The Playbook to Build a Revenue-Generating LinkedIn Brand
Zoe Hartsfield breaks down why executives and sales reps need to treat LinkedIn as a pipeline-generation engine rather than a vanity metrics trap. With the rise of AI and LLMs, an executive's digital footprint is what shapes their public narrative. Ignoring it means ceding control of your brand and missing out on critical inbound opportunities as buyers increasingly look to social platforms to vet authorities. To win on the platform, creators must establish a strong Brand Identity Framework: knowing exactly who they are talking to, selecting core topics (including personal passions), and maintaining a consistent tone. From there, a strategic content funnel—weighted heavily toward solving problems and giving away free "playbooks"—builds both a broad audience and unshakeable authority within a specific niche. Finally, Zoe outlines how to launch successful employee advocacy programs by relying on "hand-raisers" and proper incentives rather than forced corporate mandates. For those starting from scratch, her 100-day playbook of consistent posting, maximizing outbound connection requests, and leaving meaningful comments provides a foolproof roadmap to LinkedIn influence.
Discussed in this episode
- The three main reasons executives avoid posting on LinkedIn: lack of time, fear of looking foolish, and fear of low engagement.
- How generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) are forcing executives to actively manage their digital presence.
- The Brand Identity Framework: defining your target audience, selecting 3-5 core topics, and conducting a tone word analysis.
- Structuring a LinkedIn content funnel with 60% problem-solving content, 30% actionable playbooks, and 10% direct pitches.
- Why you should give away your best information and 'playbooks' for free to sell the implementation.
- Looking beyond vanity metrics to track directional lift, right-fit follower growth, and 'dark social' signals like saves and sends.
- The failure of forced employee advocacy programs and why you should incentivize small pilot groups of 'hand-raisers' instead.
- A 100-day zero-to-one playbook for LinkedIn: posting daily, maxing connection requests, and dropping 10-20 meaningful comments.
Episode highlights
- — Introduction to Zoe Hartsfield
- — Why executives are invisible on LinkedIn
- — How AI makes executive branding mandatory
- — The Brand Identity Framework
- — The 60/30/10 content funnel strategy
- — Giving away free playbooks drives inbound
- — Metrics that matter beyond impressions
- — Fixing broken employee advocacy programs
- — The power of sharing your losses
- — The 100-day zero-to-one LinkedIn playbook
Key takeaways
- AI models pull from LinkedIn; if you don't post, you don't exist.
- Give away your playbooks for free, but sell the implementation.
- Problem content builds audience; playbook content builds your authority.
- Forced employee advocacy fails; incentivize hand-raisers to share authentic stories.
- Track dark social metrics like post saves and direct messages over likes.
Transcript
LinkedIn band you tomorrow. You start at zero. What do you do? You have zero followers.
Where do you go and how do you build a brand? I would post every day for 100 days. I would max out my connection requests. You get 100 of them every week outbound.
I've seen creators and no shade to them, but it's like they've got 500,000 followers and they're getting 30 likes on a post. Maybe I get a shit ton of impressions, but if it doesn't get engaged and it doesn't turn in pipeline, the impressions don't really matter. Welcome back to another episode of The Bridge the Gap podcast powered by Revenue Reimagined coming to you today from a Starbucks, which we'll talk about. But nonetheless, today's guest is none other than the incredible amazing Zoe Hartsfield, who is the founder of The Little Ghost.
I love that name by the way. One of the sharpest voices in executive branding on LinkedIn. He's generated over 100 million impressions in the past two years by helping executives and employees build authority driven brands that, this is the key, y'all, create inbound pipeline. We're not posting for vanity, we're not posting to get likes, we're posting to get pipeline.
We're going to talk about building an audience, building influence, and turning content into leverage for revenue. So, he Hartsfield, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
We we were just talking about your eye. Is that something you want to talk about or is that not something you want to talk about? Yeah, I feel like, I feel like we have to explain it, cuz I mean like, it just looks so crazy and like, according to the grocery man today when I was at the store, I look so tired and should probably go back to bed. Um, but no, I was just, I was walking through Paris, uh, passing a construction site, something flew up, hit my eye and I was like, oh, that kinda hurt.
And then later in the day, it was like, full of blood. The doctor thinks I just like burst a a little bit of a blood vessel, but, um, yeah, I mean it's like getting better. It looks way better than it did a week ago. I could have, we I would have made you reschedule if we had to talk a week ago.
