Matt Wheeler-Barrett: The Framework for LinkedIn That Actually Drives Sales

Matt, thanks for hopping on. I really appreciate it. I've been very, very keen to chat to you specifically about this topic. I think you've been for many years now, like an awesome example of just using your personal brand to, to now scale a whole agency, to land big, big clients, to give keynotes. I think it's the way I see it, at least, and we're going to dive into it, is you've used LinkedIn to its full effect and personal branding to, to really build something special. And I have to give you credit on just being early and being consistent. Like, you've just hammered away at this for a really long time, and I think you are seeing the results of that, and I'm very inspired by that. So yeah, just before we jump in, I want to say congrats to you. Well done. It's well deserved, and looking forward to getting some of your tactics.

Yeah, I appreciate it. I think, yeah, lucky also, I think with the audience you're targeting on this too, with all the people in South Africa, Yeah, so keen to see more people jump onto this in the years to come. So I'm really excited to dive into this.

Amazing. So Matt, I think the first thing I want to do is just ask you if you wouldn't mind just describing Unify, your business model, who you serve, what you serve, what you like, problems you solve for them. If you wouldn't mind just giving some context for anybody who's listening to this, just briefly explaining what it is that Unify does and who you serve.

Yeah, sure. So I co-founded Unify with my business partner, Matthew Wheeler-Barrett, as well. And we essentially are a B2B-focused agency that is focused on building founders' and agency owners' personal brands. We also, however, when we initially did start, got into a few other industries, for example, the automotive space. We're in real estate as well. But the main angle we're trying to tackle with LinkedIn is customers want to know the amazing people behind brands, the people that, you know, push through the late nights, the early mornings, their blood, sweat, and tears to make their idea originally become now a reality that essentially helps people with their day-to-day and also help them grow their businesses. So it's all about leveraging their personal brands and their stories to build trust, to win new business, and to even arguably also attract new talent to the company to allow them to find like-minded people to help them push their vision forward.

Amazing. And some of the clients and the people that you work with, just to give an example, the type of projects that you'd be involved with. And I must say, like, we have worked with you guys in the past, helped us write copy for our website. So we had a positive experience. As a client, I'm saying that firsthand. But you want to just quickly share like some of the businesses and brands you work with?

Yeah, sure. So one of our longstanding clients is a company called A-Spack Automation. They build all the end-of-line packaging for, let's say, milk factories around the world, factories, let's say Coca-Cola, Darling Brew on the ground in South Africa too. So yeah, they essentially are all the end of line, but with that big high-ticket value, the biggest thing that is needed is reputation, trust, and online presence. So that's where we came in to essentially help them amplify their brand. When we started working with them too, there was the current managing director, and then there was a new one that got hired, um, in replacement of the old one. And the goal there already was to build trust with this new individual that was going to now lead the charge for the latest innovation, the latest tech they're going to create, and also just to help reassure the current clients that they're in good hands. I think it's so important with these clients where C-suite moves around, you need to show your current market that everything still is tight-knit and everything is on track, as opposed to people that are all over the place, changing their tone of voice, changing their marketing strategies. What really works with this client is purely just being ruthlessly consistent. And, you know, I guess just to share some quick results on that, their main focus was brand awareness and also finding engineers and recruitment.. And through 9 engineers seeing the organic content on LinkedIn, they hired them through that. They even spent excessive amounts of money on LinkedIn sponsored ads for jobs. They didn't get one secure interview off it. They got all the interview, interviews off the back of the organic content. So it just goes to show people connect with authentic storytelling when they can really start to get to understand a company for who they actually are and who the people are that run that company.

