Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / The Post That Got 22 Inbound Leads (And What It Taught Me About Trust)

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The Post That Got 22 Inbound Leads (And What It Taught Me About Trust) · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

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  Welcome to another episode of Founder Unfiltered.
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  My name is Bradley Jacobs. I'm your host and the founder
• 0:06
  and CEO of Mylance. At Mylance, we make it easy to
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  show up on LinkedIn authentically, genuinely, and
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  with content that's actually going to resonate with your
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  customers. So in under 5 minutes, you can
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  create this post. Yes, AI supports you, but then
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  you clean it up to really make it sound like you.
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  We generate posts. We post directly to LinkedIn.
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  We do proper position upfront, so everything is streamlined.
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  Come check us out, my lance.co. That's my spiel.
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  OK, Today I'm going to share a quick story with you because
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  it's going to lead to a really powerful realization that I had
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  this week. And I'm just going to jump right
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  in. I was leading a webinar for a
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  community of coaches and the webinar was how can they use
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  LinkedIn to attract clients, showing up authentically,
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  genuinely, all that kind of stuff.
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  And they had tons of questions, but I prepared this whole
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  presentation. So I was like, hold your
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  questions and like, let's get through it together.
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  And you, you know, it was kind of collaborative.
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  And as part of what I shared is that posting on LinkedIn is
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  about building trust and familiarity.
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  Because when you DM somebody, you're like, hey, I do this
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  thing, we should work together. They're like, I don't know who
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  the hell you are and I don't trust you and I don't.
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  So no, right. It's just like, it's quick.
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  No, but if they know who you are, they know what you've done,
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  all these kinds of things, there's they built this trust,
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  they built this familiarity. And then you message them, it's
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  a very different story. And sometimes they even message
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  you. So I always ask, like, what do
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  you guys think about posting on LinkedIn?
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  And I always get the same answers, right?
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  It's cringy. It's robotic.
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  I'm worried people are going to judge me.
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  I don't have time for it, right? It's all like the same comments
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  across like every workshop I lead.
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  And so I don't ever disagree with that.
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  I'm like, yeah, I get it, right? Like I I was that way once too.
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  And I asked them what makes you feel like that?
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  And the answer I got was pretty interesting.
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  It was basically when I read other people's content and I see
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  that it's generic or AI driven or self promote or not what I
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  think should be on LinkedIn, I have those feelings about them.
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  And so I don't want them to have those feelings about me.
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  It's like, OK, that makes sense, right?
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  Really rational. So I shared with them a post
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  that I wrote a few years ago and the post I'm just going to read
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  you the first 3 lines it says Uber and Lyft launched.
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  Both launched Uber X in Raleigh on the same day.
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  Fast forward six months, Uber had 90% market share in the
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  area. Here's how we won.
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  And then I asked them, I was like, even from these three
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  lines, what do you think? And the response immediately it
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  was like, oh, I'm intrigued. I want to know how Uber won 90%
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  market share launching the basically the same product the
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  same day over Lyft. I want to know like you piqued
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  my interest and I should. Then the post like, oh, that
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  post is way too long. I'm like, well, the post got 700
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  thousand impressions. So I don't know if everybody who
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  liked it read the whole thing, but I basically went through the
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  four bullet points of how Uber and I was part of this team at
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  Uber. So I'm sharing a first hand
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  account of what we did that got US 90% market share.
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  And if you're curious, right, it was about launching a super
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  small Geo where Lyft launched in a larger Geo to begin with a
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  geography. Our team used one metric of five
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  minute Etas for the cars. We had a dedicated City team and
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  Lyft did not and we didn't expand until we had a a decent
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  set of drivers in the different areas.
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  So the city was Raleigh for Durham and Chapel Hill, which
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  are like 30-40 minutes away. Lynch lift launched in the
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  entire triangle from the beginning.
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  And so they're, their service was terrible, even though they
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  they covered a broader geography.
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  And then when we were expanding, our service was always better
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  because we were more methodical about it.
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  So just in case you were curious, so I asked them, what
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  does this make you think about me from posting this story?
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  And they're like, oh, like I'm interested.
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  I have, I'm building trust with you.
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  It feels like you know what you're doing.
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  You've had this cool experience, all these kinds of things
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  because I was there and I'm sharing a personal first hand
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  account of what makes what made it happen.
