Charles Tenot

CEO @lemlist & lempire. I share what I learn as the CEO of a profitable SaaS growing to $40M to $100M+. Follow me to learn from the journey.

I love Tech, Sales, Marketing and Leadership. 

I share my learnings and thinking on LinkedIn, don't hesitate to follow & interact.

COO / General Manager

Growing lempire from 20M$ to 100M$ while generating 35%+ EBITDA

lempire products: lemlist, lemwarm, Taplio, Tweet Hunter, lemcal - more to come

I have no idea what my kids' life will look like with all this AI. 
But one thing I'm sure of: they need to understand that you can build things that other people use.

So I started vibe coding apps with them.

Last week, we built a cookie spot rating app to find the best spots in Paris.

This weekend, we made a Harry Potter sorting hat quiz (the "Sorting Hat" test).

Each one took about 30 minutes. 
And they're better than most apps you'd find online for the same thing.

I don't know what jobs will exist in 10 years. 
I don't know what skills will matter most.

But kids who grow up thinking "I can build this" will be in a better place than kids who just think "I can use this."

PS: sorry the test is in French

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CEO @ lemlist & lempire

I just watched our PM build a complete feature in 2 hours.

No dev involved.

He used Claude Code to create a working mockup, test all the edge cases, then generated the PRD from the code.

This is how our entire Product team works now.

Here's the process:
→ They download the full codebase locally.
→ They use Claude Code with custom skills we built for coding best practices.
→ They vibe code their features.
→ Build the interface.
→ Test the flows.
→ Catch edge cases nobody thought of.
→ Then they use AI to generate the PRD from the working prototype.

What they deliver to Engineering:
→ A fully functional mockup that devs can test
→ A detailed PRD with user stories already mapped out

This reduces conception cycle by over 50%.

Better product decisions because they can interact with the actual feature.
Fewer bugs because edge cases are caught early.
Less confusion between Product and Tech.

Most Product teams are still writing specs and hoping devs understand.
We're shipping working prototypes before the first planning meeting.

This is what all Product teams will do in the future.

Curious to hear from other Product teams: how are you using AI in your process?

Help needed: if you are looking for a Senior Finance profile, my life partner, Violaine, is available now.

After spending 3 years building a network of kindergarten for children with neuro developmental disorders, she is now available for something new.

Why I recommend her, even though I'm clearly biased:

→ Worked with top Private Equity firms globally
Always recommended afterwards

→ Hybrid experience with Senior Finance roles (M&A, Reporting) and 3 years of entrepreneurship where she ran notably finance for their 50 people business.
She can be both strategic & hands-on, she's not the "ivory tower" CFO.

 → Amazing analytical skills, she notably worked on complex problems in manufacturing, much more complex than SaaS.

 → Great business sense, easy-going, high work ethics

What she's looking for:
→ CFO or Finance Director-level
→ Interim or part-time
→ Open to full time with flexible work location
→ Start date from March 9th

Don't hesitate to like or comment to help me get more reach, thanks a lot 🙏

→ Phone: +33 6 69 25 57 26
→ Email: vsaintromas@gmail.com

As a CEO, I'm almost never a decision maker, yet very few salespeople understand this.

I still get cold called, emailed, 10x per day.

But even when the approach is solid, the best I can do is forward it to someone on my team. 

And most of the time, I won't even do this. 
Just because I don't want to make my team think I have evaluated the solution and I recommend it, and ultimately I'm not the one who makes decisions for teams.

Teams make their own decisions.

The CEO role is about creating alignment, building the best team, and challenge them when needed. 

But I'm not the one who will say "we should buy this."

If your outbound strategy is targeting CEOs, it probably works up to a certain point. 
But past 100 employees, it might not be the best approach, unless you are actually selling to CEOs, but I can count on my hand the number of things that I decide to buy myself.

The person who feels the pain, evaluates the tools, and makes the call is almost never the CEO.  It's the C-Level, the VP or Head Of. 

My advice: don't waste your time on the wrong target.
Map your buying process, find the person who feels the pain, evaluates the options, and owns the budget.
Then spend your time preparing a great outreach for them.

Really happy to see lemlist ranked #1 software in France on G2.

Not because of the ranking itself but because of what it took to get here.

The last few months have been the strongest innovation pace we've ever had. 

And all of it comes from listening to our 20,000+ customers every single day.