I would have scared, I would have scared children, you know, wouldn't be okay. I mean, I get told all the time that it's amazing we let Dale be seen on video on the show. So, if we could let Dale be seen on video, we could let you be seen on video. It's great.
Okay, perfect. They haven't made makeup for like the whites of your eye yet, so there's nothing I can do about it. There should be a filter though, so we can fix that. Next time.
Yeah. Cool. Uh, Zoe, thanks for joining. We really appreciate it.
And one of the things that you always talk about on LinkedIn and conversations are why executives are invisible. Like, why do they not show up? And so, would love to hear a little bit about, you know, how what your impression is why that happened and how that uh, became the, the company that you're running right now. Yeah.
So, there's many reasons why somebody wouldn't post on LinkedIn, but the three most common that I get after having talked to probably a hundred plus executives at this point in time about like, building a brand, do you want to, should I, whatever. Time is like one of the big ones of just like, I don't have the time, which is true. If you're out there building a company, you probably don't have six hours a day to spend on LinkedIn like I do. My company is based on LinkedIn, so it makes sense that I'm there all day.
But like, it is, it is like an overwhelming game to try and start from zero and build a brand because you have to learn a platform. You have to learn an algorithm. You have to learn a content style. You have to develop a brand voice.
Like, there's a lot that goes into building a brand on LinkedIn that people don't see and as much as the advice of just like, just hit post. That is good advice, but it's also not the full story. And as an executive, your brand is often tied to your company and like, while that can be an amazing thing and give you lift, it's also a risk, I think, for people. And so they're like, if I don't do it right, like, I don't know.
So they don't have time. They also, this one's more common than you'd think, they don't want to look foolish in front of their peers. Like, they feel like it's cringe to make content on LinkedIn or like, I don't want to look like I'm trying too hard or like, I don't know, like, whatever. And I find that less so with founders, but like more so with the C-suite that's been hired in.
I've had, I've had many executives say like, I'm nervous about like what my CEO will say about my content. Like, what will, what will my peers say, what what will other, you know, C C-suite execs in my network think if I'm making content if it's not excellent, or like if it doesn't perform. They're also scared of like, if I post something and it gets like three likes, what will my peers think of me? Which is not when you Yeah, but isn't isn't that gonna happen to everyone like listen, we we could this whole show could go down the LinkedIn algorithm Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, rabbit hole. You are, I don't care how good you are. You are gonna post shit that's gonna get three likes. Like Yeah.
You can't avoid that. Um, yes, you are going to get that. I mean, I think, I think it depends. It it really depends on who you are, it depends on the company you're at.
If you are the CRO at like a series D like up and coming company, even if you've never posted before, if you start posting content like, your starting point is much higher because people want to hear from the CRO at Series D up and coming, maybe going to IPO next year company. And you just have to Dale, that's where you have to go for people to listen to you. Yeah. easy company.
Could be. Could be. I mean I think like, like that's like probably the most obvious opportunity for me that people are missing. And that's also like a lot of the clients that I get is people being like, my board is telling me I need to start posting on LinkedIn and like, I, I don't know what to say.
So, let let, I'm glad you brought that up. Let let's let's keep going down that. So, you just said something that I find fascinating. My board is telling me to post on LinkedIn.
Now, you, me, probably Dale, um, some others, we've been doing this shit. I think I I've been on LinkedIn for over a decade, right? Um, Wow, yeah. you know, but most people have not.
And we've seen this fundamental shift of like, oh, LinkedIn is just where you go to get a job, to what you just said, my board is telling me to post on LinkedIn. Where is that, where is that coming from? I think there's two core catalysts. One, AI.
Like with the rise of LLMs, AEO, GEO, LinkedIn is like a key source that these models are pulling from. And so, if you're not feeding that beast, the narrative about you is going to be some podcast you did four years ago. And that's the only thing it can pull to say anything about your expertise, your POV, it's probably going to say you work at a company from forever ago other than whatever your LinkedIn says today. But if there's no new, relevant, timely com content being fed into those sources, like LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, all of that, like the narrative is being shaped without you.
And there's nothing worse than a conversation happening about you without you. You should be a part of it. And so, I think VCs and investors and boards, like they're recognizing like, this is part of the game now. What we used to say and tell people, you need to invest in SEO, now they need to invest in GEO, AEO.