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  I'm sharing the details. So all of a sudden, instead of
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  build, instead of losing trust with the general generic AI
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  content, I'm building trust by being specific, detailed and
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  first hand accounts. And it really started to
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  solidify for me that it's not just showing up on LinkedIn,
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  right? Everyone's fear is valid.
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  If you show up on LinkedIn and you ask Claude, like make me a
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  post about like how AI is changing the world, it's like,
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  yeah, you're going to sound like everybody else because
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  everyone's doing the same kind of thing.
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  Nobody wants to take the extra few minutes to actually think
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  about what do I actually think is happening here or what?
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  Let me tell the story of what actually happened.
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  It takes a little bit of time, right?
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  Takes even if it takes 5 minutes, people don't want to
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  spend that 5 minutes. But the difference is massive.
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  So I, it solidified it a bit more for me.
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  Is that what really builds trust?
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  Is the first hand experience that specific and it doesn't
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  need to be the win In this case, I did share the win, how Uber
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  won and I was part of the team. So how we won, right?
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  And I say we immediately you feel like I was there because I
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  was, but it would have been different if I said how Uber
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  won, right? You want to really nail that
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  first hand experience, but it could be a mistake, a lesson, a
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  quote UN quote loss, if you will, as much as a win, right?
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  Almost people enjoy reading the mistakes, the lessons, the
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  losses as much as the wins, sometimes more So They're
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  they're like fast. We're like as human species,
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  right. Fascinating when people lose and
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  you see these like news articles of like this person lost
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  everything. It's like people's for some
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  reason. Yeah, We, we love that.
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  So share that and and learnings are really powerful, right?
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  Because there really are no failures.
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  They're just learnings. So anytime something doesn't
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  work out and we can share what we learned from it.
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  Even better. If you have like a turn around
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  story, like I made this mistake, I learned this lesson, I applied
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  this lesson and now I'm doing this.
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  Like that's amazing. What destroys trust are generic
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  post generic content, vague lessons that like anyone could
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  have written. What makes you you is what's
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  unique. I'm going to say that again,
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  what makes you you is unique. Meaning nobody has had the
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  specific set of experiences that you have, not a single person
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  there. You don't have a replica on the
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  planet, right? Whether wherever you went to
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  school, what lessons you learned in school, your first job,
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  second job, third job, the courses you took, the skills you
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  developed, the experiences you've had even personally that
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  shaped you and how you show up in business, how you learn to be
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  a leader of the books you've read.
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  All of it is uniquely you. So you by definition do not
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  contribute to the noise, the bullshit, the AI slop on
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  LinkedIn if you write from your own first hand account.
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  Now, LinkedIn is not a Instagram or TikTok, right?
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  Or Facebook. It is not a personal platform.
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  It is a professional platform and we are using it to win
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  clients. So how do we marry these
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  personal anecdotes with professionalism?
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  Because at the end of the day, if I get a lot of likes, but
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  they're from a bunch of my friends, that's not actually
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  helpful. It's really not.
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  I want likes from comments, like shares, impressions, profile
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  visits from people I could actually work with.
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  We get to marry the two things. And that's where we really start
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  winning on LinkedIn. That's where we are really
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  building trust with the right people.
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  We are attracting them. And then either they come to us
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  or when we reach out to them, they're much more likely to say
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  yes. Like your response rates will be
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  like literally 40% versus .1%. So what ends up happening?
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  Let's just say what the fear is, right?
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  The fear behind generic content is that people are actually
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  scared. It's not that you're lazy, you
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  work hard, but you say you don't have time because you're scared.
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  You're scared of the judgement. You're scared of losing trust.
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  You're scared of posting something that someone doesn't
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  like and comes to you and says, Bradley, this made you full of
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  shit, which by the way, is not going to happen.
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  And if it does, it happens for one person and then, you know,
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  hundreds of other people, thousands of other people love
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  your content and one person is angry and that's fine.
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  Like can you deal with that, right, if that were to happen?
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  So it's not that you are don't have the time.
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  It's not that you don't know what to post.
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  It's that you're basically unwilling to go through the
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  process. And that's why we built it till
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  we have it at my lands to avoid all of those questions.
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  It takes you no more than a few minutes for every post.
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  We tell you exactly what you need to post.
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  We even drafted for you. It does not sound like AI.
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  And then yes, you go spend 345 minutes cleaning it up and
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  that's it. And if you want to make a photo,
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  we have an image generated that takes 20 seconds.