We're going to dive into the first question that comes to mind is understanding how this plugs into a broader marketing strategy. I know Acepack, I went to an event for one of our clients. So it was Propack at the Cape Town Convention Centre and Acepack had this massive stand, this giant stand in the middle of the entire event centre. So they're not messing around. Like that's a big brand that's been around for many years. And I think as this chat goes on, I would like to figure out how the personal branding plugs into their broader marketing activities. But before we do that, I want to just ask you personally, so I want to know how long you've been posting content on LinkedIn and just take me back to the early days with you when you decided, hey, this is, this is a viable platform. I'm going to go all in on this. I'm going to be in your own words, ruthlessly consistent, uh, because that is how I met you. And then we later connected at an event, but I want to go back to your early journey and what made you go all in on LinkedIn and see it as an opportunity.

Sure. So last month we hit our 2-year anniversary of Unify. So that is literally how long I've been posting for, 2 years flat. And I'll arguably say probably from the start, I've spent on average of 4 to 6 hours a day every day for the last 2 years on LinkedIn. I have a personality type where I do get quite obsessed with things and I'm quite competitive in a fair level that also, you know, doesn't step on anyone's toes. But I think that just goes to show, I guess, what LinkedIn requires for you to get the most out of it, it requires consistency and time. And I mean, when I first started out 2 years ago, the reason I started, I worked in the UK for an agency over there, eventually then was able to work here remote for a bit. And then just based on the UK living situations with the war and all of that, they did want me to come back on the ground. And just based on my mental space and where I was, I wasn't willing to go back. So you could say I got retrenched, but at the same time it was just more of a mutual decision that it'll be best that I move on to other things. And literally that day I called Matt, my co-founder now, and I said, let's just go in. I've got a client, which was Acepack. It's like, I got someone that we could potentially speak to because I have it in there. Let's just go for it. And we went for it. We won the pitch and the rest is really history now. And yeah, now we've got a team of 5 people, 4 consultants we work with consistently too. So it's just really exciting. Also, when we're speaking about this now, that if I can do it, people that have even more experience than me, imagine what they can achieve if they leverage this platform correctly.

I want to ask you how your approach has changed. So I've been connected with you on LinkedIn. Obviously, we've also spent time, dinners and events and stuff. So in person, but just being an observer of your profile and your strategy on LinkedIn, I'd like to know how it's evolved over the years. So I'm sure what you're doing now is very different to what you did 2 years ago and just high level, like how has that changed and what have you learned? What do you sort of wish that you were doing earlier on that you are you doing now?

I think maybe just you go through the rollercoaster ride of deciding, is this content right? Why is this post not going viral? Getting upset that maybe that content didn't perform as well. And I think through the years it's just been more of really refining the mindset of what actually LinkedIn is. If you look at what it is, it's actually a relationship building platform. I know unfortunately in South Africa, people still think it's just a job hunting platform. Arguably it's evolved into something that maybe LinkedIn thought it would never become, but it has become this now. It's become more social. At the end of the day, people buy from people. So I was like, we need to, you know, work better at the content for who actually are our clients. What do they do? What are their superpowers? What like differentiates them from the average person? And recent learnings, I guess, with our rebrand that went live this month and our new offer and strategies, I think the biggest takeaway is you have to push the vanity metrics aside. It's not about how many people see your posts, it's about who sees it. All you need is 1 or 2 of the right people to see it that are going to now sign a deal with you and actually put money in your bank account versus posts going viral to thousands of random people. But are they actually probably going to buy your product or service? Probably not, because they just resonated with the top of funnel piece of content that everyone just thought was cool and they liked it. So, It's all about niching down and what we're starting to do now with our new offerings. I have the new Zero to One coaching offer. It's a 3 tailored session that I do with the client to really get under the hood of them as an individual and their strategy and to find ways that we're going to differentiate them from the individuals, but really doubling down on their content, their experiences, because it's only their experience and it's not, let's say, like viral to the world of what they're doing. Those posts aren't going to reach that virality, right? So then we also help on an outbound level with Sales Navigator on LinkedIn, building out those correct audiences. I think even when you hear Sales Navigator, you're like, I don't want to sell to people, but it can also be used as an audience builder, right? You're getting people into your network. You could get future engineers into your network that might keep seeing your content and they're like, oh, I actually want to work there now because my manager actually just did one over me, didn't treat me well, didn't stick to his or her promises. I'm going to now go work for this company because their content looks epic, their company looks epic, they really care for their people. So I think the main learnings there was we need to niche it down, we need to be more focused on value, and then also reaching out to the right people. Initially, when we did start Unify, we relied heavily on inbound leads. So there was a spike in lots of leads. Within 4 months, we grew to 15+ clients fairly quickly. But then slowly but surely that inbound started tapering down and that's when, cool, now we need to start investing in outbound too. So I'm sure we'll get into it later this chat, but we can go over the overall new strategy that I feel a lot of business owners need to take on LinkedIn.