And like, in the age of AI where a 19-year-old kid can vibe code an app in his mom's basement in two weeks, the barrier to entry in tech, specifically, has gotten so, so, so low. And the moat, the differentiator is is kind of swinging back to brand. And your brand isn't your logo. It's people.
It's the stories you tell. It's like the voice and tone your company takes on as a collective. It's the individuals telling stories about building this thing. So, like I think AI is a huge piece of it.
I also think early adopters are seeing success and saw success and now those boards are seeing like, okay, we see major companies in the space hiring head of LinkedIn content, head of executive brand content. Like PayPal had that post, I don't know, it was like eight months ago, it was like 400k a year for somebody to run executive like comms and executive content at PayPal. And like, more and more companies are hiring for these roles of like, LinkedIn editorial. And I think it's because of the AI push, but also because people are recognizing, this is a real social media platform.
It's a social media platform geared toward business individuals. My buyers are on LinkedIn. So, I need to start telling a story and building an audience and authority within my industry. I need to establish myself as a thought leader because if I don't, my competitor probably is.
Here's something I keep seeing with sales teams I work with. Generic sequences don't work anymore. We've all gotten so good at turning out the noise that even your own buyers are ignoring you. The problem isn't your reps.
It's that your sequences are static and your signals are somewhere else entirely. That's why our clients use Nooks. And the thing that's stuck with me is that their sequences actually stay fresh because the signals update them automatically. Right buyer, right moment, with no manual babysitting.
If your outbound feels like it's shouting into a void, go check them out at nooks.ai/bridgethegap. And they always do. I mean, and what what do you say to executives that are like, this is just going to take too long.
Like, not from a timing perspective, but from a building up perspective, like, you're not going to see value in it in the first six months, for example. I mean, I think you would see value in the first six months. Like, I I my clients do, but like, I get I also tell them like, if you're not willing to invest in this for at least three months, it's not worth doing. So, like, there is definitely a time investment.
It's not a quick hit. It's like all the the olden days SEO where people are like, it's a like, it's a time investment. If you think SEO is going to turn around and give you leads tomorrow, you are sorely mistaken. This is the new age of that.
And so, building up that reputation takes time, but I also think it's worthwhile because like, really, you should have started two years ago. So, there's no time to waste in that sense. I do think if you do it right and if you have a strategy, part of the reason it takes people so much time is because they don't know what they're doing. They don't have a plan.
They're just like, okay, I will just show up and post and they're like, I don't know what to say and then they lose momentum and they don't have consistency and then like one post does well, but they don't know why it did well. And that's where I think partnering with an expert is helpful because you can kind of skip some of those pitfalls. There's still going to be the like, you got to lay the foundation, you got to build the momentum, whatever. But you get to skip some of the I have no clue what to do or where to start.
You get like a plan to follow. And so, Maybe that's the thing. People are afraid they don't know where to start, which is where you come in. Yeah, that's people don't know what to say.
Like, they which is totally fair. Like, why would you, why would you know what to say on LinkedIn when just a couple years ago, it was just that job seeker platform. Like people do not recognize it as social media yet. so I would push back.
I would say that it's actually gone, Zoe, in the opposite direction where people I don't know about your feed, but I feel like it's turning into quasi Facebook. Um, I think people are actually Yeah. too social media. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I do I do think people who are actively on it and posting content, that is true. But I think for like Like I'm I'm I'm over the meaningless selfies, like, listen, the occasional selfie if it's relevant makes sense. But like every, every post to have like, it's it's obscene. Feed the algo, feed the algo.
Okay. here here is my theory with the selfies. I just had like a long conversation with a a friend about this yesterday. In the age of AI where everybody wants to call out, oh my God, the M-dash, they use ChatGBT, which like, by the way, I've been using M-dashes for years.
And like, I'm not gonna stop. And if you want to think, first of all, ChatGBT could never. They could never make as many spelling errors or use as many random acts of capitalization as I do in my content. But like, the M-dash, it's now become a signal for people.
Whether it's true or not, people just assume it's AI. There's like a lot like, people see the infographics that are made and like there's a certain style and they're like, that was AI. And that immediately tells people there's not going to be value in here, which I think is unfortunate because AI is quite good and if you're good at prompting, what AI can spit out is is actually usually pretty decent. But that said, selfies, how do you AI, I mean, you could, but like, you can tell.