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  So what we can do is in order to marry, going back to this point
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  around the personal anecdotes with actually trust building
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  content in a professional setting, we are going to take
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  what we've done in our career. We're going to take what we've
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  done from the experiences, the learns, the wins, the mistakes.
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  We are going to marry it with proper positioning.
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  We are going to go through the positioning of who's our ideal
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  customer, what are their pain points, what is your product's
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  unique value at whether it's a product or service?
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  And then what are the proof points that back that up?
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  We build out positioning for you and whether you work with us or
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  not, this is what I, yeah, we built this for a reason.
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  I highly recommend you do this. You position yourself on
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  LinkedIn as AX, fill in the blank, right?
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  So let's say for me, I might say I position myself.
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  Hold on, I'm actually going to go to my actual positioning here
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  for LinkedIn. For me, I position myself as the
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  candid, no nonsense founder who understands the emotional and
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  operational chaos that founders face daily, especially their
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  fear of quote being seen imperfectly on LinkedIn.
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  Consistently share raw, relatable stories that pull back
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  the curtain on founder struggle. Struggles around visibility,
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  decision fatigue, and shipping. Imperfect work paired with
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  actionable frameworks that demystify Linkedin's strategy
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  without hype or fluff. Use a tone that's blunt yet
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  empathetic. OK, it keeps going on, right?
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  But you get the idea of having this positioning, And then I
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  have three content pillars. From there, every single post is
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  related to a pillar, which ladders up to the overall
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  positioning. And then I can create posts that
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  are aligned with how I'm showing up on LinkedIn.
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  So it's consistent over time. We want to be basically boring
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  here. I want to show up in the same
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  kind of way every single week and I want to share these actual
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  first hand accounts, whether it's my perspective on
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  something, whether it's an experience I've had.
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  Right. Like one of the prompts we have
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  here is share a specific moment when you almost didn't post on
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  LinkedIn because of imposter syndrome.
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  What you were afraid people would think, and what actually
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  happened when you hit publish anyway.
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  Make it visceral and specific to help founders see their own fear
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  reflected back, right? So it's sharing what happened
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  for me that's relevant to your fear, where this post has a has
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  a chance to resonate with you as you read it.
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  So that's really the idea. When I really reflect on what
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  made that Uber post be successful, people aren't
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  trusting me or building trust with me because Uber won the
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  market share, right? That's not what it is.
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  They're trusting me because I was real, because I'm sharing a
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  real account of something that's interesting that you can learn
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  from. So if you have one thought about
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  how you create valuable content on LinkedIn, it's who's my
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  customer and what can I teach them, What can I teach them from
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  my own personal experiences that ends up legitimizing me and
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  building trust, right? We want to stay away from the
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  preachy. You should do this post.
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  We want to focus on it really only experiences that we have
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  had something that we experienced and learned that
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  maybe others haven't. And just so you know, from that
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  one post, I got 22 inbound leads and and I will say that was my
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  most viral post ever. So I don't, that doesn't
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  certainly not happen with every post, but I use it as a great
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  example because it really the reason it went viral is because
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  it nailed every single component of what makes an effective
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  LinkedIn post. It was specific, it had a great
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  hook, it had a personal account, it had incredible detail.
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  I didn't leave anything out. It was a well-rounded narrative
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  and it ended with a powerful call to action because my call
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  to action was and it taught me not a call to action, a take
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  away. It taught me a valuable lesson.
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  You don't have to be first, You just have to be focused on what
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  matters most because Uber and Lyft's product wasn't different
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  at that time. It was the same product.
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  The pricing was the same. They go to market, the
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  execution, the focus, those were completely different.
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  That's all for today's episode. I hope you learned a lot.
• 13:39
  I hope you got some value out of it.
• 13:40
  I would love to see you guys showing up on LinkedIn.
• 13:42
  Come check us out at my Lands. We have a free, we have a free
• 13:45
  version now. So come check out the free
• 13:47
  version. You can use it completely free.
• 13:49
  You get 2 posts per month. And if you liked this episode of
• 13:53
  this podcast, shoot me a note on LinkedIn, give us a, a, like a
• 13:57
  subscribe. All the things like they really
• 13:59
  do matter. And obviously not free to create
• 14:01
  this podcast. So come give us a review, give
• 14:04
  us a, a rating and message me on LinkedIn.
• 14:08
  I'd love to hear from you. I'll talk to you guys soon.