Sales is still one of the hardest jobs in most companies. 
No product has made it easy yet. Including ours.

But that's exactly why we keep building.
Let's keep going.

Big up to the team ❤️

I read Cognism "Top 21 GTM Tools" blog post.

Clay wasn't in it. 
lemlist wasn't in it. 
Apollo wasn't in it. 
Salesloft wasn't in it. 
Outreach wasn't in it.
Gong wasn't in it.

The biggest names in GTM. 

All missing from a "top GTM tools" list.

That's not an accident.

When a company publishes a "best tools" list, they're not trying to help you. 

They're running a content play.

The rules are simple: 
→ Include tools that don't compete with you 
→ Include tools that make you look good by association 
→ Never mention the ones that could actually take your customers

So here's the irony.

If you're ON a competitor's "top tools" list, it means they don't see you as a threat.

If you're NOT on it, it means you're the one they're worried about.

Next time you read a "best tools" listicle, don't look at who's on it.
Look at who's missing. ✌️

Yesterday we ran a webinar about how ElevenLabs runs Go-To-Market at 330M$ ARR. 

Over 1,500 people registered. If you missed it and want the recording just drop a comment and I'll DM it.

Here's my human summary of what Jonathan Chemouny shared after 1 year there.

About ElevenLabs GTM:

→ 330M ARR, +300M in 2 years. Just valued at 11B.
→ Only 400 people. Close to 1M ARR per employee.
→ GTM team is about 100 people.
→ Org is SDR + AE but they call everyone "GTM." 
Limited titles, limited hierarchy.
→ They maximize distributed ownership per country and region. 
They hire founder-like profiles who run their region like CEOs.
→ Top performers come from Finance, even Product backgrounds (👋 Oscar Lanzendorf)
→ Their sales close an average of 20X their OTE 
(source: Carles Reina podcast at 20VC, link in comment)
→ They grew outbound from 5% to 46% of revenue in one year. 
Outbound lets them better target ideal customers and segments.
→ Average deal size ranges from 30K/year to millions for Enterprise.
→ Outbound sales cycle is slightly longer than inbound but average deal size is higher.
→ They receive thousands of inbound leads daily and built an AI agent that answers prospects 24/7.
→ Everyone does outbound, even if you're hired as a potential GM-level.

What enables their incredible success:
→ Very high hiring bar. 4 interviews, harsh panels.
→ They hire for smarts, not experience. 
They don't want people who come with playbooks. 
They want people who can build playbooks.
→ They use AI a lot but will never run things 100% AI. 
Humans think of a creative way to approach an account and craft the message. AI handles things like voice notes or AI-generated video.
→ They meet prospects and customers in-person a lot. 
Jon believes humans should do things AI can't, like building real relationships.
→ LinkedIn and WhatsApp are their primary outbound channels. Quality before quantity.
→ They don't monitor activity metrics. 
They track the number of meetings done with prospects.

And of course, they have an insanely strong product.

I hope you find this valuable. 

If you have a company or GTM person we should invite next, don't hesitate to share.

---

Bonus: we created an agent that was fed on Jon's knowledge and our webinar prep document, I'll share the link with the recording.

cc thanks Rémi Kokabi, Domitille de Saint-Exupéry Rafael Ornia Mitchell

This guy has been in Sales for 20+ years. He helped build Intercom, Lattice, and now ElevenLabs. 

Next week, he'll be sharing his tactics to book meetings in 2026, and how ElevenLabs has been growing by +300M$ ARR in 2 years.

Here are few things I can tell you as a teaser:

→ How they increased the share of outbound from 5% to 30% in 12 months, and how their around 100 reps use lemlist

→ ElevenLabs is hiring "GTM" people. No title, no hierarchy, background mostly from VC or former founders

→ They give a lot of ownership to their sales team, who act almost as local CEOs working in pairs with Product to adapt to local markets

→ They mostly rely on full-cycle Sales handling both Inbound & Outbound. 
He'll explain why they decided not to specialize

→ Jon still does a lot of outbound himself, he built a few very creative tactics notably using AI in his messages. He will share a full breakdown of those that work best

This is certainly the most exciting Webinar we've run in months for anyone on a Sales team, so don't tell me you can't find 45 mins to get all these learnings. 

