2026 LinkedIn Strategy for Established Business Owners

Good morning. We are live for day one of the two-day LinkedIn growth master class for entrepreneurs. Today we're going to discuss the 2026 LinkedIn marketing strategy. How I would deploy it, how I am going to deploy it, but especially if I was just going to start taking LinkedIn seriously, how I would approach creating my 2026 LinkedIn marketing strategy.

And this is literally how we're going to do it with several clients. So, we're going to walk through those fundamental steps today. And then we're going to talk about how those steps will influence your LinkedIn profile optimization and why that's so important when it comes to actually turning connections into clients on LinkedIn. So, if you are listening, if you can hear me, put a one in the chat.

I want to know that you're here. And then also just let me know if you're creating content currently on LinkedIn or you plan on starting in January or in 2026 and whether or not you have a LinkedIn newsletter or even know what it is. We're going to be starting in a few moments. And yeah, that's it.

All right. Good morning. Gonna start in one minute. Yeah.

Hello. Good morning. MP Enterprise LLC. All right.

I love it. Okay, one more minute. We get started here. going to bring up my presentation.

Okay. So, can you see this? Put a one in the chat if you can. You should be able to.

Okay, perfect. So, today is day one of a two-day master class and like I said, today we're going to be talking about LinkedIn marketing strategy for 2026 and your profile optimization. Tomorrow we will be covering LinkedIn newsletters. Not just how to launch your LinkedIn newsletter, but how to sustain it.

And then the content strategy because one of the things that the the entire premise of today is really that in 2026 your LinkedIn should serve as a constant signal of authority. And that starts with from your strategy to the profile optimization through the content. And the reason is is because you not just have to create content now for humans, but as AI search continues to grow, you'll have to appeal to what the AI bots are looking for when it comes to identifying an authority in a in a certain category for a certain person that's experiencing a certain problem. So, for example, if somebody's inside of chat GBT or just searching Google AI mode or whatever, how will they know that you're the expert that you say that you are?

How how can an AI identify that they should suggest you instead of your competitors? and suggests you for that specific person, especially within something like chat GBT where it may know a little bit more nuance about who the person asking the questions or sharing the information is the user is. And the thing is is that if you don't share your results, if you don't share what differentiates you, the answer is that it won't know and it may not even know that you exist. And so you won't be one of the few people that are suggested, which is really one of the biggest things to start with is that prior to AI search, people would go to Google, there would be 25 pages of suggestions.

And now with Google AI mode with more and more conversations leading and and being led inside of a chat environment, the number of suggestions is going to be a lot more limited. usually five to 10 or less. So if you're not one of those five to 10, you know, how does how are you suggested? The answer is that you won't be suggested.

What does this have to do? LinkedIn with LinkedIn has a lot to do with LinkedIn because LinkedIn is one of the channels that you could start to signal that authority, especially through LinkedIn newsletters, just the things that you have on your LinkedIn profile that it will publicly be able to read, so on and so forth. So all this does tie together, but just know that it's bigger than LinkedIn, but at the same time, LinkedIn is such a powerful channel to start sending these authority signals. So if you kind of have a a even a sense of a grasp on that and the importance of that, put a two in the chat.

All right, let's see. Okay, perfect. All right. So, this training is for you if you're a business owner, if you've helped people and you know that you can do it, if you're willing to market yourself on video, and if you're willing to do at least one live video a month.

So, the way that you'll see that my process works, especially tomorrow when it comes to the newsletters, the content, and the live video events, is that if you're unwilling to do video, you should probably get off now because it's a huge part of my process. And there's a reason for that, which we'll get to. You understand, you know, what it may cost you if you do not take this seriously, which is you may just not be relevant inside and outside of LinkedIn. So, if you don't know who I am, uh, my name is Chené Marie.

I have almost a million followers on LinkedIn. You can go check it out. I have about 268,000 LinkedIn newsletter subscribers published pretty frequently on there. Almost 12,000 now subscribers on YouTube, have been featured on a bunch of stuff, and it's mainly because of LinkedIn.