I feel like you can tell when it's a real photo. I feel like you can tell And AI does all the time. like All the time. Every single one.
No, but it's just like, I think, I think it's one of the few areas, photos and videos are one of the few areas where like, there's still a decent gap between what AI can do and what we can do. And it signals to people, okay, somebody actually wrote this or this is like a real thing. And I think that's like, part of why the algorithm rewards it. And now people also do it because they know the algorithm rewards it.
So it's just like feeding that machine. So, until until they change the algorithm. Yeah. So there's posting content, there's building authority.
You have helped drive a gazillion impressions. What actually drives impressions into like real pipeline because I I'm a big believer that, you know, I could go post whatever, paid to boost it, not boost it, organically. Maybe I get a shit ton of impressions, but if it doesn't get engaged and it doesn't turn in pipeline, the impressions don't really matter. How do you do that?
How how do you coach people to make that shift where it's not just this vanity post, it is going to drive business? So, where I start with everyone, every client, whether I'm coaching an SCR or whether I'm writing for an executive, you need a brand identity framework. And the brand identity framework is three things. You need to know, who are you talking to because who you talk to defines how you talk about what you talk about.
The way I would speak about pipeline development to an SCR is different than I would talk to a CRO. They care about different things. Same topic, different angle. So, who are you talking to?
What do you talk about? What are the three to five things you want to be known for? And I always tell people like, two or three of them should really have to do with the problem your company solves, like it should be in the realm of your industry. But I think people should sprinkle in one or two things that are personal to them.
If you're passionate about remote work and travel, even if it has nothing to do with your job, talk about that. If you're passionate about mental health. There's room for you to be a little personal in there. And then finally, I do like a tone word analysis.
And that's just to keep things consistent. It's like, how do I want to sound? How do I create like the brand book of Zoe? And like for me, it's like, I typically write in lowercase.
I'm very informal. I'm self-deprecating. Like, I have five or six points for myself even that like keep me on track. So that way when something reads a little too formal, when something is a little too buttoned up, I'm like, people are going to see through this that it's not really me.
And it also creates that familiarity and that consistency within your brand. So that's where we start. How you actually create content from that place is a funnel. And so you have your top of funnel, which I think should be 50 to 60% of your content, problem content.
Talk about the problem that your customer or ideal, you know, whoever you want to buy from or whoever your audience is, like your TAM, your entire TAM basically. The common problems that they solve and be talking about content from like the problem level. Then, this one's my favorite, playbooks. This is the stuff where you start to really build authority.
So I think problem content builds you an audience. Playbook content builds you authority. This is, here's how I did X. I booked 15 meetings last week using this one sequence, steal it.
And then I break it down. I give away all my information for free. Like I don't gate keep shit. But that's the catch.
You that that's the catch. You got to give it away. It can't be comments here to get like that that's so gimmicky to me. Comments playbook.
Fuck off. Com comments playbook. So I can send you my lead magnet. Yeah.
No, but it's like actually teach people something. And drop you in my nurture sequence. And like, when you post that content, I think that should be 30 to 40% of your content as well. Like, give people all your best playbooks for free.
Alex Hermozi said it. I don't know if he was the original person to say it, but it's uh, you give away the information, you sell the implementation. So like, a lot of people won't do it. Some of them will.
And like, I'm down to help the people who want to help themselves. And like, I'll give you everything I know how to do for free. And then people will be like, well, I don't want to do it myself, can you do it for me? And those are my clients.
But like, anyway, I I break down the playbooks. And anybody can do this. Whatever you do, it's just like, here's how I did this. We got this result.
Here's how we did it. Here was the problem we faced. Here's exactly how we solved it and actually break it down step by step for people. People should be able to take your post and tape and glue together like a G sheet and an email or a Google Doc and, you know, Canva, like a bunch of free tools and do it for free themselves.
That is a really good playbook post. Then, the tiniest bucket, um, is going to be, I call it personal stories, but you can also call it like, like, or personal success stories. I would call it like, social proof, customer stories, like whatever. Like, pitch, pitch your shit.
That's where you're actually like, making the whole like, here's what I do. Here's why it works. Buy from me and make a real ask. And that's 10% of the time.