This might be a simple question, but would Unify exist or would you be where you are today if LinkedIn as a platform did not exist?

Uh, probably not. No. Just, I think perhaps, perhaps me being me with the nature of me, like maybe I would have gone into, let's say, personal branding, maybe on Instagram, gone more into email marketing and community building straight off the bat. I mean, that's something we're doing now too. We're busy developing out a cohort, but I think potentially I would have found my way there eventually because my biggest passion is building relationships. And my favorite quote also with networking is from Simon Sinek when he's like, Networking is actually about linking up to other people to do something great together. It doesn't actually sometimes even involve you. So that's what I love as well with my personal brand now and the reach I have. I'm able to link up so many other people to do great things. Yes, I'm not financially winning, but I also have developed that growth mindset that, you know, maybe these, these guys create one awesome business together and then someone's going to need them to run their personal brand for them. So it's all about just thinking bigger, connecting the right people together because The stronger your network is, regardless, if you now suddenly launch a new offer to your business, it might suit them a whole lot better. Now they'll jump onto it straight away. I can tell you a quick story, which was really cool. We pitched a client a year ago. They didn't kind of really want to go with the retainer offer we had. And then as soon as I launched the Zero to One offer, they sent me a WhatsApp. And within 5 minutes of 1 or 2 messages on WhatsApp, the the invoice was sent to the client already. So it's all about just believing in that long-term gain. And also, I guess, not taking things too personally with people when they don't want to work with you in that given moment. Just see that your personal brand is still going to help you stay top of mind with them. And when the right offer or channel aligns, they potentially may get in touch with you.

Yeah. Congrats on that new client. You did tell me that and I was blown away. How important is it to to optimize your profile and to build an offer that has like a guarantee built in there? Basically, how important is it to make an attractive offer and to optimize your profile? And I will just say before you give your answer, because I have a feeling your answer is also going to be it's very important, but I was quite skeptical of this and I always thought, no, I have my company name Disrupt on LinkedIn, have a book an appointment button there. If anyone's interested, they'll come in and book a meeting. And yes, we've always had interested clients over the years, but I recently did like a LinkedIn course where they actually walked you through how to build the offer, how to feature it on your LinkedIn profile, how to change your tagline, how to basically just set everything up. And I was quite skeptical going into it. This is about 3 weeks ago. And since then, we've been booking like 4 to 5 meetings consistently every single week. And these are quality people. And I was quite blown away by how impactful that was just in the 3 weeks since we've done it. So I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on and what you've seen, patterns you've recognized, and how important it is just to set up your profile like a landing page and to make an offer that's actually attractive for people to take action.