And I've helped hundreds of entrepreneurs at this point, you know, build their personal brands on LinkedIn. And not just build them, but sustain them in a way that feels very natural to them and in a way that gets them inbound business, which is the thing that I'm really known for is how do you start to get clients to come to you instead of you always having to chase them in the DMs or cold calls or rely on referrals or whatever or ads. Um, and so you know there's just like at this point there's so many testimonials I can't even show them all. So the first thing that I want you to do is to think of LinkedIn more as a three category machine.

People think that it's really one and I would say that it's almost approaching it as if LinkedIn is three different channels is a better way to look at it. So the first channel is the feed which is the content that you will publish short form videos, text post, text post with images, whatever. This is everything that you see as you scroll. The second channel is the LinkedIn newsletter.

Now, we'll get into more of the nuances of this tomorrow, but it's important to understand this first before we move into the strategy because without understanding everything and what you need to do to put into it and and without understanding that without the right strategy, you'll be doing a lot of things for nothing. You know, I'm kind of painting the picture. So, the second channel, LinkedIn newsletters, you'll publish weekly. It'll build your credibility.

And then the third channel, monthly live video events. We'll get into all these things, how to do them. But what happens is that people will start to post content on LinkedIn. A lot of the times they may even start to get some views, some impressions.

It's taking them a lot of time and energy and nothing is landing in terms of people reaching out to them for business or any response when it comes to their call to action. And 99% of the time it's because of the messaging. So they may have in mind a business goal to close more of their highest ticket clients, but in a lot of their messaging they're talking about starting their business or just like things in the messaging that don't appeal to that type of client. I'll look at their profile.

It'll be pushing a completely different offer, speaking to a completely different types of client. And so the more that you own one category or one expertise or become known for just one thing, the easier it is for AI in the future to suggest you as an expert in that thing. Also, as you're building your brand, the easier it is for people on LinkedIn as they see your content over and over again to start to associate you with that thing. And a lot of the times people approach LinkedIn as just they're not doing that and the messaging is off.

So here it says but for any of these things to work your messaging must resonate really starts with strategy. From the strategy we start the messaging then that goes to the optimization and then you know messaging within the content at scale. And when the messaging is right, the right people resonate with the content. And that's within 90 days you'll start to get some of these whales which are the higher ticket clients start to reach up.

So although it may seem really simple, this is still to this day where I start with every single one of my clients and it is we need to define one goal like why why are we using LinkedIn? It could be within the next 90 to uh you know the next three months to six months maybe even 12 months depending on the size of the business. But why are we using LinkedIn? What goal is it going to help facilitate within your business?

This is critical because if the goal of LinkedIn within your business, if let's say the top priority in your business is to get higher higher ticket clients. So let's say you have three offers, one is 50K, one is 10K, one is 1K. I'm just making it up. And you want more of the 50k clients.

Well, they have different problems. They probably have different roles. They probably identify themselves differently. Like maybe they're a CEO or a VP of this or whatever.

And they need different solutions. So everything from that point will be different. How you optimize your profile, the content that you put out, how you even deliver the content, may what call to action you have. Definitely at the 50K, you're going to want to lead them to a call versus 1K.

Maybe you lead them to an email list and then they buy from the email list or maybe you just lead them to a landing page. So, there are different nuances and people get this completely discombobulated and then they're like, why why am I not getting clients? Well, you're leading a a $50,000 client to like an ebook, right? It's like, hello.

Um, now unless you have evidence that that has worked for your business since you started that, then I wouldn't deploy that strategy. So, there's just little mismatches that need to be aligned from the get-go. And this is the most boring part, but it's also the most critical part. So, people will come to me and they'll be like, "Oh, I want to use LinkedIn to get clients.

I want to use LinkedIn to get, you know, to grow to 100,000 followers, to get speaking gigs, to do this, to do that." Choose one goal for the first phase of this deployment, so to speak. And if this first phase for you is the next 90 days, and if that goal for you is to get clients, then the question becomes, well, what type of client? And we're going to go to that next. But, you know, it's hard to chase several rabbits at a time.