So, if you think about a month, let's say you have 22, we'll round it to 20 because that's easier. You have 20 pieces of content you could feasibly post in a business month. I would make sure that for every 10 posts, I'm only ever even mentioning my company at all four times and I'm only hard pitching once. So for every two weeks, I'm actually making like a hard pitch or ask.
And there's like, I've developed like a couple of different frameworks, I've done this over a lot of time. Like, other people may have other ways that they approach it, but this has seemed to be the right ratio. And I think when you try and build that top of funnel, that audience piece with the 60% of the problem, 30% those playbooks, giving them away, like one, one a week, you know, you're in a good spot. And then every other week, you just like, ask for the demo.
Share the customer story about the result the customer got and then be like, if you want results like this, like, we should talk. And that's that inbound piece where you're actually really going to drive. I do find that the playbook posts also drive me inbound sometimes, but like, if you if you sprinkle in the hard ask every once in a while, you're always going to get somebody to hit you up in the DMs, be like, okay, I'll bite, like, let's talk. Yeah.
Yeah. But how so, everyone's I believe everyone's chasing what I call vanity metrics, right? So, you know, how how many impressions did I get? Or you know, how many reactins did I get?
How how should leaders, how do you coach whether it be the SDR or more importantly, the leaders, right? Because our our our listeners are founders, CEOs, VPs of sales, VPs of RevOps. How how should these folks be thinking about metrics beyond vanity metrics? What should we really be looking at day 0 to 30, 30 to 60 and beyond?
Yeah, so I want to see, I want to see like directional lift in everything always. Um, I want to see your impressions go up because while it is a vanity metric, it's also a signal. Like, I want to see that growing. I want to see your follower count going up and I want to see that when you look at your audience breakdown, it's the right followers.
You're not, if you're a, I don't know, a CRO and you're posting about how to get a job in sales, but 90% of the people following you aren't in sales and like actually couldn't buy your product, like you're probably talking about the wrong thing. You're attracting the wrong audience. So, not only do I want to see follower growth, but I want to see the right mix in audience of people who could buy from you, people who could work for you and your peers. Those are like kind of the three sort of like audience metrics I'm looking at.
Then, I really love, oh man, LinkedIn analytics has like gotten kind of cool lately. They're not perfect, but they've gotten better. I love looking at like the sort of dark social metrics of like, who viewed my page from this post? And that's why you should always optimize your page to be like a landing page.
Who followed me from this post? Which that metric's actually kind of dumb because it only tracks those who click follow on the actual post. If they go to your page and follow you from your page, it's not appending it to the post. So that's annoying.
You'll lose some of that. But, people who follow you directly from the post, like, okay, this was a good enough piece of content, they didn't even go check who I was. They just like decided they wanted to see more of me. So I think that's interesting.
Saves, because nobody can see that publicly, but people who save it for later, who want to come back to it for later. That's really interesting. Yeah, I love I love that you're able to look at saves now. Oh my gosh, saves is so I had a post yesterday like, it got 100 something, or not yesterday, it was from last week, but I just looked at it yesterday.
I had like 112 reactions. 62 saves. That's awesome. 62 people were like, I want to come back to this.
And it was a playbook post. Like, people were like, I gotta come back to this and try this again later, you know? And then sends, if people thought it was valuable enough that they're like sending it directly. You can't see when somebody copies the URL and drops it in Slack.
You there's a bunch of times where you're going to miss a ton of these metrics, but I really like those because it's like, people were willing to follow me from this content. People saved it for later. People thought it was good enough that they sent it to somebody else. Reposts also decent, like you can see those, but like beyond what the obvious ones that everybody's looking at, those are the ones that I get really excited about.
I love that. I love all that. And I've loved like some of the things that you were talking about from a metrics perspective because the vanity side is I think something that we've looked at in the past, but like who's really following you? Because it's not just about like having 20,000 followers.
It's like, do I have 10,000, 15,000 people because so many people hit their max followers so early on and then they're like trying to clean out it's a mess. So, Well, and it's it's also like, you want to think about, I I've seen creators and no shade to them, but it's like, they've got 500,000 followers and they're getting 30 likes on a post. It's like, who is in that following? Like, nobody's engaging with you.
Like, it must not be the right audience anymore. And so that's why I do pay attention to like, that's why we start with like, who are you actually trying to attract? Because that fundamentally changes what you talk about, how you talk about it, how you want to sound. Um, and that's why like, I always start there with people.
