Exactly How I Built A $1.2M Business On LinkedIn [full breakdown]

[0:00]My worst performing post made me the most money. Let me explain. I had a post hit 8.1 million impressions and it made me zero dollars. I had another post hit 3,200 impressions and it made me $45,000. And once I understood the difference in these and why, I built a $1.2 million business on LinkedIn. Without needing to go viral. Now, if you don't know who I am, my name is Casey Brown and over the last two-ish years, I've gone from zero to over 60,000 followers on LinkedIn. Now I have an agency and a program, we do cohorts helping executives, founders, doctors do the same things. But here's what most people don't know. For the first seven months of me posting, I was getting complete crickets. I was posting consistently six days a week, following all the advice and maybe getting like 15 likes and two comments per post. So what changed? Now in this video, I'm going to expose the exact three-part system that took me from invisible from a no one to a $1.2 million creator on the platform. Now I'm not going to sit here and just talk theory, I'm about to show you my actual playbook. Why would I do something like this? Because my friend, I believe that there is enough out there for us to all win. And me sharing what's worked for me doesn't hurt me and it possibly just helps you, so why not do it? And I'm also going to show you why chasing virality is the fastest way to stay broke on this platform. Now with that said, let's get into it. Now, here's how most people approach LinkedIn. They start with the views, likes, follower accounts, they think if I can just get more eyeballs, the money will follow. So they start chasing virality. They post every day, they copy what the big creators are doing, and they optimize solely for the algorithm. And some of them actually succeed, especially on a platform like LinkedIn. They get the followers, they get the engagement, then they realize they still have no business. And I see this consistently, people with 50,000 followers making zero dollars. People with 100,000 followers who can't even close a client. Why? Because they're playing the attention game when they should be playing the authority game. The attention game is solely about reach, maximum eyeballs, entertainment value and just going viral. The authority game is about positioning and packaging, trust with the right people, being the obvious choice for a specific problem. Same platform, completely different games. And the strategies that win one game will actively hurt you in the other. Now, let me show you what I mean. So, this is February 2024 and I opened my laptop and I post about Serena Williams. It was a post about how she could freely express herself at the Black centered Super Bowl halftime show, the Kendrick Lamar halftime show. But 12 years earlier at Wimbledon, she actually faced criticism for doing the Cripwalk dance. Now, the post challenged how we think about authenticity in professional environments and it went viral. 8.1 million impressions, 10,000 new followers overnight, news outlets were actually reaching out to do interviews and have the article on their platforms. And do you know how much money I made from that single post? Zero, nothing. Because I had spent 11 months on the platform just posting my thoughts and opinions. I really didn't optimize a way to capture leads, no lead magnet, no conversion paths. So I got 8.1 million impressions and zero dollars and maybe a few leads here and there because we had some little things that I had. But here's what that taught me. Virality will attract everyone and everyone is not your customer. When you go viral, you get followers who may never buy from you and worse, they may dilute your positioning. The algorithm starts rewarding generic content because generic content just reaches more people and more of your audience is starting to engage with it. And that was my wake up call. So I strategically started to rebuild everything after that. And I did it around a simple three-part system. Part one is strategic positioning, part two, intent based content, part three, conversion path. Now, most people only focus on content. They think LinkedIn is just about writing good posts, but it's not, my friend. The content is just one piece of this. The revenue comes from how these three parts reinforce each other. So let me break each one of these down. Now, strategic positioning means being known for one specific thing. Not I help people with their business, not leadership coach, not a marketing expert. One specific thing that a specific person has a specific problem with. Personal story here, when I left stripe to start doing my own thing, I had all this experience, Goldman Sachs, Accenture, strategy, tech. And I thought that was my advantage, so my early content reflected that. One day I'd post about finance, the next about startups, the next about career advice, I was just everywhere with my content. And I was getting followers, but they were random. And a finance person here, a tech person there, no cohesion, no community and definitely no clients. And I remember looking at my DMs after three months, lots of great posts, I love this, but zero, how can I work with you messages. And that's when I realized, being interesting isn't the same as being hirable. So I made a hard choice. I niche down to one thing, helping executives and founders who are great at what they do, but invisible online build personal brands that generate revenue. That's it, LinkedIn, executives, leaders, coaches, doctors, revenue generating personal brands. And I said no to everything else, no general marketing advice, no startup content, no finance takes. And within 90 days of that shift, I had my first $50,000 a month. And here's why positioning matters so much. When you're known for one thing, people can explain your value to someone else. Oh, you need help with your personal brand and LinkedIn, go talk to Casey. Word of mouth becomes possible. And when you're known for one thing, you become the obvious choice, my friends. There's no comparison shopping, you are the person for that problem. So here's a test. Can you fill in this sentence? I help specific person who struggles with specific problem achieve specific outcome. If you can't answer that clearly, your positioning isn't tight enough and no amount of content will save you. Now, positioning gets you clarity, but it does not, hear me right, my friend, it does not get you clients. That is where part two comes in and this is where I made a $50,000 mistake that changed how I write every single post. Now, most people create content to get engagement. I create content to signal two things, expertise and transformation. And here's how I think about it, your content is a funnel. Top of the funnel, you have your authority content, which is about 20 to 30% of what I post. Personal