And the type of content that you deploy, everything that we're going to talk about tomorrow will be adjusted if this is not, you know, if you don't have this correct. So, um, put goal in the chat if you understand this. And it should not be a general thing. Like if you're going to say get more clients, well, we're going to get specific.

What type of client for what offer? You know, what is the ticket? And then let's say fill a monthly fill a webinar monthly. Like I have clients that come to me and they're like, "Hey, we do a monthly webinar." Well, how many registrants do you want a month?

Because the registrance will determine the show up rate and you know, if they're doing a webinar where 10 people show up. Now, it's like, okay, how many people registered? Let's say 30 people registered. Well, if you want a 30 person webinar, you need around 100 registrations, 90 registrations.

So, you know, who are we going to get to register? How? We'll get to that, but it has to be a little bit more specific. Okay.

All right. And again, I know this sounds crazy, but I will have people who will say, "Oh, my number one goal on LinkedIn is to fill my webinar." Then their call to action on their profile is a call, is a Calendarly link, and it has nothing to do with the webinar. So, when I say one, just trust me on this. I've done this hundreds of times by this point.

You want it aligned. So you just have to commit to one goal and usually that goal should fulfill the priority of your business. So then who's the one person? And this is where people start to get a little bit mitch ma mismatch.

So they will want more of the highest ticket buyers. And then when you ask them, okay, are those the people that buy on the webinar? They'll be like, no. And so then in that case, the webinar should not be the number one thing that you want people for.

It should be more calls. So just kind of check yourself every step of the way. So for the one goal, who really is the person that you need to attract? Right?

And I'll sh like we could do an example live. So, if I had a small business team package for LinkedIn that I wanted to deploy, then I would need to attract more CEOs that have teams maybe between like 15 and 50. Let's say like 25 and 50. And maybe I would get specific.

Okay, CEOs, they have a small business, 25 and 50. Maybe it's a little bit better if they're a family-owned business. Um, maybe in the USA. So, I'm just looking based on the data of like who has bought team packages, who is most likely to buy this that I should double down on.

When I do content for that type of person, the content has to consistently resonate with teams. How to get their team to be posting. It's not going to be like, "Here's one tip to optimize your LinkedIn profile." This this CEO is probably not going to do that. And it if they do, they're going to want to do it with their team and they're going to want a streamlined process.

So, everything will stem from these definitions. And I'm repeating it because people don't really they really underestimate how deep messaging and strategy is and how it it will completely affect everything that you do on your LinkedIn profile and in your content. All right? So it must be specific enough that a stranger can instantly picture themselves whether or not they're that person.

So instead of saying, "Oh, I want to attract business owners or I want to attract leaders. I want to attract service providers." you want to really get specific with who it is that you serve. Um, and you want to lean into where you have the most leverage. So for example um recent recent client case uh this person sells B2B and they like just speaking with them a lot of their top clients were people that had multiple locations or facilities.

So instead of just selling to business owners or like people that own property, right, now they have they're strategically position for people that own multiple locations or franchises and that positioning is going to resonate with that type of person. So if you own a singular business, their messaging is not going to resonate with them anymore. And that is strategically designed because their top clients have, you know, 10 plus different facilities. So it could even get more granular.

Let's say their 10 their best clients had uh multiple facilities, 10 or more facilities and all of and 80% of them were in healthcare, then I would probably lean down into healthcare. I have another client recently, she's a consultant and um she's in HR and all of her top clients are in manufacturing or aerospace. And so we would lean into CEOs at a certain size that have a certain size team into those categories versus just like oh I'm an HR consultant. This is how you differentiate because imagine that aerospace CEO uh or you know manufacturing CEO with that size having that problem and they and they ask Chad GBT or Google or whoever for an expert in their domain.

Now she's sending all the signals through her LinkedIn profile, through the content, through everything that she is the HR expert to go to in that domain. She owns that category. But it's impossible to do that unless you lean in. Does this make sense?