But yeah. So, you you built a bunch of employee advocacy, um, and leveraging GTM. What works versus what fails in that employee advocacy world? Oh, I I I can't wait to hear this because I have some very very very strong thoughts here.
So, if people are forced to do it, it sucks. That's number one. I also think if you have a massive influencer program and you're incentivizing influencers, but employees are getting nothing for their content, that also tends to fail because people are like, well, it's not part of my job description. I'm not getting anything else for doing this and it's extra work and I'm also nervous about it and I don't know what to do.
So like, why would I invest time in this? I think what I always recommend people do is like start with a small pilot group, hand raisers only. And then, I make it a challenge. It's twofold.
It's one like, you've got minimum requirements, if you don't participate, I'm kicking you out of the group. Second, if you do participate and you do well, I'm incentivizing you. So if you post, whatever, two times a week and you keep that up for the quarter, I'm bonusing, I'm spiffing you out a thousand bucks at the end of the quarter. Like, we're willing to throw so much budget at strangers on the internet to promote our stuff.
And influencers absolutely have a place in your marketing like strategy. It makes sense, but like, why not develop in-house influencers? The people who are talking to your customers every day, the people who are using your product most likely, all the time and can authentically tell the story of like, when I was at Apollo, my favorite thing was like our little series of Apollo on Apollo. And I just told employees like, just tell people how you use your own product to do your job.
That's it. Like, talk about your work. And like just subtly mention like how you used Apollo today. It doesn't have to be like a hard pitch.
It's super authentic. And so I think the founder story and the people who are actually like in the weeds building the product, selling the product, marketing the product, using the product within your business, they should be your best champions, but I think if you expect them to do it and just be like, just do it. They're not going to. So you need to incentivize them.
I think create a little cohort, have people encourage one another, give people training and resources, hire somebody to come in and give you like content 101 best practices. They're also sitting there thinking like, I don't want to look stupid in front of my peers. I don't know where to start. So it's like, have somebody come in and give you like a 90-minute crash course on, here's LinkedIn.
Here's the algo. Here's how it works. Here's what good content looks like. Let's set up your group chat.
We're going to set up a loose content calendar. Go through your brand identity frameworks. Everybody hold each other accountable. Set up those spiffs and lead your boards and encouragement.
It has to be a real program. I think if you're just like, everybody's going to post, nobody's going to post. And also, another thing, is if you do not have a couple of leaders in there doing it and leading from the front, it's also going to fail. Because if they're like, why do I have to do this?
But like, my VP of sales is saying I have to post three times a week, but like, they haven't posted in years. They're not doing it. Mmm. Yeah, that happens.
Yeah, it's But I need to know your hot take, Adam. But so, how do you balance? Oh, that's what that's what he's talking about. It's not.
I I do not see people being successful with this when companies are telling them what to post. And it's okay, here's your here here here's your weekly calendar and everyone posts the exact same shit. And that sadly is what I see over and over and over and over and over again. I do avoid that.
Yeah, because So, I think it's with that like, I do it one to one and I also do it one to many, but it's the same, it's the same framework that I give to my executives. It's like, everybody needs a brand identity from the SDR to the CRO. You also have a brand identity. Who are you?
What are you about? Like, what are my content pillars? And the content pillars of an SDR should be different from the content pillars of a CRO. But if no one's going to sit down with them and actually help them like decipher it for themselves.
And so like, I do this in like group trainings basically where it's like, okay, let's get ten of us and we'll do it like workshop style. So I'll call on somebody and be like, okay, what do you think yours are? What do you think yours are? Okay, take this worksheet, go work on it.
Send them to me. I'll review them. I'll make some suggestions, whatever. But like, I think they need just as much investment even if they're going to do the writing themselves in that foundational layer of like, people just don't know what to say.
But if you give them like a little bit of a strategy, a little bit of a plan, you show them what good looks like, I think they're going to you're going to make a much better product from an SDR writing an imperfect post saying, this is my third month as an SDR and it's the first time I hit quota and like this is what I changed about my product. Like, people go mad for that stuff because they want to come along for the journey. The way that an expert talks about content is different than a person who's like still on the journey. And there's two different ways to approach the same topic.
They both have a place on the platform. You don't have to pretend or manifest ten years of sales experience if you're just starting out. Just document what you're learning. Don't say, this is how you should do this.