Link in the comments

And big thanks Jonathan Chemouny for unpacking so much value 🙏
cc Stan Massueras 💙

Intercom

Lattice

ElevenLabs

lemlist

GTM Europe at ElevenLabs

GTM Europe @ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs just closed a $500M round at an $11B valuation. 

They went from $0 to $330M ARR in 3 years (this number will be outdated tomorrow).

Next week, Jonathan, GTM @ElevenLabs is opening the playbook with me.

Here's what makes their approach different.

→ While most companies shifted to async everything, Jonathan gives his SDRs a travel budget to meet prospects in person.

→ While most companies hire junior SDRs to book meetings, he hires ex-AEs to do value selling.

→ While most companies stick to email and LinkedIn, his team uses WhatsApp and AI voice notes to stand out.

→ And while most companies run on gut feeling, Jonathan has an obsessive A/B testing culture where every conviction is forged on the field.

This session is going to be a gold mine on how to build efficient GTM motions in 2026.  
How often can you learn from a real systems that took a company from zero to $330M ARR, and scaled outbound from 5% to 30% of closed deals?

We'll break down:
→ How SDRs evolved from meeting bookers to revenue drivers
→ The inbound vs outbound split and why it matters
→ The key metrics Jonathan tracks daily and how he coaches his team
→ How they use their own product to increase meeting rates
→ Why context beats static lists every time
→ and of course, how they are using lemlist 😈

This is for growth leaders, sales ops, SDR managers, and founders who want to scale revenue the right way.

A 45-minute interactive session with the opportunity to ask live questions directly.
Plus the actual templates and playbooks.

---
I'm excited about this one because it's rare to get this level of access to a company moving this fast.

February 18th.
9 AM PT / 6 AM CET

Link to register in comments.

You can beat 99% of companies by doing a few things well:

→ Set one clear vision and don't change it every 3 months 
→ Say "no" to everything that doesn't contribute to the strategy 
→ Remove low performers after weeks, not years 
→ Use your own product 
→ Talk to customers 
→ Keep reporting light 
→ Lead every meeting from the customer's standpoint

It looks simple written down like this.

But most companies don't have an execution problem. 
They just keep adding layers, processes, and distractions on top of it.

The companies that win aren't doing anything secret. 
They're just not getting in their own way.

I asked someone at ElevenLabs what makes their culture different. 
Their answer helped me understand how they went from 30M to 330M ARR in less than 2 years.

Yanek Brinkmann, one of their GTM team, told me:

"It's the closest you can get to doing your own business while still being in a job."

I've always believed that someone who works like they're running their own business has 10X more impact than someone who's just doing their job.

The difference is ownership. Real accountability. 

The kind you only get from people who actually care.

You'll get more from someone less experienced with insane grit than from someone senior who's just collecting a paycheck.

ElevenLabs understood this. 

And they still operate like that at 400 people.

Imagine 100 GTM people with a founder mindset.
→ Clear ownership on their region. 
→ Working directly with Product to adapt when needed. 
→ Flat org. No titles.

Their reps close 20X their OTE. The industry average struggles to hit 5X.

But this only works if you actually distribute ownership and responsibility. 
Not just talk about it.

I'm convinced this is how world-class companies are built now. 
And they will crush big groups with pyramidal organizations.

➡️ Later today, we're sharing more about ElevenLabs's playbook with Jonathan Chemouny. 

Already 1,350 people registered. You can still take your spot, it's free value.
No recording. We want people live and contributing.

Link in comment.

I have data-backed proof that spray & pray doesn't work.

It comes from 350M+ emails and 4.5M LinkedIn messages sent with lemlist over the past months.

This chart represents our 20,000+ customers.

From pre-revenue founders to companies with 300M$+ in ARR and 100+ sales reps.

How to read it:
→ Horizontal axis: our 10 deciles of customers, from the 10% with the worst results to the 10% with the best
→ Each bar: the volume of messages sent
→ Vertical axis (line): the average reply rate

What we see:
There's a clear negative correlation between volume and reply rate.
The fewer messages teams send, the higher their reply rate.

In detail:
→ The first group shows that the bottom 10% aren't sending enough messages, or just lack adoption. They'll probably churn unless they use lemcoach.
→ Then across the other 9 deciles, each one has lower volume and a higher reply rate than the previous one.

If this doesn't show you that it's better to do less but better, I don't know what will.