Put a yes in the chat. Put a yes in the chat. This makes sense. Yes.

Okay. Okay. And then one call to action. And the call to action should match the ticket, right?

Like if you have a low ticket offer, it's fine to lead them to a landing page to buy. But if you have a higher, like let's say you're a B2B consultant, you probably need to get on the phone with people. And so you should have, hey, personal message me or you should have a calendar. Unless you have evidence that every single time you do a webinar, then you get a load of calls and then those calls close.

Um, so there's different ways to do it, but usually it's to call for most high ticket B2B coaches and consultants. And then the point here is to be strategic about this. So, you don't just want to think about where you could double down on today, but where it would give you an unfair advantage within the next 12 to 18 months. So, where you would have less competition.

All right? Where there's a a higher value buyer. So, what do your top 20% most need and what are they most willing to pay for? Not just today, but within the next 18 months.

lean into the highest value skill based on what you sell uh and then the least likely to become commoditized by AI within 12 to 18 months. So I'll use myself as an example here. If I were to reposition myself and I were to audit my skills like the solutions that I can provide whatever whatever let's just say that it's like content more general like personal branding and then let's do like video live video. These are just a few examples.

Out of all of these, the most valuable based on these metrics for me to probably lean in on is live video. Why? There's a bunch of competition when it comes to just content, personal branding. There's lesser competition when it comes to video and doing it right with the right messaging, but there's still more than live video.

On top of that, on back-end data, like for my business personally, a lot of my top buyers lean into live video and ask me a lot of questions before becoming clients about live video and they're willing to do it and they see the power of it. Then on top of that, it is the highest value skill set based on the market growth and the p and the projections of that market growth within the next 12 to 18 months. So only 1% of small business owners currently do live video. It's a multi-t trillion dollar industry already in China.

It's going to be a multi-t trillion dollar industry that hasn't even been tapped into in the US. And so I could get ahead of that curve of growth and become the category leader for live video. And it could be LinkedIn live video, right, which I've already kind of own that category for. But I could also just lean into live video for service-based business owners.

And then on top of that, it's the least likely to become commoditized by AI within the next 12 to 18 months. Right? So within the next 12 to 18 months, they're definitely going to be AI avatars that do short form video and all of that. But it's going to be harder to do a 30 minute, 40 minute, whatever live video.

And more and more people are going to want to make sure that you are a real human being, be able to ask you questions, interact with you before buying from you or before really just checking out whatever it is that you sell as more and more of their feed becomes commoditized by, you know, like more and more of their feed becomes AI stuff. And this is honestly why live video is part of my formula for my clients because it gives them an unfair advantage and it scales trust faster than anything and it increases trust faster than anything that is based on the data. It also takes the ability to convert at a 1% on a landing page to a 10%. Okay, which is just insanity.

10 to 30% depending on the host of the live video. Um, I could just go on and on, but because of all of these reasons, if I were to audit my own skills, I could strategically lean into live and take that market. So, you really want to look at the landscape and say, "Okay, not only do I want to sell this this offer today to this person to fuel this priority in my business, but what about certain signals of market growth or potential market risk or commoditization within the next 18 months?" Does this make sense? Put a yes in the chat.

So, I know this is like a lot and you're like, "What does this have to do with LinkedIn?" But it has everything to do with LinkedIn because once you get your one goal, your one person, your one call to action, you understand your strategy, that's when we can go to your profile optimization. Until then, going to the profile optimization, starting to create content. It's like who are you creating content for? What problem are you solving for them?

How can you resonate with them? You can't. The messaging will be completely off and that's when you get views potentially, but you get no engagement on the back end or no real results driven for your business. All right, cool.

So, why one buyer is non-negotiable in 2026. And really this comes down to also AI. So you know if you go to search or or Gemini here, let me see. Hold on.

Let me just prove this live. Okay. You see this? So, I don't know what comes up when you do like LinkedIn 2026 or LinkedIn video 2026, but again, leaning into the live, there's less competition.

Here I am 5 days ago. Here's another video of mine that shows up in the overviews right here. And that one's from YouTube. Here's the other one.