You say, here's what I did this week and what worked, or here's what I did this week. And it didn't Dale, do do you hear that? Stop stop pretending to be an expert. Just just say, I'm just learning from Adam.
But just starting out. I just learned from Adam how how not to do things. Here's what you have to do. Yes, for that content I also did.
Listen. Those those posts do well too. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
When I talk about the L's that I take, people go crazy when I'm like, oh, I like I lost an easy yield. So that's that's that's where I want to that's where I want to end this. Um, you have been very public, um, about putting your job, mental health, building your business, uh, the wins, the losses, everything in between. You arguably are more public than 90% of people on LinkedIn if not more.
What are that What what did that unlock for you and what was the conscious decision behind, I'm just going to lay it all out there? So, I think there's two things. The more that I talked to people, like behind the scenes, not even on LinkedIn. The more that I talked to people about like what they were going through, the more I felt less alone because I was like, oh, I've been going through that too or like, I also am experiencing that struggle, but I'm not seeing people really talk about it.
People want to put their best self forward and I get that. Like, they want to show the sizzle reel, they want to show the highlight reel. And I decided I wanted to be somebody who showed the real reel because my motivation isn't for everybody to be like, wow, look at Zoe, she's so amazing. My motivation is to speak to a version of me two years ago who might be following me now and help them skip some of the hard parts that I went through.
Like, I give away all my playbooks for free because I'm like, I learned from strangers on the internet how to sell. I learned from strangers on the internet how to like, I didn't hire a sales trainer and we didn't have it at the company I was working at. Sam McKenna, Morgan Ingram, Sarah Brazer, were posting tips and I learned how to Sarah Brazer. That is a blast from the past.
Yeah, like, I learned how to be a seller from people on LinkedIn. And so I just started documenting my process to be like, I don't really know what I'm doing, but like, this script worked for me this week, try it. And people would DM me and be like, I tried it, it totally worked. That's awesome.
Or like, they might hit me up and be like, I tried it and it really didn't work. This is my industry, like, would you change it? And I'd be like, oh, maybe I tried this and then they'd be like, yeah, that one were like, whatever. It was just like, it was a way to build community.
It was a way that I felt less alone. It was a way that I think people would DM me and they felt less alone. And like, in a remote first world now, I'm here for that human connection and like now especially with like, AI and the way things are changing, exactly. AI could never fuck up as much as I do.
Right. So like, people are going to know AI didn't write it. Like, I just like But what happens if LinkedIn goes away tomorrow? Um, if LinkedIn goes away tomorrow.
So two things I've been doing is I've been starting to like build up more of an audience on Instagram. I mean, I only recently started doing that. Um, and TikTok as well as a newsletter. Um, which has been fun.
It's been like a fun thing. But it's just like, I would take my same content strategy and go figure out another platform. LinkedIn is where I want to be because it's where my clients are and that's what I do. I do ghost writing on LinkedIn, but I also ghost write blogs and newsletters for people, um, as well.
Um, and I do this sort of social selling training. If LinkedIn disappeared tomorrow, I'd just take my content skills to another platform, figure out another thing I could sell and sell it there. Any plans to ever go back to working for corporate America, Zoe? Man, I'll never say never, but it would be it would take a lot.
It would take a lot to get me back. I had somebody make me a ridiculous offer recently, but it required me moving to San Francisco and I was like, no shot in hell. I'm not Yeah. if it's not ridiculous enough if that's included in it.
No, like, there is no shot that I'm doing that. And I think like, there's also like you said, like sometimes companies tell you what they can and can't post. People think it's really cool when you have a brand when they hire you. And then when you get in there and you're somebody like me who does show everything, they're like, Are you sure you want to stop that?
Do that? I don't know. Like that's a little dicey. And I'm just like, listen, I have to be willing like, there is a direct like ratio of like, the same amount I'm willing to be vulnerable, I have to be willing to take shit.
And if you are not willing to take shit to the same level as me, you probably don't want me as an employee on your roster because I'm going to write that content anyway. My brand is more valuable to me than the salary that you could pay. And so like, 100%. It's really like I I come with it and I'm not shutting that down and like, I I can't tell you probably three companies in my history.
Like, part of the reason I made a transition or I was open to the people recruiting me away was because they started getting nervous about my brand. And I'm like, I can think of those salaries now and I make, you know, three to six X all of them today working for myself with that silly brand that they were so scared of. So it's just like, Plus plus the tax benefits. Plus the tax benefits.