Spoiler: it's not the spray & pray "AI SDR Agent" that will solve this.

Slack, Figma, Notion, Dropbox, Datadog. They all started PLG. 
None of them stayed PLG. Here's why:

PLG is great for small customers. 

Low CAC, high scalability, self-serve magic. 

But as your product improves, you start attracting bigger companies. 
And enterprise buyers don't convert on PLG products. 
They need help. They need sales.

This is where PLG + Sales-Assisted comes in. 

And I'm convinced it's the ultimate state for SaaS:
→ PLG for small customers. Low CAC, fully self-serve, scales beautifully.
→ Sales-assisted for larger customers. You can segment by geo, industry, company size and organize your team around it.

This combination maximizes conversion across every customer segment.

Since we added a sales motion at lemlist, our growth has never been stronger. 

We grew +70% last year. PLG + Sales-Assisted together.

But here's the hard part:

In PLG, everything is streamlined: credit card payment, automated provisioning and payment retries.

But when sales gets involved, you start dealing with:
→ Custom quotes
→ Custom terms and legal discussions
→ Discounts and approval workflows
→ Custom billing terms and payment methods

You go from a scalable model to a non-scalable model overnight. 

And that's where most companies struggle.

The good news is that with the right tech, you can now build scalable systems even for sales-assisted motions.

On March 11, I'm co-hosting an event in Paris with Lucas Bédout (CEO at Hyperline) and the Business Operations Network to dig into exactly this. 

How to build a hybrid revenue engine that scales.

Free for BON members. 

Link to register in comments.

cc Victoria Dalleau 🙏

Nothing prevents you from sending 10 follow-ups. 
And yes, you'll get more replies.  But it's doing invisible harm to your outreach.

If you look at reply rates by number of follow-ups, the pattern is clear. 
Each follow-up increases your chance of getting a reply. Even a little.

But the incremental gain drops fast. 
After 4 follow-ups, you're barely moving the needle.

And here's what most people miss.

Every extra follow-up increases the chance your leads mark you as spam. 

Not by replying. 
By hitting that little spam button because they're annoyed.

When that happens, it hits your domain and email reputation. 
Your emails start landing in spam more often. 
Not just for that lead. For everyone.

This is the classic trap where short-term gains quietly destroy long-term results.

More follow-ups today = Fewer emails delivered tomorrow.

I have been a CRO with 150+ people and I can tell you that sales coaching is broken because of 3 things:

1/ Managers are never able to see more than 10% of calls from their reps.

2/ Managers are biased, like any human, and I have seen decent performers be treated as low performers because of a poor fit with their manager.

3/ Managers have different methods and preferences, which creates lack of consistency across sales orgs about what good looks like.

And this creates massive frustration.

Reps lose trust in leadership.

Leaders make bad decisions about who to promote or fire.

Good people leave.

And this leads to revenue loss and drop in talent density.

But today, AI can help fixing this.

At lemlist, we now record and transcript all our calls.

Every single one gets evaluated against the same criteria.

We use the SPICED methodology, so AI automatically evaluates all qualification criteria. 

All with Claap.

Things like: Did they surface the impact of the problem? Did they qualify budget properly? Did they ask about decision makers?

Every rep gets a score for each call across all these criteria, linked to actual moments in their calls they can review.

This allows us to significantly improve fairness and consistency.

Feedback is now trusted way more than before.

Because it's based on 100% of their work, not a random sample.

And managers can finally coach with data instead of gut feeling.

AI isn't replacing sales managers. It's making them way more effective.

Sales training just got an upgrade.

Claap

6 examples why short-term growth almost always comes at the expense of long-term growth:

→ Hiring the least worst candidate because you need someone now vs. waiting for the best even if it takes 6 more months. 
Impact compounds. An A-player generates 100X more value than a B-player.

→ Sending 10 follow-ups to squeeze out more replies vs. stopping at 4. 
Each extra follow-up barely moves the needle but increases spam reports. 
Your domain reputation takes the hit and deliverability drops for everyone.

→ Blasting your entire TAM in one month to hit pipeline targets vs. working accounts in waves. 
You get a short spike, then you've burned your brand with every account.

→ Cutting product investment to boost short-term margins or hire more Sales. Customers don't leave immediately. 
They leave 12 months later when a competitor ships what you didn't.

