How To Turn Your LinkedIn Into a Six-Figure Money-Making Machine

LinkedIn has the potential to change your business life.

Here’s my experience:

I’ve built multiple businesses off the back of LinkedIn.
I’ve attracted numerous board and committee positions.
I’ve become a magnet for unique opportunities.
I’ve connected with amazing people and businesses.

And I am a complete moron.

I got below average in English in high school.
I was put in alternative education when I was 16 years old.

I don’t have a business degree, writing degree or any sort of ‘qualification’ to be successful in anything I am doing now.

“You must have had help from mummy and daddy.”

Wrong.

My parents are immigrants and working class. They have a year 9 education and have worked in blue-collar professions their whole life. They couldn’t afford to send me to an elite private school or fund my businesses.

They had nothing else to give me besides their love and care (which is a lot more than many people get).

So if an unqualified idiot with no networks or money like me can do it, then you can too.

Here’s how.

Step 1: Understand your mindset

Brainwash yourself.

That’s right. I said it.

If you have to chant mantras every morning while you take a cold shower, or repeat daily affirmations, do it.

Most pre-reject themselves from ever being successful on LinkedIn.

“I am not an expert.”
“I am afraid of what people will think of me.”
“I don’t want to be the center of attention.”

No one is an expert. People will judge you anyway. You’re going to have to get used to the attention.

The amount of success you enjoy on LinkedIn will never be greater than your mindset. Your attitude determines your altitude.

Step 2: Optimize your profile funnel

Most LinkedIn profiles are a hot mess.

You have 2–5 seconds to answer this question:

“Why should I follow you?”

If you can’t answer this question immediately, you’ve lost a potential customer. You might be bleeding money without even knowing it.

Here are the fundamentals:

Cover photo — clear, concise, and tells me what you do. Most people use generic, stock images or them speaking in front of a crowd. That is a waste of space, it tells me nothing. Or worse, confuses me.
Here’s mine:

Author’s Image - Super clear what I do, for who, and the outcomes they can expect.

Profile photo — Get a professional photo taken. It’s worth the investment. Get a professional to then edit that photo. And I repeat, it’s worth the investment.
Here’s mine:

Look at this handsome lad

Tagline + CTA— Use this formula: I help X, do Y, how. A short and clear tagline attracts the audience you want to attract. Give them a method to get in contact with you. Email works best unless you want randos calling you every 2 seconds.
Here’s mine:

Clear, concise, and easy to understand
(for people in my niche).

Include relevant hashtags — Include hashtags relevant to your niche and industry. Don’t just go for hashtags with big numbers.
Here’s mine:

Author’s own image.

Activate the ‘Featured’ section of your profile — This is the gateway to your sales funnel. You want to give your potential customers two options. 1) a free option and 2) a paid option.
Here’s mine:
Once people sign up, they enter my email sales funnel where I build trust, connection and community.

I don’t have a paid option (yet) but I’ve got a top of funnel (free) option to engage with me

About section — don’t just list accomplishments and previous work experience. Start with a story. The lived experience that makes you unique.
Here’s mine:

After your story, feel free to brag about your accomplishments. Like this:

Work through this checklist and make the necessary changes.

If you do this, you’re already 80% of the way there.

#3: Create content every day for one year.

The habit of showing up over a long time is half the battle.

Here’s what you need to do:

Put your thoughts out there.
Engage with thought leaders and the community in your field.
Read the latest research and insights.
Iterate your content with feedback and data.

Rinse. Iterate. And repeat.

Here are my results:

Since 2020, I’ve attracted 1.5 million views on my LinkedIn.

That’s an unbelievable amount of people who have engaged with my content and my brand. I could never replicate this scale in person.

That’s the beauty of online content:

It’s got a long shelf life.
It can be repurposed.
It works at scale.

I am slowly shifting my content into a more scalable system with the help of a virtual assistant. I’ll report back on this in another article (stay tuned!).

#4: Look at your DMs for problems

Once you start posting consistently, people will start reaching out to you.

Your DMs are a goldmine for business ideas.

People are literally telling you their problems and how they want you to help them.

It’s free market research.

When you get a DM, don’t ignore it. If it’s relevant to your business, jump on a 20-minute Zoom call.

Ask them 3 questions:

What are the current challenges you are experiencing?
What are your goals?
What do you think I could help you with?

The answers to these questions form the basis for the business offer you can create, and you’ve got a list of warm leads you can sell to.

#5: Learn how to DM others

Reach out to creators on Linkedin whose work inspires you.

Don’t ask for something immediately.

Tell them about the impact their work has on you. They might not reply (they probably won’t) but that’s not the point.

Don’t badger them and don’t be annoying.

It might take 6 or 7 cold DMs before you finally get a reply.

Over time, you’ll get more and more responses. Organize a Zoom call. Start a community over Slack or Discord. Don’t ask for permission to share their work. Just do it.

These relationships compound over time. Collaboration is the name of the game.

To paraphrase Tim Denning, “building a brand on LinkedIn is a team sport masquerading as a solo pursuit”.

#6: Offer a product or service to address those problems

Start with unscalable offerings first.

My preferred options are:

Consulting.
Coaching.

Why? Both are:

Instantly monetizable.
Require zero-to-low set-up costs (wifi + laptop).
Build your skills, reputation and networks.

You could start offering them tomorrow.

Gather testimonials + feedback as early as possible and display them on your website. Slowly increase your pricing.

Don’t work for free or do unpaid trials.

They never work out in the long term.

#7: Offer scalable solutions next

Once you’ve got a good pipeline of consulting and coaching clients, start building scalable offerings in the background.

This includes:

Email marketing campaigns and sequences
Sponsored newsletters
Online courses
E-books
Templates, checklists, etc
Paid community, memberships, subscriptions

Why? These offerings:

Require investment upfront, but become passive over time.
You can repurpose the data and knowledge you’ve collected through your coaching and consulting projects and package it into a digital product.
Lower price for customers, higher margins for you. Win-win.
Can sell 24/7, anywhere in the world.

I am currently at this stage myself. I don’t want to rely on the client-proposal-project treadmill forever. It’s tiring and unsustainable.

My goal in 2023 is to build out scalable options of income and slowly reduce the proportion of client-based work I do.

#8: Delegate and elevate.

Now that you’ve got some money coming in, it’s time to start bringing in help.

Hire a virtual assistant or a subcontractor to do admin tasks or anything that doesn’t really bring you joy.

Use your money to buy back your time. Use the time to create more products and offers. And repeat.

Summary

This won’t happen overnight.

Probably won’t happen over six months either.

I am a focused fool who managed to build something cool. But it took time. Like a lot of time. Almost 4 years.

You’ll feel frustrated, lost and sometimes a bit embarrassed by a lack of engagement.

I won’t lie, the pain of growth and failure can sting.

But do you know what’s stings more?

The pain of staying the same.

Good luck.
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