Here's the other one. So when you look at maybe 10 suggestions here on the side that people will get the chance to look through. I'm one, two, three of those 10 suggestions. Yeah, three of those 10 suggestions.

And then down here you see on the first video, this is five. This is six days ago. Okay. So, owning like knowing which category to own, you will not just get leverage from LinkedIn like from the LinkedIn newsletters, but you'll also get leverage outside, especially if you stream to other places.

The point is is that you own the category in advance. Does this make sense? and for a certain, you know, uh, group of people. Let me see here.

Hold on. One second. I'm looking for something. Okay, so here So here I just put like LinkedIn strategy 2026 and then you see down here I did the LinkedIn live [snorts] and I embedded it in the newsletter and this was on December 2nd, so less than two weeks ago.

And it's organically ranking. a top search for LinkedIn strategy 2026 because of the LinkedIn newsletter. And this YouTube video was just a LinkedIn live, so I just uploaded it to YouTube. I think it's a a stream actually.

And the reason is is because of the category, but also I'm sending signals to multiple places. We'll get to that. I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't want to confuse you, but the point is is that the strategy matters because you're either gonna fight in a red ocean where you're competing against everyone where AI doesn't know that you're category leader so they can't you can't be one of the 10 suggested or you're going to leverage your LinkedIn as an authority signal to win not just within the platform but outside of the platform as well.

Okay, so different offers require different messaging. We kind of went through this. Um, if your content resonates with the wrong buyer, you attract, you either don't get calls or that's when you get calls and none of them close or large majority of them close. And that could be extremely frustrating.

It takes time for your business. It could decrease your morale. And we just don't want that. I want you to talk to three to five very high ticket clients a month or high quality leads a month and be able to easily and effortlessly close three of them without any types of pressure sales or anything just because you're talking to the right person.

and you're talking to the right person and they have a certain level of trust with you because the content earned that trust in advance and because a lot of the content resonated with their problems and and and you attracted the right person through the resonance of the content. So, put a two in the chat if that makes sense. And then specificity is how you become recommended. Okay.

So, let's get to the point of the authority signals. So, you want to think about things that you have done related to what it is that want to sell. Okay? And I'll show you some examples of this.

It's just easier if I show you rather than going through this presentation. So, if I want to help entrepreneurs grow on LinkedIn, then I have to think about okay, what I what have I achieved related to that, right? So you see that there's numbers here like almost a million followers. You see this another number.

You see 100 plus client testimonials marketing strategist for CEOs to dominate their market. And then you see featured in. So I want you to make a list of like have you been featured in any important magazines or any magazines that are notable to your industry? You know do you have a certain number of client testimonials?

Do you have certain known clients? Like I just onboarded a client who her clients are like to the level of PNG and stuff. And so those things need to be included somewhere either on the banner or in the headline because first of all when a human looks at it it's like wow those are authority signals. It shows a certain standard and stuff.

And then also if an AI is deciding between you and somebody else and you don't have those signals even if you have all the results on the back end it will suggest the other person just because it'll be like oh this person has a hundred testimonials and this person doesn't have any or I couldn't find any for that person so this person must be more legit right especially AI will go and verify that you know you can't just say things it'll look for other sources to validate that information. Um, so think about what you could do if you're on a board that has to be mentioned like board member. If you are, you know, if you do some charity, that should be mentioned. Um, if you've done a certain number of sales, that should be mentioned.

Like I have a client that has closed more than $100 million in sales. She she didn't want to brag about it, but we have to leverage it for uh authority signal. Not just again for humans to know that you're legit, but for the AI to also know this. With the new LinkedIn algorithm, this also matters because your authority signals, what you have in your headline will actually influence who sees your content.

And that's been one of their most recent algorithm changes. So, I know that some of you don't want to share numbers or brag or whatever, but if you don't brag, it's going to cost you a lot. It's time to brag. It's time to just share what's real.