stories, contrarian takes, industry observations, the goal here is to make people think, dang, this person sees things differently. Middle of the funnel is your value content, about 60% of what I post. Frameworks, case studies, lessons I learned, people should walk away from these posts saying, dang, I learned something that I can take action on immediately. And then bottom of the funnel is relationship content. This is about 20% of what I post, questions, polls, direct invitations to engage. The goal with this content is to move relationships off platform. Now, most people post too much top of funnel content, lots of personal stories and hot takes, but no substance. They become LinkedIn famous with no real business results. And my friend, I know this because I've made this mistake on many platforms. Or a lot of people fall into this bucket, they post too much bottom of funnel content. Every post is just a sales pitch and they come across as desperate. This ratio that I've just explained, this helps you keep in the sweet spot. Now, here's the $50,000 lesson that I mentioned. I analyzed my posts that actually converted into business conversations versus my posts that just got likes. And there's one massive difference and it is reading level. My posts that drove revenue, they're a fourth grade reading level. My posts that got vanity engagement, but no business, they're a 12th grade reading level. Subconsciously or maybe consciously, I was writing to impress my peers instead of serving my prospects. I was just trying to look smart and sound smart on the platform. Now, here's a real example from my own drafts, you can clown me in the comments. But I was writing a post and the first version of this said, establishing a differentiated professional identity requires systematic cultivation of domain authority signals. Boo, that was me just trying to sound smart. That is 12th grade, that is from an actual draft. Now, the final version of this post went something like this. People don't hire the most qualified person, they hire the person they've heard of. Same idea here, but it's fourth grade and that post got me eight calls booked. Now lesson learned, now I run every post through an app called Hemingway before I publish and I make sure the reading level is fourth grade or lower every time. You can use Hemingway, it's a free website, use it, trust me on that one. Now part three is a conversion path and this is where most people completely drop the ball. You need a clear, simple path from attention to conversation. Somebody sees your content and then what happens next? For most people, the answer is nothing. They see the content, maybe they follow you and then they will forget you exist. Here's my conversion path, content leads to a lead magnet, a free guide, a framework, something valuable that requires an email. An email then leads to nurture, a sequence that builds trust over time. I personally do a five-day email course that delivers real value. And if you want to see it, you can find that link somewhere in the comments. Nurture then leads to conversation. By the time someone books a call with me, they already know me. They know how I think, they've consumed my content, they've read my emails. The sales call is at this point just basically a formality. So when I finally set this up, after that 11-month mistake, everything changed. Our first cohort of brick by brick is a coaching program that we run, we do about five cohorts a year, it's sold out in 24 hours. One LinkedIn post, one email to my list, over 300 people raised their hand for 15 spots, it was gone in a day. No ads, no webinar, no sales team, just content, email list and a clear path. That doesn't happen without a conversion path. And this right here, this really got me. I looked back at which posts actually drove revenue. Not engagement, but the post that actually drove revenue. And my highest revenue posts weren't viral. They actually averaged 3,000 to 5,000 impressions, which is on the lower end for me. One post with 3,200 impressions drove $45,000 in revenue. Why? Because it spoke directly to my ideal client. It demonstrated exactly how I think and it had a clear path to a conversation. Meanwhile, the Serena Williams post, which I mark it a lot had 8.1 million impressions and zero revenue. Now, the math is counterintuitive, but it's real. Strategic content to the right 3,000 people beats viral content to the wrong 3 million people. So now that you're still here, I guess you are just along for the ride, you're with me, you're like Casey I get it. Or your YouTube just kept playing my videos, whatever it is, I now need to bring this all together for you, right? So strategic positioning, I need you to be known for one specific thing. I went from person with impressive resume to LinkedIn, personal brand person for executives, that shift created my first $50,000 a month. I want you to start doing intent based content, create to demonstrate expertise, not just engagement. 20 to 30% authority, 60% value, 20% relationship, fourth grade reading level with every single post. And conversion path, I need you to create a clear path from content to lead magnet, to nurture to conversation. Capture relationships off platform. These three pieces work together like a flywheel, each one just reinforces the other. Once it's spinning, growth stops feeling so sporadic and random. And here's a real lesson here, you don't need to go viral. You don't need millions of impressions, you need the right people to see the right message at the right time. 3,000 impressions to the right audience beats 3 million to the wrong one and I have the receipts to prove it. Now, if you want to implement this system, I again put together all free guide with all my frameworks, everything about how I think about this. You can find that link below again. Why would I share all this stuff? Because there's enough out there for us to all win. You'll find that link somewhere here. It's free, no strings attached. Also, transparently, I also know the people, most of y'all that download these guides won't even implement it. But the ones that do, that actually download all this stuff and implement it, they will get results, so I keep putting this stuff together for the 1% of y'all. Please, if you got some value from this video, please subscribe, please comment, please throw a like on here. I need to show this data to my team to show them that it makes sense for us, for me, to keep investing time into putting out these videos. I love doing this, I love making these videos, but looking at the data, only 10% of y'all that watch these videos actually subscribe and that just doesn't help my case to my team. So please subscribe, like, comment, do all those things. It's going to help me continue to allocate more time to make some really good content for y'all. So with that, I'll see you in the next one.