Yeah, I think, um, there definitely has been a shift in the way people sell, and selling's changed a lot where a lot more buyers these days, especially arguably in the B2B space, want at least somewhat form of social proof or an experience of what you can do to see actually if you are professional at what you do, you have that credibility that you're stating you have in your content. So I would just like to simply use the analogy, if you were to go to a networking event or you were even to go into like Dragon's Den and pitch the people, if you aren't able in 2 lines to explain to someone what you do and also how you present yourself in terms of what you wear, what you dress, how you shake someone's hand. Like for me, when someone sits down and shakes someone's hand, it's the weakest look in my eyes, stand up, show respect, like make a good first impression. And the same thing goes for your LinkedIn. Like when someone lands on that first window of your LinkedIn with your banner and your tagline, that is your chance in a few seconds to make a good impression on someone. Yes, I would say it's very important when someone lands on your page, you need to tell them who you are, what you do, and what problems you can solve for the user. How are you going to quickly eradicate those pain points? And then as you mentioned with the featured section, yeah, having like some, what, form of a foot in the door offer is fantastic. So with mine, it's easier. And I appreciate with some industries it's more difficult, but for mine, you can hop on a landing page. I have a simple Loom video going through how I can help you reposition your profile with your tagline and your banner. And that's a free 15-minute session. I've already won 2 consulting clients off it because they, in that 50 minutes trusted me. They were like, damn, Matt's giving away this information for free. He's not gatekeeping it. Imagine what I would get further on top of that if I paid for his services or consulted with him. So I think it's important because it just allows you to collect email addresses and also allows you to build out further conversations, better your sales script when you're on sales calls. I just feel the more discussions you have with people, the better and better you're only going to get at how you sell. You'll know then also what certain words trigger someone. What certain words will really like get them keen on this specific offer. So yeah, I think it's, it's crucial. It allows you also to turn your LinkedIn into a selling machine while you're sleeping. You don't even have to worry about it, right? Someone could hear about you in the evening at a pub and then they go share the LinkedIn profile with a mate and then by the evening while they're sitting in bed quickly, they're literally watching your video on how you can optimize the LinkedIn profile. So I think it's super important that it's at least just positioned in the right way. And is also positioned in a way to give some what form of value for free to also give people a reason to come back for more.

I like what you're saying about give something for free, and I will just further reinforce like how impactful this is. So if anybody listens to this thinking, yeah, you know, it's not going to make a huge difference. No, it does. Just rebranding it, cleaning it up, making it accessible, explaining what it is that you do. I'm sure you have more insights that are actually as part of your consulting package, but I will just reinforce that. From the little bit that we've done, the meeting bookings have just gone up like that. So I'm really excited about that. You mentioned conversations and having discussions. That's the next thing I wanted to ask you. So you're really good at this. So consistently engaging, consistently like building that, building actual relationships with people online, just being super active and authentic. Just talk to me about how you, how is it even possible that you can put out volume like that? On a day-to-day basis? How have you been so consistent at that for so long? And then just why is it so important for you? Like what results are you seeing from just engaging with people, connecting with the right people, having conversations in the DMs? I can imagine. Just talk to me a little bit about why that's important and how you've been able to keep that up.

