Sell yourself without selling out

All I ever wanted was to make a decent living doing work I enjoyed.

Ever since I read profiles of cool designers like Justin Harder and Mike Young back in the day, I wanted to be like them: an entrepreneur who made my living doing cool, fulfilling work.

(not working at OfficeMax for $8 an hour like I did when I was 19)

I was always confident that I could DO the work, but the part that I struggled with was SELLING it.

Cold calls, business cards, going to awkward networking events, etc? 🤢 I did that stuff, and it kinda worked. But it was super time consuming, and more importantly just not fun— awkwardly making conversation with people at an ad agency meetup is about the last thing I want to do again.

The good news is that now there’s a more fun (and more effective) way of selling yourself where THEY come to YOU: LinkedIn inbound.

I’ve gotten about 50 clients in the past year, and all but maybe 3 of them came from inbound (LinkedIn DMs or replies to emails like this one).

I do almost zero outreach, because I don’t need to.

Here’s how it works:

First, make sure your profile is optimized so it’s clear what your offer is (what you’re actually selling, and how it will help the buyer).

MAKE YOURSELF VISIBLE

Before anyone can hire you or buy your product, they need to know you exist, right? So your first job is to get a little attention for yourself:

• Create content that gets picked up by the algorithm

• Reply to people who comment on your content

• Spend 10-30 minutes a day leaving THOUGHTFUL or funny comments on other people’s content (people will see the comments, check out your profile, and add you— easy way to get new followers with very little work)

• Commenting is VERY UNDERRATED. It’s a great way to get in front of the exact people you want to reach. You could easily get 1k impressions from leaving a handful of comments, and for most people that’s way easier than creating content

MAKE FRIENDS

Now it’s time to turn that attention into relationships— which is the first step toward getting hired.

• Send connection requests to anyone who comments on your content, views your profile, or otherwise engages with you (if they fit your ICP)

• DM a couple people a day. Don’t try to sell them anything yet— just say “Hey, thanks for all the thoughtful comments!” or “Loved your post about [thing] earlier today”

• Always be genuine with this part— people will respond much better to authenticity, you don’t need to be a “salesperson” to sell

At this point, it’s already working!

You’re growing your network of peers and potential buyers without doing any of the tedious, embarrassing old-school sales stuff.

SALES FUNNEL

Now, you need a way to sell your sht to people.

• Add a CTA to your profile and content telling people to DM you if they’re interested in working with you.

• Eventually, the DMs will start rolling in. If they seem like they’re a fit, send them a link to your Calendly (to book a sales call) or your sales page (if you sell a product).

It’s only a matter of time until some of those people buy from you— sales is just a numbers game. Even if 99% of people say no, that just means you need to talk with 100 people to get a sale.

And now you’re doing it: You’re making sales, all from inbound.

No cold calling, weird-ass networking events, or any of the stuff that made sales so brutal back in the day.

This sht WORKS, and it’s SO MUCH BETTER than standing around awkwardly at a networking event, hoping that someone talks to you 😬

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I have a PDF that explains this in more detail, which I give to my clients when I work with them on LinkedIn coaching.

And since you’re were cool enough to subscribe to this newsletter, I’ll give it to you for free— just reply to this email and I’ll send it to you (and don’t worry, I won’t make it weird and try to sell you anything).