- Finn Mckenty
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- Sell yourself without selling out
Sell yourself without selling out
There's a better way

Me, drinking the tears of my enemies
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? 𤢠I did that stuff, and it kinda worked. But it was super time consuming, and more importantly just not funâ 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 thereâs a more fun (and more effective) way of selling yourself where THEY come to YOU: LinkedIn inbound.
Iâve 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 donât need to.
Hereâs how it works:

This sht WORKS, trust me
First, make sure your profile is optimized so itâs clear what your offer is (what youâre 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 peopleâs content (people will see the comments, check out your profile, and add youâ easy way to get new followers with very little work)
Commenting is VERY UNDERRATED. Itâs 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 thatâs way easier than creating content
MAKE FRIENDS
Now itâs time to turn that attention into relationshipsâ 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. Donât try to sell them anything yetâ just say âHey, thanks for all the thoughtful comments!â or âLoved your post about [thing] earlier todayâ
Always be genuine with this partâ people will respond much better to authenticity, you donât need to be a âsalespersonâ to sell
At this point, itâs already working!
Youâre growing your network of peers and potential buyers without doing any of the tedious, embarrassing old-school sales stuff.

My calendar for the other weekâ the green calls are ALL booked via LinkedIn inbound DMs
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 theyâre interested in working with you.
Eventually, the DMs will start rolling in. If they seem like theyâre a fit, send them a link to your Calendly (to book a sales call) or your sales page (if you sell a product).
Itâs only a matter of time until some of those people buy from youâ 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 youâre doing it: Youâre 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 itâs SO MUCH BETTER than standing around awkwardly at a networking event, hoping that someone talks to you đŹ
â
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 youâre were cool enough to subscribe to this newsletter, Iâll give it to you for freeâ just reply to this email and Iâll send it to you (and donât worry, I wonât make it weird and try to sell you anything).
PS - I can help you:
â Define your positioning to immediately stand out from the crowd
â Figure out your content strategy for LinkedIn or YouTube
â Create offers that sell (consulting, courses, software, etc)
If you want to talk about the options for working together, reply to this email or just set up a call here!