Sure. So I think, I guess, especially when you, you know, you in the earlier startup phases moving more into, let's say, a serious structured agency. You're hiring more people, there's more responsibility. And that naturally now is a motivation for me to keep going because I have a team I want to look after. Like, my team comes first no matter what. Also our clients versus me also, you know, worrying about, let's say, focusing on the wrong things, like trying to get quick wins here and there. I think initially when we were trying to build it, I knew I had to be consistent because that's what some of the coaches I had chatted to told me to do. But It's, yes, I think so. I am somewhat level, to a certain level, pretty crazy and like obsessed. And like, maybe I appreciate maybe some people aren't willing to go to that extent. However, you can systemize a lot better to allow you to scale quicker. For example, if someone comments something really nice on your post and gives some value, using a simple template message saying, hey, name whatsoever, really appreciate you showing up in my post. Really just want to let you know I appreciate you. How's things going with you? And I think with conversations in general, if your profile's optimized right and you send a connection request to someone or you DM someone, let's say 80% chance, and we're assuming here, but I think it's quite a good assumption that most people are going to look at your profile first before replying to you, right? If your profile's positioned right, if it's selling right, you don't even have to mention your company. I recently reached out to someone where I built a lookalike audience of one of my ex-colleagues. And she used to call herself Batman. I used to call myself Robin. And we used to have like banter in the office about that. Created a list of her. And then this one guy replied. And all I said was the template, hey, how do you know this person? I used to work with her. She used to call herself Batman. I used to call myself Robin. I mean, sorry, Robin, yeah, top banter. And yeah, he found it really funny. And then he literally said, "Just had a look at Unify, looks so cool." I was like, there we go. But then I didn't mention Unify again and instead, "Well, how do you know her? Like, how's things been going on your side? Like, what's anything recent or exciting you've been working on?" Eventually to the point where he was like, "Yeah, so what do you guys kind of do then?" And then this is the recent learning now too with our rebrand and our offer. Having a low-hanging fruit offer is really good too. So yeah, usually when you grow an agency, you rather want to try grow on the retainer side. So let's say project work, 20 to 80% retainer, just so that I guess you can make more solid decisions with hiring people, scalability, et cetera. But having a bit more of a lower offer, that's a once-off price, we found is a really good way to get people in your funnel because it's a great way to show structural skills, show them what you got, show them what you can do. Also then establish trust. And through that now we've actually productized our offer a lot more. We've turned our posts into products. We sell bundles of posts now. We don't do retainers anymore. And slowly but surely, we've only learned that though through trial and error and what's working, what's not working. And a big thing for us and our team, and I allow all team members to do it now, if they come across, let's say we use ClickUp for project management. If they come across a ClickUp consultant, which we have now, we now will allow the team member to run with a bit of a budget to reinvest in learnings from that consultant. The same with what we've done for Arlington. We invested into a really big creator that's now given us infrastructure and further coaching. All it's doing is allowing me then to sell quicker, to eventually also sell higher ticket value items, but having a lot more knowledge and confidence behind me because I know every percentage of profit that we make, a smaller percentage is getting reinvested into the company. To reinvest into the team's learning and growth.

I want you to speak to me like a B2B founder CEO who's interested in growing on LinkedIn, but not really sure what to do next. So tell me what are the pitfalls? What are the things that you see founders and CEOs doing wrong? Maybe they are making an effort, but it's just, it's like an obvious red flag or mistake to avoid. What do you see?

So I'd say once again, it first comes down to the mindset. We have, let's say, your ideal customer profile. We also have the ideal customer we don't want. Those are people that don't believe in the slow burner effect of LinkedIn. LinkedIn takes time. Relationships take time. B2B deals are also higher ticket value items. So arguably that takes more time as well. It's not like adding a pair of sneakers on special for 50% onto Superbless and buying them. You have to really build rapport and trust. And that takes time. It also takes time to really find your online tone of voice. I'd say in terms of what people do wrong is, and I wish, let's say the average ones is lack of optimization of their profile. It's giving off the wrong signals. Speaking too much about themselves, like me, me, me, me, me. At the end of the day, no one really cares about you. They just want to know how are you going to make them more money? How are you going to solve their problems? Yes, it's good to shout about awards here and there and everything to build that credibility, but you can't fully just rely on that. You almost have to push your ego to one side and just purely shift your content into the act that like serving is selling. Don't gatekeep all your information. You need to prove to people why they should work with you. Yes, I appreciate when you're a bigger company and then you've got, you know, your sales book booked for the next 6 months, then the way you should just be purely seeing LinkedIn is just maintaining relationships, maintaining current client relationships, and just continuing to build trust. And also then perhaps saying, cool, we don't need sales right now, but maybe we need more team members so we can scale our business further. That still requires an online presence. It requires you to build trust in candidates that are applying for the job, that this person, no matter what, is going to look after you, push the business forward, have your best interests at heart on top of the profits as well of the company. I'd say the biggest thing people do wrong is speak too much about themselves and not about what they can actually do for their audience. And lack of consistency as well. So you got to think about it. If you're going to start your personal brand and you run it for 6 months, if you suddenly just stop it and you switch the switch off, because now you don't have time to do it, you've overextended yourself, or you've now signed a really big deal, just think what your audience is going to think about you when you suddenly disappear. They're going to start raising questions. Is the company okay? Is the company stable? Like, is, is my retainer safe with this? With this company because now suddenly they've just gone offline. And especially with us, like that's where I guess also it allows me to be more consistent is I'm my client's best case study in a way, because if we don't practice what we preach, why would you want to work with us? I see, I see agency owners that do personal branding on LinkedIn, but they, sorry to say, but their LinkedIn strategy sucks. Like, but so why would I want to do my LinkedIn like with you? Because you're not practicing what you preach. So I think It's all about just making sure your content is truly consistent to actually what you guys do as a company and also not, I guess, fabricating things for quick financial wins or things like that.

