I’ve had a small streak going of interviewing sales leaders and trainers for this publication. As I said last week, it’s quite selfish as I personally want to soak up all of their knowledge about how to use LinkedIn for sales.

This week’s interview with Mandy McEwen, plus last week’s with Leslie Venetz, are together a great primer for anyone, not just salespeople, on how to optimize your LinkedIn efforts to support your sales process.

I’ll be off for the next 4 weeks, taking some holiday vacation time and also regrouping for a new version of The Networkist in mid-January. I can’t wait to reveal what I’ve been working on to all of you.

Until then, happiest of holidays to everyone, may your 2025 shine bright.

Welcome, Mandy. Please tell us about yourself.

I am the founder and CEO of Mod Girl Marketing, a digital marketing agency I started back in 2010, and also Luminetics, which is my LinkedIn training company.

I'm a digital marketing consultant, but I'm also a LinkedIn trainer, LinkedIn social selling consultant, and strategist, and I spend a lot of my days training sales teams. So B2B sales teams, SDRs, BDRs, AEs, and some marketing teams on how they can capitalize on the power of LinkedIn.

What’s your industry?

Sales, training, and marketing.  I'm a salesperson turned marketer turned social seller. I've been selling online since 2007. I've been an online marketer/selling things online for a very long time. Now, I blend my marketing with the social selling aspects.

I've really honed in on both the sales and marketing side. I help companies drive awareness on LinkedIn and other platforms to build real relationships and talk to people in a way that you don't look like a slimy salesperson. So you're building your personal brand as a salesperson at the same time that you are engaging in win-win conversations to drive profitable outcomes from LinkedIn. It's not just about let's spam a bunch of people with the same message and see how many people reply. It's about being genuine.

As you know, personal brands are key on LinkedIn. I don't care if you are a BDR who's 22 and right out of college or if you're a sales executive who's been doing this for 35 years. You need a legit personal brand that makes you look trustworthy, and people can see you as a trusted industry resource. That's where I blend the marketing and sales sides.

What does LinkedIn do for you?

LinkedIn has allowed me to grow my business over the last several years, build an amazing personal brand, and open up doors for me that I wouldn't have been able to do outside of the platform, or if so, it just would have been a little bit more difficult. It's allowed me to help others accomplish the same thing. So, driving profitable growth that is sustainable for the long term.

What are your main goals for using LinkedIn?

That's a really good question. Like everyone, I think goals change. When I’m working with companies and individuals, that’s the first thing I ask. Some companies want to strictly drive awareness—they want brand awareness, followers, and visibility. Others need sales conversations and opportunities that convert to revenue. For me, it’s always been a combination of both.

It also depends on where I am in my business. Right now, we’re launching a course with new AI tools that I’m really excited about, so I’ll be ramping up efforts, posting more, building strategic relationships, and bringing in affiliates. During a launch, my focus is on driving both awareness and sales for that program.

Sometimes, I’m focused on building strategic relationships with people who can introduce me to others. Other times, I’m just keeping my brand alive—upholding my reputation and maintaining content consistency. Brand consistency is another goal, which means showing up regularly, whether it’s two posts a week or every day.

My goals shift, but all of these are the overarching aims. It just depends on which one I’ll focus on more heavily in a given quarter or month.

Mandy’s content strategy

Who’s your target audience on LinkedIn?

For my Luminetics training, our LinkedIn training company and consultancy, we work with teams ranging from three salespeople up to 300. Typically, it's a minimum of 10 million ARR, but it can reach 4 billion. It's for the sales team that is using LinkedIn for prospecting. Often, it's SaaS, specifically tech software companies anywhere from founder-led sales, a VC-backed startup, all the way up to a giant team with 300 sales development representatives.