→ Discounting to close a deal before quarter end vs. holding your price. 
You hit this quarter's number, but you've trained the buyer to expect discounts. Next renewal, they push harder. 
They talk to their friends. 
And your average deal size erodes across the whole pipeline.

→ Not promoting a great rep with manager potential because they're bringing in short-term revenue. 
They'll leave 6 months later. And you'll end up hiring someone less good.

Every one of these looks like the right call in the moment. The cost just shows up later.

That said, there are moments where you need to move fast and accept some debt. 

The interesting part is knowing when you're making a conscious trade-off vs. when you're just not seeing the long-term cost.

As a CEO, when people agree with me too easily, I don't take it as a compliment. I take it as something to question.

Things I don't expect from people in the team:

→ Telling I'm right
→ Liking my LinkedIn posts
→ Being overly positive on my ideas and initiatives
→ Nodding in meetings
→ Sugarcoating bad news
→ Using my notes / inputs as is without re-working them
... and certainly not telling me I'm smart, or giving any compliment

Here's what I actually value:
→ Saying what you think
→ Thinking on your own before defaulting to the group
→ Coming to me when you disagree or don't understand, especially when it's uncomfortable
→ Bringing problems early and as they are
→ Having a point of view and defending it

I recently listened to a podcast from an experienced CEO who said his biggest mistake was surrounding himself with people who gave him compliments but weren't truly competent at their jobs.

The best people I've worked with were never those who constantly agreed with me, they were the one who made me change my mind.

This week, a bot fixed its first production bug at lemlist. 

Here's what happened:

A user double-clicked a delete button. That sent two requests at the same time.  The API returned a 409 conflict error.

Our bot detected it in the logs, investigated the root cause, traced the code path, wrote the fix, and submitted a pull request with the right reviewers assigned.

Total human involvement: reviewing and merging the PR.

In the meantime, we also had 3 features shipped to production by... Product Managers.

A year ago, we never thought this would happen so fast.

I was talking to a friend, a developer with 20+ years of experience.
He told me his workflow has completely changed.

Before, he spent most of his time in "flow." Going from one coding step to the next.
Now, he spends more time thinking about the overall architecture. 
Then he works with AI to develop the different parts. Then he reviews the code. Makes sure the logic is right.


And yet, we're still hiring developers.

Because our bet is that the job isn't disappearing. It's shifting. 
And good developers will always be a scarce resource required to build great products.

You could argue AI will improve so fast it won't need developers at all.

My gut says you'll always need people who understand systems deeply enough to work with AI.

But we'll see. What's your take?

Sending a LinkedIn message in a sequence increases email reply rate by 38%. 
And no, that's not a typo. I'm talking about email replies. 

LinkedIn reply rates are averaging 15%, vs. 1-3% for emails (up to 15X higher)

But here's what we found across 35M leads:

When you add LinkedIn steps to an email sequence, your emails start getting more replies too.

The prospect sees your name on LinkedIn. 
Maybe they check your profile.
Maybe they read your message.

Then your email lands, and you're not a stranger anymore.

That familiarity is worth +38% on your email reply rate.
This data is coming from 35M leads that we analyzed at lemlist.

This is pure facts that multi-channel is the right way to do outbound today, and why we build lemlist to include as many channels as possible.

---

Most outbound teams find out about deliverability issues weeks too late. 

By then, the damage is done, your pipeline is already melting.

Then what I call the "circle of short pipeline" starts:
→ Reps have fewer deals
→ They desperately want to close the ones that are open
→ They start looking desperate
→ Prospects feel it
→ They ghost you
→ You lose deals you could have won
→ CRM reason: "no decision"

This is why fixing deliverability issues fast is critical.

But the problem is getting visibility on what's actually happening. 

Deliverability depends on multiple factors: technical setup, domain and email reputation, copy, data quality, bounce rates, and more.

This is why we just shipped the Deliverability Hub in lemlist.

One place to see everything:
→ Delivered vs. spam for warm-up emails
→ Delivered vs. bounced for outreach emails
→ Deliverability scores by mailbox and domain
→ Reputation issues spotted early, before they tank your results
→ Filters by timeframe, mailbox, and provider

No more guessing. No more juggling. 
Everything is in one place.

We already have great feedbacks about it, kudos to the team 🔥

Get leads, not likes | GM @ Taplio | Founder @ Anser | ex @Ledger | Relentlessly building in Marketing and Tech

I’ve spent over 20 years building and scaling teams across product, growth, tech and operations.