Does this make sense? Now, the thing is like, what do you actually share, right? That I mean, it has to be real, number one. And then what do you share that's relevant to who it is that you're trying to attract on LinkedIn?

Like I could put on here like, oh, however many YouTube subscribers or whatever, but will it be relevant to who I'm trying to attract on LinkedIn? Usually the first questions they have for me is LinkedIn. If I were going to uh lean more into live video, like if I were going to redo my pro profile and lean into live video on LinkedIn, I could say a 100 plus LinkedIn live videos or have helped 100 plus entrepreneurs start going live on LinkedIn. Those would be relevant signals to the type of person that I'm trying to attract and the type of offer that I'm trying to sell.

does. I hope I'm making sense. Okay. So, without this, you'll be at a massive uh disadvantage.

Just understand that. and I'll show you some examples of client profiles that have been recently redone and kind of the signals. Okay, so here's one. So you see first of all it's a complete transformation new photo.

You see that there's authority here with the level of clients that she works with. again doubling down on manufacturing and aerospace and 40% turnover reduction, right? You don't get that from the left. It's just a different experience.

Okay. And then here, I mean, it's insane that Russell built a 90,000 rep team, so he should definitely talk about it. He's a board member. Like all of these things need to be leveraged.

You see how the photo is different. You see just the positioning entirely is different. And I'll show one more. Could do.

Let's see. Yeah, let's do Matt. So Matt, you see on the right, he didn't mention he was top 40 under 40, which is insane. That should be like one of the first things that he mentioned.

And then, you know, board chair, those little things matter. So don't take like your wins for granted is all I'll say. is that a lot of times like your value, your your awards, your credibility, where you've been featured on media, people will just assume that people will find it or know about it or whatever. And the thing is that they won't and it's not their job to find it.

It's your job to position that so that it makes the experience of understanding who it is, who you serve, uh who you are, why you are legitimate and credible, they should know that in like 3 seconds by looking at your profile. And so, as a gift for you today, because you're live, and we're only going to do this because you're live. if you send your strategy. So, you're going to send the one person, you know, your your one goal, your one person, your one call to action, and a few of the authority signals that you plan on including on your profile.

If you send that to our support email, we'll give you some feedback as to whether, you know, whether I think it's specific enough or not. And I'll put that in the chat. So, do you see that? Do you see the email?

What camera resolution am I using? I'll tell you right now. 1080p. Why do I look good?

That's funny. And yes, that's a real Christmas tree. I keep getting asked if that's a real Christmas tree. So, does everyone understand today's assignment?

1080p Put a yes, one goal, one person, one call to action and your authority signals and you don't. So, one of the things will be like Chana, but I don't have that many clients or or whatever. Let's just pretend in a universe I only had three clients. Like I was just starting and um I helped three clients get 10,000 views in the first three months of being in business.

That's what I would say. I would say helped three clients and I would say like helped three new founders get 10,000 views in less than whatever weeks in the last three months. And then in the about section, I would I would expand on that and say, "Hey, I'm I'm my business is new. These are the results that I've gotten in the last three months for my first three clients." I would just be transparent about it, but that that would still be an authority signal, right?

And then I would potentially, you know, if you're going to talk about views or, you know, I helped this many clients get clients or whatever you're doing, I helped this many people lose 27 pounds in the last 6 months. Doesn't matter. But you need to be specific is the point with like the type of people that you help and what type of results that you've helped them receive. So the assignment is to send over your one goal like what's the one thing you're trying to achieve in 2026 within the first 3 to 6 months.

Like why are you using LinkedIn? And it could be to get clients. It could be to just grow your followers, right? I have people that they don't necessarily need LinkedIn to get clients and they just want to get to 100,000 followers as fast as possible.

In that case, it would the literal metric count would just be, you know, follower growth per week or per month, right? And then it's like, well, why do they want that? It could be that they want to do a book release in 12 months, right? And then, you know, do they know what type of book they're going to write and who that buyer would most likely be?

And and those are the nuances there. So, your what's your one goal within the first three to six months of the year? Like why are you leveraging LinkedIn? It should be aligned with your business, right?