Yeah, oh my gosh. That was my, that was my big, uh, fuck up this week was just like, how do I pay myself more? Because I set my salary as something and then I started making a little bit more money and I'm like, they're not going to consider this a reasonable salary for my escort. My dad's a CPA, so.
Oh yeah. Perfect. I was going to say, I I have an incredible tax advisor, but if your dad's a CPA, he's going to know. No, he's I called him and I was like, he reasonable salary is a is.
Yeah. I was like, what does that mean? And like, am I going to get popped? Like, I'm so scared of the IRS.
I tried to pay myself 30 grand a year and my accountant was like, oh, and the accountant was like, you can't do that. Yeah, you can't do that. Not gonna go well. And by the way, the IRS will be monitoring this podcast.
So, Yes, this podcast is proudly sponsored by the United States of America Internal Revenue Service. Oh my god, yeah. That's gonna come up in some AI search somewhere. Jesus.
Yeah, exactly. Zoe, as we wrap this up, this has been an amazing conversation. We're gonna do a little bit of rapid fire. You can only answer under ten words or Adam gets like half coffee for the answer.
So, we'll start with that. What's a content mistake you've made publicly? Oh, I have scheduled a post and not canceled it, but like the the brand like canceled the sort of like promo or I think it was a a project a product launch. And like I had scheduled I was it was in the time where I was making so much content.
I was like scheduling like two weeks out. I don't really do that anymore. Um, but I remember I forgot to cancel it. So like, I announced a new product and it did not go live that day.
So that was a big one. Oops. You're doing uh, you're doing a good amount of stuff for Zapier right now, it seems. Um, so they have a really cool team over there.
I I did I did some stuff with them. They they have some cool stuff. Yeah. They're awesome.
Love it. Zoe, what uh, what is one LinkedIn friend that you're just tired of, needs to go away? LinkedIn trend. Uh, it's definitely I it's been like an old one, but like people being like agree at the end of every post?
Like Yeah, that's a knock. Some you're you're writing that with AI and like the model is trained on LinkedIn best practices from like 18 months ago. And like you're still using it. But like, agree, I come up with a better way to end your post.
Anything. Like, anything else. Anything. So, so LinkedIn banned you tomorrow.
You start at zero. What do you do? You have zero followers. Where do you go and how do you build a brand?
Uh, I would go back to my brand identity framework. I would revisit it and be like, is this still true to me? Yes, no. Uh, okay.
These are my topics. This is the audience I want to build. This is what I'm going to write about. I would post every day for 100 days.
I would max out my connection requests. You get 100 of them every week. Outbound. I would connect with peers, prospects, potential mentors, mentees, whoever.
And, um, I would comment ten to twenty meaningful comments on people that I want to be associated with or in my space every single day. And I would just do that every day for 100 days. If if the editors if the editors of this podcast don't put that as the lead into this podcast, we're going to have to have a very serious conversation. Um, but that's a whole separate conversation.
Um, and then of itself. Zoe, ghost written or self written, which performs better? Tough question. Ooh, I'm not going to lie to you, I have driven more more views like per post, more average views for my clients because a lot of them are in the C-suite.
People naturally want to listen to them. I have to work harder for people to want to listen to founder of company of one who does ghost writing and nobody really knows what that is versus CRO of billion dollar company. Like, and all they have to do is open their mouth and people are so excited. I remember I used to like, I'd write a post for myself and it would do like, I don't know, 20,000 impressions.
I'd write a post for my CRO and it would get like 150,000 impressions on the same day and she had like 6,000 followers. I was like, what am I doing wrong? So yeah. Ghost written.
Last one as we wrap up. Dream vacation destination. I really want to go to Japan. It's on the list.
I mean, I've been on all my other dream vacation destinations. So Japan or Australia. Love that. Yep.
Zoe Hartsfield, thank you for joining the show. We appreciate it. Where can people other than LinkedIn, where can people learn more about you and The Little Ghost? Uh, I'm posting pretty consistently on Instagram @ZoePatience.
That's my middle name. It's not just like a cute name I came up with. Um, and then, uh, Work in Progress blog is, uh, my newsletter, which you can also find on my LinkedIn. But yeah, hit me up on LinkedIn.
Awesome. Cool. Always. Thanks for joining.
Thank you, guys.