Today, I lead the Social Selling Platforms BU at lemlist (Taplio and Tweet Hunter), where I focus on turning startup momentum into repeatable, scalable systems.

Over the years, I’ve helped founders structure leadership teams, create alignment between product and growth, and scale operations without killing velocity.

I occasionally advise early-stage companies making that leap from startup to scaleup—particularly when growth outpaces structure.

If you’re building a fast-growing company and need perspective on scaling people, process, or focus, feel free to reach out.

Patrice Orenes-Lerma

Stop asking employees to “post on LinkedIn”.

It never works.

They’re busy.
They don’t know what to say.
And the moment you push too hard, it feels fake.

So here’s a better way:

Launch employee advocacy in 30 days.

With 3 to 5 employees.

And without asking for anyone’s LinkedIn password.

The goal is simple:

Stop using the company page as a megaphone.

Start using employees as the distribution engine.

This guide breaks it down into 4 phases:

Days 1 to 7
Pick 3 to 5 employees and set a secure ghostwriting workflow.

Days 8 to 14
Build a month of content that sounds like them, without stealing their time.

Days 15 to 21
Go live and win distribution with a daily 10 minute engagement routine.

Days 22 to 30
Double down on what works, repurpose winners, and scale to more employees.

If you’re stuck at “we should do employee advocacy” but it never ships...

This is the playbook.

Want the guide?

Comment “launchpad” and I’ll send it.

General Manager @ Taplio / Tweet Hunter | Helping startups scale into structured, high-performing organizations

Most companies treat LinkedIn like a loudspeaker.

Blast announcements.
Hope for reach.
Wonder why it's dead on arrival.

Here's the problem: nobody cares what a brand says. 

People care what people say.

But forcing employees to post won't fix it.
They're not marketers. They have better things to do.
Push too hard, and it backfires. Feels forced, turns fake, nobody wins.

So, skip the ask. Build a small squad. Pick a few who actually want in. Give them real support, not a pile of "brand guidelines."

Set up ghostwriting that feels like them, not HR. Make content creation fast, painless, invisible. No passwords. No policing.

Let them own their voice. Run a tight, simple process, batch what works, ditch what doesn't. Scale only after it clicks.

The result: humans speak, people listen, reach grows.

Brands don't go viral. People do.

🤫 comment "secret" and I'll send you the secret 30 day employee advicacy launchpad everyone is looking for

No alternative text description for this image

Nobody cares about your vision.

Buyers want to know what works. 

Candidates want to see who actually ships. 
Investors, too. 

They’re tired of strategy posts from the top floor.

The real influence sits closer to the product. 
The engineer who killed a nasty bug in the middle of the night. 
The support lead who fixed a customer’s day. 
The marketer who actually got a campaign to convert.

This is what builds trust now: real people, real stories, zero spin.

If your brand is still built around your CEO’s "insights", you're running an outdated playbook. 

The audience moved on. 
They want proof, not polish.

Companies that win will put the spotlight on the team. 
Let them share wins, failures, fixes. 
No approval chains. 
No ghostwriting. 
No delay.

You want credibility? 

Hand the mic to the people on the front lines and get out of the way.

The best marketing in 2026 comes from the people who actually do the work.

Founders who still think it’s about them are already irrelevant.

P.S.: as an illustration, here is a picture of a team that wins, fails, and fixes.

This week I spoke with a user who made $500k from LinkedIn with 2 000 followers.
The method is stupidly simple.

No audience.
No virality.
No personal brand.

This works for one reason.

He writes for one buyer.

A B2B founder selling a high-ticket service.
Long sales cycle.
Quiet buyers.

Every post follows the same rules.

One post.
One person.
One problem.

No teaching.
No frameworks.
No thought leadership.

Just situations the buyer already lives.

Before publishing, there's only one question:
Would this person want to talk to me after reading this?

If not, it doesn't go out.

Most posts get 10–15 likes.

That’s the signal.

The right people don't engage.
They save.
They come back weeks later.

Then they DM.

To put this in place and stay consistent, he used the Stupidly Simple Content System.

That’s how $500k happens with 2k followers.

Comment "stupid" and I'll send you the Stupidly Simple Content System !

P.S.: Bonus, a picture of me because I can't wait to be on the slopes

Most employee advocacy programs fail within 6 months.

