorded their replies onto a spreadsheet. This really helped me figure out what kind of newsletter to build, and what kind of business to build.

Many people have said I’m direct, no bul1sh&t, and real. I don’t sugar coat things, and I do it from a place of love.

What are the processes you use to create content? 

• Schedule in advance ✅

• Batch create content ✅

• Optimize for SEO/keywords ❌

• Follow an editorial calendar ✅

• Have specific content pillars/themes ✅

• Repurpose content to/from LinkedIn or reuse on LinkedIn ✅

• Use AI in any part of the content writing process ✅

• Have team/human support for any part of your LI process ✅

• Keep a list of potential topics somewhere (Notes, Notion, etc.) ✅

• Design or source visuals including infographics and carousels and video ✅

What types of content do you post to LinkedIn?

• Text only ✅

• Polls ❌

• Audio ❌

• Video ✅

• Carousels ✅

• Photos of yourself (selfies) ✅

• Photos of other people or things ✅

• AI generated images ❌

• Infographics (single image) ❌

• Other people’s graphics ✅

• Links to your company content ✅

• Links to other content ❌

• Reposts of others’ content (repost only) ❌

• Reposts of others’ content (with your thoughts) ❌

• LinkedIn newsletters ❌

• Responses to community articles ✅

• LinkedIn Live events ✅

How much time does it take?

How much time do you spend each weekday on LinkedIn on comments or Direct Messages (DMs), outside of content creation?

I spend 60 to 90 minutes a day, and I do it in a very specific time frame because I don’t want to doom scroll. I want to do all the things I need to do, which is determine where's my next client coming from. That's the priority. Get my content out, engage the algorithm, start those conversations, and then I'm finished. The longer I spend on LinkedIn, the less productive I'm going to be.

This is why I recommend to my clients and Club members that 60 minutes is all you need, around the time when your post goes out. In the morning send your sales message DMs, and aim to get three things done in the day.

Are you active on LinkedIn on the weekends, either posting or commenting or both?

I am with posting, though I tell clients that you don't need to post seven days a week. I do it because that’s what I’ve gotten used to, though I recently took a Sunday off.

If you're starting out, you've got to post three times a week, then up it to five, but five is enough. Have that visibility and consistency so when you've been doing that for a long time, you could take a few days off, and it's not going to affect you massively because you already have that consistency built in.

How do you use DMs (direct messages) in the service of your goals?

I'm not just waiting for people to come to me! I'm use DMs to show people that I’m interested in them and how I might be able to help them.

Let's say you have a one in three close rate and you want to get one client a week. If you have three to four conversations, that's one client there.

Some people are on LinkedIn for volume, they have a lower ticket offer, that's fine. But if you've got a higher ticket offer, you need to have DM conversations with people. Stop worrying about the impressions that you get. You need to get on calls.

Charlotte’s biggest growth levers

What has contributed most to your growth?

Educational content has given me a lot of audience growth. But starting conversations with people in the DMs—that's grown my business. And that's the metric that matters, not the vanity metric of followers. Having the right mentoring has helped a lot as well, I’ve worked with mentors who are a few steps ahead, they helped me get my newsletter started and then learn how to excel on LinkedIn at volume.

How do you track what’s working and know what to change?

I track what my posts are doing: what leads are coming from posts. I have a system where my virtual assistant puts my posts into Excel and we will count how many people have come through each post.

I also track my outreach using Folk (a CRM app): who am I'm speaking to, how many conversations I start daily. That tells me exactly what do I need to do to have more conversations.

Right now voice notes [in DMs] are working really well. They always have, but so few people use them. And I tend to repurpose good posts, but I also repurpose bad posts because I think how could I have said this better?

How Charlotte makes money

How do you generate revenue in your business?

My main offer is my Client Acquisition Club, where people join as members. It’s a group coaching program and it’s ongoing, once you join, you’re in forever. I want people to learn at their own pace and to really get the most out of it.

The second part of my offer is one-on-one coaching, initially for a minimum of three months, though most people continue because they realize they want my help for longer.

The third part of my offer is B2B consulting work, and I do a few training workshops as well.

How do you quantify your success on LinkedIn?

I've served somewhere between 250 to 300 people and am now multi six figures in revenue. Last year, my biggest contract [for my consulting services] was $110,000. Anything is possible on LinkedIn. Anything.

Charlotte’s top tips

What advice would you give other Networkers who want to build and leverage their LinkedIn presence?

1. Start creating content

   It's not going to be perfect when you first do it, but it's your voice that matters. You've got unique knowledge in your head.

   When you do share your content, the impact is incredible. You've got to step out of your fear and just post. It's really about just pulling the trigger and doing it. A lot of people are afraid of how they're going to be perceived on social media. That's why they don't post. They hold themselves back and you don't want to live with regret.

2. Start conversations on LinkedIn

   Get your offer out there, but be interested in them first. Don’t be sending spammy DMs about your services. Even if you work at a corporate job, you've still got to have those conversations. Your LinkedIn will turn into a sales and marketing engine when you start to do that.

3. Embrace your role in sales

   We're all salespeople. Daniel Pink said, “to sell is human.” We're all selling something in some way, shape, or form. So be proud of that. The way sellers used to sell cars, sales isn't about that. Sales is about giving people a transformation.

   And don’t focus on the negatives of sales. You are a good sales person and you can really go beyond all your expectations. Have low expectations in the beginning, but set out very clear and specific goals on what you want to achieve because that's also gonna help you get there faster.

Charlotte’s best post

Stephanie’s note: I’ve asked each Networker to give me one “best post,” based on their own criteria.

Read this post on LinkedIn

Why Charlotte considers this her best post.

This is one of my best performing posts. It went towards an event I was doing, and led to $25k worth of event sales and upsells and 60 leads. But note that this is not my post with the most impressions! Sales and leads are what’s most important to me.

How to network with Charlotte

• Follow Charlotte Lloyd on LinkedIn

• Subscribe to Charlotte’s newsletter, Charlotte’s Sales Shares

I have a love-hate relationship with LinkedIn carousels, as I suspect some of you do, too. They are really great for impressions and have driven a number of leads for me, but I really hate creating them. It takes me too much back-and-forth with my designer to outsource them; I think better when my hands are in Canva. So I reluctantly create them once in a while.

But here’s Nick Broekema with a really simple guide on how to create a great carousel. Use it and let me and Nick know how it goes! I’m hoping carousels perform well for you.

Read this post on LinkedIn

I’m always on the lookout for something that changes the way I use LinkedIn. It could be an idea, a tool, a process, or something strategic.

Have a tip I should consider? Hit reply to this email and let me know!

That’s all for now—I look forward to seeing you again next week for another Networker interview.