Do you have a strategic approach in terms of how you split your content up? So some people have heard of top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom, or it's reach and engagement and then conversion. Do you have any sort of tactics around that or an approach? What can you share there?

Yeah, so definitely I think on LinkedIn, and that's probably something that also people actually get wrong a lot, is that they post about too many different topics and then it confuses the audience and they're like, what is, what is he or she trying to sell me? Like, I don't know. Like there's one, one day they're speaking about this strategy and then they're speaking about this industry. You have to niche it down. And I think some people also struggle to do that because they're like, if I niche down, I'm going to leave money on the table for potential other clients or potential other industries that we could help. But I think you just got to remind yourself firstly, before you start looking at your content, what is your main, like, long-term goal? What's your 6-term to a year goal? And stick to that. And then yes, the content pillars are important. So what we say to our clients and more coaching clients now is the one pillar is who am I? So like, what differentiates you from people just based on your personality, your hobbies? Yes, people like to work with people that hit deadlines, that do good work. But people also like to work with people that can, they can relate to outside of the work environment. So it's always good just to show a bit of your personality, your other interests. Then the next thing is like almost like, what is your superpower? Like what differentiates you to the average freelancer? Let's say, you know, let's say there's 3 videographers. This videographer does the video, this videographer does the video behind the scenes. This other videographer will always do the video behind the scenes and some snippets for LinkedIn, let's say. So like, How do you differentiate yourself from the average person? And then the final pillar is simply like, what does your business do? So those are the 3 pillars that we suggest to clients. And then, as you mentioned with the funnels, you have to strike a balance between those funnels with your pillars. So obviously, top of funnel, you're spreading a really wide net, throwing it into the ocean. You know, as you slowly pull it back towards middle and bottom, you'll grab some of the fish and they'll come, come, come, come. And then eventually potentially convert. So it's all about, I think, just striking the balance, but then also monitoring the engagement and what people are saying and what people aren't saying. And then just looking to consistently make small 1% incremental changes to your content over a consistent period of time. I think lots of people think, right, my next post or my next piece of content needs to have this buzzword, it needs to look super fancy. Meanwhile, the best kind of branding is just being simple and aggressively consistent. Because eventually when you start saying the same sort of lines or same sort of, sort of words, people chime into that. They're like, that's Unify, or that's Matt, that's Gideon. Like, that's just Disrupt Agency. Because they say the same things over and over again, that, that builds trust, right? And that's why people like, why'd you post so many photos of yourself? I'm like, well, it's in the name, personal branding first. And second, like, people also Some people are more visual, so maybe if they see a photo of me, yes, they're kind of paying attention to the content, but that builds trust. Or maybe some people are more attentive to the finer lines in, in my copy, so then formatting is important for those people. So it's also even finding a formatted structure of your post that suits your personal brand. So there's all these things that tie into it, but I think you start off broad and then slowly you niche down to what's really working. You keep reviewing the content that works best for you. And then I'd say the most important tactic that I think people struggle to wrap their heads around is you are allowed to post the same post again. So let's say use a timeline of 2 months, every 2 months I'll pick my 5 best performing posts, but then I will go read the comments and then I'll take our recent learnings and all I'll do is rejig and refresh the post and then post it again. Because you know as well from being in marketing and more, let's say B2C, don't anyone quote me on this, but I think let's say the average number is, let's say 7 times that someone has to see something. Like, let's say like a pair of Air Max sneakers following around Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. Eventually you're going to be like, I really want sneakers. I'm going to buy these sneakers. Same goes for personal branding. One post equals like one ad. Someone might have to see that same message 7 times before they then message you and be like, let's do some work together. So you almost have to see that one post as a product. And eventually again, you have to tell people about that product again and again and again. So I think the, the best people in the B2B space and in the personal branding space will be the ones that are able to tell the same message in 100 different unique ways every year, basically.