Not because employees don't want to participate.

But because leadership skips one critical step.

I've seen it happen dozens of times in companies with 200-2000 employees:

→ They launch with excitement
→ Get 40% participation in week one
→ Drop to 5% by month three
→ Declare "our people just aren't into LinkedIn"

The real problem?

No recognition system.

Here's what actually works to keep employees engaged:

1. Public shoutouts in team meetings
(Not just metrics - celebrate the PERSON)

2. Leadership commenting first
(If the CEO doesn't engage, why should anyone else?)

3. Content creation support
(Most employees want to post but don't know HOW)

4. Gamification with meaning
(Leaderboards work. But tie rewards to company values)

5. Remove the fear factor
(Create clear guidelines so people feel SAFE posting)

The companies winning at employee-generated content?

They treat it like culture-building.

Not a marketing campaign.

Your employees are your most authentic voices.

But authenticity needs to feel rewarded, not required.

♻️ Repost if this resonates
💬 What's stopped you from posting about your company?

Everyone says they want to win on LinkedIn.

Almost nobody sticks around long enough for anyone to notice.

Not because they're lazy. Not because LinkedIn is stacked against them.

They just build these over-complicated systems that collapse the second real work or life gets in the way.

Week one, they're possessed. 
Posting every day. 
Obsessing over what time works best. Chasing some mythical algorithm secret that lives in a podcast from 2021.

Week two, reality hits. Work gets busy. Ideas disappear. Suddenly, LinkedIn feels like another job with no upside.

By week three, they're ghosts.

Here's the truth nobody wants to admit.

Discipline isn't the problem. Complexity is.

If your system takes more than five minutes to explain, it's not a system. It's a ticking time bomb.

I've watched dozens of smart, ambitious people repeat this pattern. They try to outsmart LinkedIn. They act like it's a hackathon, not a habit.

All the clever tricks in the world don't matter if you can't stick with it.

The survivors? The ones who actually get the compound benefits?

Their process is deadly boring.

Three types of posts. One slot in the diary. Dump a pile of ideas in a simple doc. Five minutes to scan notifications, respond, log out.

No dashboards. No hacks. No ritual sacrifices to the gods of engagement.

If your process makes you feel clever, it's doomed.

If your process is boring and predictable, you might just stick with it long enough for your name to mean something.

Most people confuse activity with impact. They burn out chasing vanity metrics, then disappear before the real results even show up.

LinkedIn rewards the people who outlast the noise.

Simple always wins.

If you want to actually be remembered, cut the drama and get boring.

Still convinced your fifteen step colour-coded content planner will make you famous? Good luck.

Want to actually get results?

Start showing up.

Keep it simple.

Comment "simple" and I'll give you a system that actually works, for free !

Everyone thinks the answer is to just post more.

It isn't.

If you want LinkedIn to actually move numbers, stop treating it like a dumping ground for content.

Posting and hoping is not a distribution strategy.

Most companies crank out updates, blogs, or "insights" and wonder why nobody bites.

Here's the brutal truth: nobody cares about your fifth product update this week.

You want a real distribution channel? Make your people part of the engine.

- If your employees aren't engaged, LinkedIn is just noise
- If your leaders never comment, you're invisible
- If your team never amplifies, your content dies on arrival

You don't need fancier graphics or an AI to write punchier posts.

You need buy-in.
You need repeatable systems.
You need actual coordination.

Distribution happens when everyone rows the same direction.

I've seen teams with average content crush metrics, because their people show up, comment, share, and actually talk to prospects in the open.

I've seen "content machines" wither because every post is a solo act.

It's not about more content.
It's about more company.

Want LinkedIn to work for you?
Start by getting five coworkers to comment on your next post.
Watch what happens.

Try it.
Report back.
Tag the silent lurkers who owe you a comment. 

Let's see if your "distribution" is real or just a pipe dream.

Your employee advocacy program is failing.

Not because employees do not care.

It is because you turned it into a personal branding contest.

Most companies kick off advocacy with a pep talk, a Canva template, and some big promises.

A month later, the excitement is gone. Nobody shares. Nobody engages. Nobody remembers why they signed up.

Here is why.

You are asking employees to act like LinkedIn influencers.
But they do not want that.
They want to do their jobs, get credit for good work, and actually see results.