Now that we're going to write and launch our program, LinkedIn Profile Profits, which will have an on-demand course, AI tools, access to me, a Slack group, workshops, etc., that [audience] is going to be salespeople, founders, and then our continued teams that we train. We have an agency edition as well. So, it depends on the offerings. But over the last several years, when it comes to my LinkedIn live training, it's typically been B2B SaaS companies that have a team of BDRs and SDRs.

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

As part of our new program, we have an AI-driven system, along with our own GPT for LinkedIn post writing and a seven-step brand messaging system. We start with the ICP framework to identify the target audience, their pain points, what keeps them up at night, where they spend time, and how our solutions address their needs. From there, we look at existing marketing content.  Because 99% of the time, you already have content. Unless you're a brand new company that started yesterday, you have plenty of content you can leverage.

A lot of times, we take and upload, for example, the state of construction report to the GPT, which we’ve trained, and we tell it to pull specific posts based on that. Then, we align top-of-funnel and mid-funnel content with our goals. It’s a lot easier than people think because you already have a ton of content. As long as you're hitting those points, AI is your friend. You can leverage that to help you brainstorm and come up with content, and then you just tweak and edit. I'm always looking at what we have now that we can leverage.

How do you differentiate your content from others on LinkedIn?

Video is the biggest thing for me. I've been posting videos for over a decade. I was posting videos on LinkedIn before a lot of people were posting, and when LinkedIn hated videos, it seemed like.

For me, it's my personality, stories, and unique experiences. I've been doing this for so long. I've seen what's happened; the trends come and go, and influencers come and go. I've seen the brands that have evolved and what they've done. I also have a unique perspective on blending the marketing and sales side, but honestly, when it comes down to it, it's like personality, expertise, and confidence, and what I do comes through so much easier on video than anything else.

What makes your content successful with your audience?

Focus. I'm always trying to give actionable advice to people. Even if it's something small, little things that can be specific.

I'm also looking at my top-performing posts of tips and tricks that people found helpful, and I'm repurposing those a lot as well. When I'm training people live, what's coming up? What are the questions coming up? When people are asking me questions and the DMs, what's coming up? What are the things that drive the most revenue for my clients?

I'm looking at actionable things so people can quickly take that and do something with it. That's the type of content that I like sharing. Obviously, there is some random travel stuff that is not actionable, just fun, you know, to show my life.

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) ✅

• Links to outside content ✅

• Reposts of others’ content (repost only) ✅

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

• LinkedIn Live events ✅

• LinkedIn newsletters ❌

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 pay a lot of people to help me because I don't have time to spend the amount of hours that are required on LinkedIn. But, personally, I am on LinkedIn for at least an hour, and then you add in my team members, and it's another couple of hours. So I would say anywhere from 90 minutes to four hours even. It just depends on what we have going on.

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

If I am active, I send videos and voice messages and post about something travel-related, but I also do outreach. Some weekends, I give myself a break. It's really random.

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

DMs are really the whole business. I love using DMs, and this is not a hack, it’s something that people don't even think about. It's so easy to build a list and sales navigator of your first-degree connections, even if they’re not your exact ICP, but they could be a referral partner for you. That alone could get you sales opportunities that are the easiest, lowest-hanging fruit possible. They're already in your network.

Most of the time, people are so concerned with: I need more people, I need more people, I need to send blank connection requests, or do I need to say something in connection requests? I need to add all these new people.

But have you actually exhausted your first-degree connections yet? Have you re-engaged those conversations? And a lot of times, the answer is no. I could talk all day about DMs, but that's just one thing people don't think about doing: put it on your calendar once a month, go through your existing first-degree connections, restart conversations with people, and see where it takes you.

Mandy’s biggest growth levers

What has contributed most to your growth?

Strategic relationship building. In my world, the biggest clients I'm getting are not because they saw my post and they want to work with me. That helps them say yes after I quote them, but it's because someone said something or I reached out to them, and I leverage my relationships. For me, relationship building is the foundation of everything because you can have the best content in the world, but if you're not building those relationships, it won't take you very far.