That's something we've also experienced with clients in the past is they will make the mistake and it's not necessarily just LinkedIn, but they will think that every post has to be something new and unique because everybody has seen everything from them. So it's like, no, I can't talk about this because, you know, I clearly spoke about that 2 weeks ago. And so people will be annoyed. And it's, we have to constantly remind them that it's actually the opposite. Like people are so busy with their lives and getting bombarded with other ads and things in their day that you really only have a tiny chance to reinforce 1 or 2 core messages. And so you almost have to keep hammering on those, those one or two key things because the chances that everyone is actually going to see it in any given point in time is very low. So it's actually better and we encourage them to say, don't have that fear. Like, don't worry about that. Rather be known for one or two things and just to use your words again, be ruthlessly consistent with those one or two things because that's how you actually build a bit of recognition and a bit of memory. Yeah, that's how you get into people's memory. Cool. I like that.

Exactly. I mean, let me ask you a quick question. Do you remember what you posted like last Wednesday?

I don't know.

There you go. I also tell people, I don't know. I can't remember what I posted last week. So, so why would someone else that isn't paying as much attention to your content remember? And that's literally the answer. Like, you need to keep retargeting people with the same message, but you can, you can just improve it. It's like, I love that. The Kaizen model where it's like striving for 1% achieve improvements. And they did it with Toyota. And then eventually, like, GM Motors was struggling with one of their plants and it was their, I think, the, the highest underperforming plant. And then they implemented those 1% consistent incremental changes. And then I think it went in 6 months to one of their most profitable plants. So it's literally like that same methodology. Just find small wins here and there every day in your content. And slowly but surely, you'll just really find where and what to say that really ticks.

Tell me if you agree with this statement or not, and you can elaborate on it, but I was sitting down with Dean Olschig from Halo, and he was saying, clients want what you've done for other clients. So if you have a great case study or you've solved a problem, you've generated results, you've launched a campaign that got a lot of attention and made your client look great, that is kind of your best selling point. That's when other people are going to reach out to you and say, hey, I saw what you did for so-and-so. Can we have that also? What are your thoughts on that? And using that as a source of content, just showcasing your wins and your successes and how you're solving problems for clients.

So I fully agree with it. Like, you're posting bottom funnel content. And when you post that client success stories, obviously that's going to draw the attention because soon as you show what work you're doing for others and what results you're achieving, that is the best kind of content. It's like the golden ticket to Charlie's Chocolate Factory. And I'd say in terms of what the clients want, it's all about— and I learned this from my old boss in agency— and it's like, it's— I work strongly on like emotional EQ and intelligence and like managing expectations and how you communicate. But it's all about just being like brutally honest with what was done for that client, but then also reminding them it's a completely different industry to you. It might require a different strategy, so you can't get tied onto those exact same results. So Let's use an example of one of our clients. I've been coaching a guy out in the US now. He had a CPG brand that he built up, basically like a health product, sold it, successful exit. And now he used to sell that on Amazon. So eventually got most of their listings on there and that's how they really like ticked their sales. And now he has an agency where they optimize CPG brands' Amazon listings. So I helped him do a lead magnet the other day and he like got over 40,000 impressions, got like loads of opt-ins and whatnot. And then I spoke to another coaching client the other day because they saw, I sent them a screenshot saying like, I got these results for this person just to get them pumped. But then I was like, your industry is way more saturated and competitive. He's a super niche. So like he's going to get more reach on LinkedIn because not many people have seen that kind of like free value or lead magnet. Whereas let's say if you're in the space of me as personal branding, you have way more competition. So then you have to communicate it in that way to the client. So I think as long as you set the tone and set the expectations and like, there's only so far you kind of can go, but I would never promise a client we can get these exact same results for you unless you literally have the similar situation and similar industry.