The only time that I would say that it doesn't align with your business priority now is if you're starting a new business or you're starting a different branch within your business. And I'll explain. So, I spoke to a roofing company CEO recently and up until this point, most or like the large majority of his clients have been the homeowners, but they want to start doing commercial projects, right? So, they want to start winning commercial projects within certain cities and his plan on LinkedIn is to leverage LinkedIn to start to win some of those commercial projects.

So know going in knowing that his messaging right now appeals to the homeowners and stuff and so we have to change that and that's what I'm talking about. You know why are you leveraging this tool for your business? Number two, who is it that you're looking to attract? In the roofing example, we wouldn't attract the homeowners.

We would attract the people that own commercial property, right? And then you know at what point do they need a roof? Like there's a lot of stuff that goes into that. And then what's the one call to action?

It would be a call, right? And where do they go for that call? Some people have a landing page, some people don't. So it's just DM me on LinkedIn.

But you're not going to be changing your call to action like your underwear during this process. Uh you're going to be changing you're not going to change it at all. So I have one call to action. Go to yourow.club.

I say it a million times. And guess what? people don't get confused, right? But if one day you're like, "Download my ebook." The next day you're like, "Go to YouTube." The next day you're like, "Go to the free quiz." The next day you're like, "Book a call." They're going to get a little confused unless your brand is so big already that you need all of those channels.

Um, so one goal, one person, one call to action, and then submit at least three authority signals that you're going to, you know, include in your profile optimization. Somebody said LOL. I mean, it's true. And you don't need a landing page.

You don't need a fancy website, especially if you're high ticket. Like if you're a consultant, B2B, your whatever you sell starts at 50K, 100K, 250K for a year-long contract or however long it is. Um they could DM you. So you don't need to make excuses for, oh, I need to build my website that I don't need um for a year before I start to market myself.

Any questions? And then tomorrow will be, you know, this is I don't want to say this is the boring part. It's the most critical part. Without this part, everything else will fail.

But tomorrow is more of the fun part, right? So like once you have your strategy defined is when you could really go through and attack the content and start to play with the messaging. So the so the content on the feed, live video, and the newsletters. How much credibility does a microphone add?

That's a good question. Um, so I'll just say this. I'll [snorts] say like I've analyzed some of my top lives and the large majority of my top lives will have the microphone showing. Now the question really is are they the top lives because there's a certain authority or perception with the microphone or because the sound is just better because the microphone is closer to my mouth.

Right? So, um I don't know which, but I do know that, you know, take that data however you want it. My best lives do show the microphone. What's up, Emily?

I was thinking about you the other day. Yeah, I think it's both, right? Like it shows that it shows that you take it seriously, that you probably have uh a more stable setup and the sound is better. Yeah, I was thinking I was going to message you about your friend, but I'll I need my headline read seems like radio or podcast and you give that credibility.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I wouldn't like live and die by this as being the most credible thing. I mean, it really comes down to like consistency, the quality of the content. Does your content actually help the people that you're looking to attract?

Um, and a lot of it also is like the energy, you know, are you willing to answer questions? I think live is huge because it just shows that you're a real person and it's going to be more important to prove that you're not an AI who creates content on LinkedIn now. Put a two in the chat. And wait, let me be clear.

And some of that content is video of you, not of a cat. Okay. So, a few of you. Okay.

Good. What about backgrounds and different locations for your videos? Yeah, so tomorrow we're going to talk about short form video and how really in 2026 how I would approach it because there are changes. Uh and again the changes and the frameworks that we're going to talk about through the lens of the different pieces of content is how do you consistently signal authority?

Because the power of LinkedIn is that for those a Google AI mode searches or regular Google searches, a lot of your LinkedIn posts like on the feed, your LinkedIn newsletters, your LinkedIn live video events, they can propagate because they're seen as coming from an extremely credible source. uh so they could propagate for the right person that's searching and for you especially in AI mode to be able to potentially outrank like huge companies that have more spend than you just because you're willing to do video just because you're willing to be consistent because one of the things that the AI stuff looks for is recency consistency and video will outrank a lot of it. It's just unprecedented, you know, it it's almost like small business owners really don't realize the opportunity that's in front of them right now. Um, so when [clears throat] it comes to the approach to content in 2026, we will take it from the approach of how do you constantly signal authority that you know what you're talking about, that you are the go-to person for your ICP.