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

People help me track it, and tools make it easier, like Shield, which shows how content performs. You can also look at the leads generated on specific days when you posted certain content.

Outbound tracking is a bit trickier, but the key is to streamline and stay organized. For example, we create Sales Navigator lists, like one for business development managers, and start by sending them three messages. After the first message, we can track how many people respond. If only one person replies from one group, but five out of 20 reply from another, we know where to focus.

An example of this is our current cold email campaigns, where we’re seeing more responses from SDR and BDR managers—not the decision-makers, but still valuable contacts. If they like our LinkedIn profile builder and course, they can recommend it to their bosses, who make the final decisions. Right now, we’re finding these managers are more responsive than their bosses, so we can leverage that. Casting a wide net without tracking responses wastes effort; staying focused on what’s working is much more effective.

How Mandy makes money

How do you generate revenue in your business?

We have our own LinkedIn profile builder, which is an AI tool. We have on-demand courses where people can buy live training with me, team training, and consulting. LinkedIn consulting, social selling consulting, marketing consulting as well, primarily social media marketing consulting.

Also, influencer relationships, whether that is me behind the scenes working with a brand's customer base on their private Slack channel, interviewing with someone, or doing a video series. Those are more brand collaborations and partnerships. Some equity. Payouts occasionally, affiliate income as well. So, there are certain tools that I'm recommending to people.

How do you quantify your success on LinkedIn?

It’s tough because you've had an agency as long as I have; much of our business is still referral. People have heard us from somewhere. Even if it was three years ago, I saw you on a podcast, and I just randomly followed you, and now I'm reaching out. So when you've been doing this as long as you and I have, things blend in together.

Mandy’s top tips

What challenges have you faced on LinkedIn? What’s made you almost—or actually—quit? What got you back on track?

Too much content that becomes too hard to manage with all the comments. That was my biggest thing. There have also been times when I regretted posting a poll with a random question about something that I'm like, why did I do that? Is this even helping my business? And now I'm having to pay someone or my time to go through all of these comments. Is it really worth it? Just little things like that.

It's being very strategic about what is getting posted and why. And it’s not just content, even just like, let's send 40 DMs today or, let's see how many first-degree or secondary connection requests we can send in one week. Well, then all these people are coming in, and you have to manage it and make sure that you're not missing anyone. It's just being able to realize what you're getting yourself into.

What advice would you give others who are looking to grow and, ideally monetize their LinkedIn platform?

The first thing is to make sure you have an optimized profile, which is why I built my AI profile builder and course. The second thing is to focus first on relationships and not on your content. Because if you are focusing all on your content and not adding to your network, you are talking to an echo chamber that might not even be your target audience. You need to get the right people in your network. So focus first on building relationships, then you can focus more on content. Of course, get a couple of posts out there.

Optimize your profile, and put up at least two posts, good posts so it looks like you're active. Then, spend as much time as you can building relationships, which includes commenting. Comment on other people's stuff consistently, at least five comments a day. Make sure you are going after not just your target audience but also people who are helping your target audience, who aren't necessarily a competitor, so you can build those win-win referral-type relationships as well. So, spend your time on the right activities that are actually going to move the needle.

Mandy’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 Mandy considers this her best post.

This one has over 600k views. It is a good overall summary of why I do what I do. And the opportunity. Plus I was able to drum up some free users on my mini course which will then be prospects for my new bigger course coming up.

How to network with Mandy

• Follow Mandy McEwen on LinkedIn

• Take a look at Mandy’s new course, LinkedIn Profile Profits

• Check out Mandy’s training company, Luminetics

• Visit Mandy’s agency, Mod Girl Marketing

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

• Coming soon to premium accounts: Revolving slideshow headers/banners. (Social Media Today)

• In this festive season, networking is on the decline, according to LinkedIn. (Forbes via AppleNews)

• LinkedIn gets pharma companies in trouble after employee posts. (FiercePharma)

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