If your advocacy playbook is just personal storytelling and self promotion, expect crickets.

Flip the script.

Make advocacy about creating business impact, not chasing personal fame.

Start simple:
- Connect every post to an actual business goal. Pipeline. Hiring. Retention. Not just "brand awareness."
- Give employees content they can use in real conversations. Customer wins, industry shifts, product news they can drop in client meetings.
- Make it dead simple. Predrafted posts, talking points, zero-friction approvals. The less effort, the better.

And the big one: 
Show results. Fast.

If an employee's post brings in a lead, lands a hire, or moves a deal, share it. Celebrate wins as a team. Show the connection between effort and impact.

People stick around when they see their work matters.

If you want advocacy to work, stop pushing personal branding.

Build a system for real business value.

What is the most common advocacy fail you have seen? Drop it below.

Most people still treat exec posts like gospel.

Hot takes from the top. Strategy memos dressed up as insights.

But nobody buys it anymore. Not candidates, not customers, not even other execs.

People want blood and sweat. Not another CEO rant.

Show me the engineer who broke production at 2 AM and shipped the fix before sunrise.

Show me the marketer who admits which campaign flopped and which one actually made money.

Show me the sales rep who rewrote their own script after losing a deal.

The trust shift is brutal. Authority isn't handed down from the corner office. It's earned in the comments, in the details, from the people doing the work.

Companies still stuck on leadership branding are sleepwalking into irrelevance.

The loudest, most credible voice in your org is never the CEO. It's the team that knows where the bodies are buried.

You want attention in 2026? It won't come from another executive LinkedIn post.

It comes from proof, not polish.

Do you want to start having your employees posting and not just liking ? 

Comment "playbook" and I'll share with you a free 30 day playbook to launch your employee advocacy program!

You're measuring employee advocacy success by "number of posts".

That's like measuring a restaurant by how many plates they own.

Looks busy. Means nothing.

Volume is the easiest metric to game, and the least likely to move the needle.

Most teams crank out content, log the numbers, then wonder why nothing changes.

It doesn't matter if the company LinkedIn Slack channel is full of daily copy-paste links. If nobody cares, you're just filling empty plates.

Real advocacy leaves a mark.

Not everyone needs to post. Not every post needs to go viral.

But every time someone shares, you should ask:

Did this start a real conversation?
Did anyone outside the company notice?
Did it make someone think, reply, or want to learn more?
Is the employee proud to have their name on it?

Skip the vanity metrics.

Track what matters: reach, engagement, replies, questions, DMs, sentiment.

If you're still counting posts, you're not measuring advocacy.

You're counting plates in the kitchen while customers walk out the door.

Raise your standards or stay irrelevant.

If you use your sales brochure as the base for LinkedIn posts, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

Not because the offer is bad.

Because the format is wrong.

A sales brochure is made to convince.
A LinkedIn post is made to earn attention.

A brochure starts with:
What we do
How we do it
Why we’re different

A good post starts with:
A situation
A mistake
A sharp opinion
A story people recognize

That’s why brochure-based posts flop.

They feel like a pitch from the first line.

They’re full of words that sound nice but say nothing:
-> Seamless
-> End-to-end
-> Best-in-class
-> Game-changing

On a website, that’s fine.

On LinkedIn, those words trigger one reaction:
Scroll.

It gets worse when you run the brochure through an AI writing tool.

Because AI doesn’t create a point of view.
It amplifies the input.

So it takes generic copy and makes it:
- More polished
- More corporate
- More bland

Which makes the post even easier to ignore.

The fix is simple.

Don’t start from the brochure.

Start from raw material:
-> A real problem you see every week
-> A mistake customers keep making
-> A counterintuitive lesson
-> A moment from a call
-> A belief you’re willing to defend

Then turn that into one idea.

If the post could be copy-pasted onto your homepage, it’s not a LinkedIn post.

It’s a brochure with line breaks.

Struggling to find a method that works for your content creation? Comment "playbook" and I'll share the simplest, faster content system.

taplio

The Battle

Charles Tenot

Patrice Orenes-Lerma

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Performance ScoreCharles Tenot's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScorePatrice Orenes-Lerma's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Charles Tenot

Patrice Orenes-Lerma

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Charles Tenot's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScorePatrice Orenes-Lerma's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreCharles Tenot's LinkedIn Performance