And it's not good enough to just talk about these are the three things you should be doing. you need to actually show them how to do it, you know. So, there are some nuances and differences. Um, and then in those short form videos, like on the feed, I always tell people to view their personal brand like a diamond.

So, you're just revealing one facet of yourself at a time. If you're always in short form video in the same place, I mean, are you an AI avatar? You know, what's the difference between between you and an AI? So, there's different, you know, walking, maybe you're dressed athletically, maybe the next day you're in your office or whatever.

But, I think just being genuine about different locations, different vibes, different parts of who you are is is important. So, I have a business. I I have a business owner, a client of mine who very high high ticket consultant like B2B does huge contracts globally with global companies and some of the clients that he has received inbound from LinkedIn have come from sharing part of his you know previously he used to do some pro boxing so of course he had a certain level of trust with some people in his network they would see the boxing videos they would think it's cool it spark conversation that would lead to hey by the way now I'm CEO at this company that would lead to let's bring you in for the contract right and it's like the the strategy there is what are the things that you are personally interested that are more rare and that would resonate with your ICP and how often do you share it and he was kind of a he wasn't averse to sharing it but he's like I really trust you that we're sharing this on LinkedIn. I'm like, trust me, trust me.

He's like, okay. Like, he's like, I don't know what a boxing video has to do with business, but it's about humanizing yourself and showing different sides of yourself. Yeah. Well, yeah, it is uh to so one of my goals is to drive people to YouTube.

That's one of the reasons. And then in terms of like background where your main setup is just I'm just anti virtual backgrounds. So you don't need to go crazy but it just simpler is usually better. Adding little details like I could usually look at someone's background and be like get rid of that, get rid of that.

And then maybe add like a candle or or you know a light or whatever. And I again it what's going to resonate with your ICP. um in a way that's natural to you. Does that make sense?

Any other questions? I have about five minutes. So, make sure that you submit your strategy. So, one goal, one person, one call to action, and three authority signals.

Think about again what awards have you won that people in maybe your your ICP would recognize? What magazines have you been featured in? Are there any notable clients that you've helped? Are you the author of a book?

Are you on a board? Are you a volunteer at some organization that's known? Like try to get those things out so that you could have the right authority signals. Yeah, tomorrow's going to be and put day two, put two in the chat if you're going to be here tomorrow.

So, tomorrow we're going to talk about all about content. So, it's going to be like what what type of content can you post on the feed? Should you be posting on the feed in 2026, how to launch your LinkedIn newsletter and sustain it, and then building up to a monthly live video event, why that's so important to increase inbound conversions. and put how many followers you guys have on LinkedIn.

Like how big is your network? I'm just curious. 4,000 30,000. Oh my gosh.

It's like a Christmas present. Like what could happen with that network? And so this is actually great nuance right here. The advice that I will give tomorrow, I'm going to give like two paths.

And one path is going to be for the person that has 4,000 followers or more, which is probably the majority of you. The other person is going to be for maybe someone that's like 500 followers, 1,000 followers, because one of your most critical things is to get to 4,000. And you'll understand why tomorrow. Yeah, you guys are in the green.

All right. So, I'll see you tomorrow. Tomorrow, just be prepared. We have a lot to cover.

Um, it's going to be a longer training than today just because there's so much to cover. So, first we'll do the content on the feed, then we'll do the newsletter, then we'll do live videos, and I'll kind of explain how everything ties together and what I would do, especially for the first 90 days of 2026 to increase my chances of success on LinkedIn and to start to get some of the inbound clients to come to you. Like, you want whales to start coming to you instead of you always having to chase people. Um, and we'll get into the the leverage of that.

So, I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless you. Ciao.