I want to ask you what, from your personal experience, use yourself as a case study. You've built a LinkedIn following and built an agency off the back of providing a service of personal branding on LinkedIn. What do you think gets people to take action? So the difference between knowing you, seeing your content, seeing your content, seeing your content, and then boom, booking a meeting. What have you noticed? What creates that shift? What has worked for you in the past?

I think it's the main, the main point is just understanding really well what the pains and aspirations are of your ICP. So like, what are the main things that are really annoying them, ticking them off? And then you need to then essentially flip that on its head and use that almost as like your hook into the content you're going to provide. So let's say, for example, time. LinkedIn requires a lot of time. So we know, let's say with agency owners, I know with agencies, most of the time your own content always gets pushed back because of client work. So then I would literally open up the hook. Tired of your LinkedIn, you know, going down all the time because client work comes first. Here's how we can solve that. And then with this framework, like, and then DM me 021 and I'll send you the offer documents and we can see how you can take your LinkedIn strategy to that next level. So it's just really understanding what the client is experiencing, what they're struggling with. Now, that guy I coached in America, he used to be his ICP. So that's also maybe a reason why he's doing so well, right? Because he knows exactly how to speak to his ICP now for CPG brands that are trying to push their Amazon listings. He literally once was one of them. So that's a great case study in itself that if you really do know your audience really well, the better and better you tailor your message, you'll get more of an emotional reaction and an action actually out of your, your reader.

Obviously AI has made it a lot easier for everybody to become a content creator and a writer. It's quite easy to spot the content where it's not that authentic and not a lot of thought has gone into it. So I'm keen to hear your thoughts on how things will change given that everybody can create content so easily, that there's a huge influx and a flood of content. Who's going to stand out? Who's going to win? What do you, how do you see it playing out?

Well, I'd firstly say, let's say you're a company owner, like, cool, I need to hire someone to help me with my LinkedIn. If you hire just a standardized copywriter, that's not going to be the right person for you. Yes, they're good at writing copy. However, are they good at writing strategic copy that is also tailored to the LinkedIn platform and the average, let's say, LinkedIn user? I think yes, AI people can write their own posts and whatnot, and you can spot pure AI posts from a mile away. I mean, I know everyone's going on about the whole em-dash thing now on LinkedIn. Even though it is a good bit of grammar if it's used in the right manner, I still sometimes use it when it's needed. But I think the best people still will be the ones that can strategically write better for the, the ICP, for the actual audience, and rather seeing AI as an opportunity to optimize your copy and your thoughts as opposed to coming up with the actual ideas. So that's why I think we, we pride ourselves in, between myself and my co-founder Matthew Wheeler-Barrett, who was an ex-creative director at a big e-commerce firm in South Africa. I think it allowed us to also have a lot more business-minded strategies when it comes to the content and also working more in marketing roles to understand that it's so, so important to understand the user. It's so, so important to ask the right questions to your clients too. So I don't really see AI as a threat. I just see it as an opportunity to basically get your thoughts onto paper quicker but more to optimize it and to just refine your ideas as opposed to using it as the original source of what you need to be pushing out on the feeds for your clients or yourself.

Where can people reach out to you? Obviously, Matthew Wheeler-Barrett on LinkedIn, Unify Agency, it's unify.agency is the website. What is the best place if somebody wants to drop you a message? Would it just be your personal LinkedIn?

Yeah, I definitely say it's Yeah, yeah. I mean, as I said before, I'm always on LinkedIn, so I'll see that message arguably in 5 to 20 seconds. But yeah, you can reach out to us there on our website, unified.agency.

Awesome. Thanks so much for sharing. Yeah, it's been really cool to unpack it with you. I wish we had 2 hours.