People person from a small town. Working hard to better myself everyday and will take on every project I have time for.

Chris Cunningham

Head of Marketing: I'm fixing our attribution by asking customers how they found us.
CEO: No you're not. That's not scalable..

Head of Marketing: Neither is last click attribution... Dark social is 70% of our current pipeline and we're pretending it doesn't exist.

CEO: What are you on about... what's dark social?

Head of Marketing: Every untrackable share that actually drives decisions. Like screenshots shared in Slack, Discord or a text between two VPs.

CEO: We can't measure that... and we can't optimize what we can't measure.

Head of Marketing: We can't measure it because our attribution model is broken. Our tools only tell us "what did they click?". Instead we should just ask THEM "how did you actually find us?"

CEO: And people will just... tell us?

Head of Marketing: They already are. I added one question to our onboarding calls: "Walk me through how you discovered us."

Turns out our biggest deal this month came from a Reddit thread that got screenshot, shared in a private Discord, then forwarded to their team Slack.

CEO: Our attribution says "direct traffic."

Head of Marketing: Exactly my point.

CEO: The board wants dashboards.

Head of Marketing: The board wants revenue. I can show them a spreadsheet of "how we actually found you" from every customer. That's real attribution.

CEO: How do we scale this?

Head of Marketing: One question in every sales call that gets added to a field in the CRM. Actual insights that marketing can work off of.

CEO: If this doesn't work...

Head of Marketing: It's already working. We stopped tracking last-click nonsense and started listening. Turns out customers will tell you the truth if you just ask.

PS - Dark social drives more B2B pipeline than any channel you're tracking.

Thoughts?

I'm Chris Cunningham - I run social media at ClickUp.

Follow me for more actionable marketing tips & tricks.

Chris  Cunningham

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #saas, #startup, #branding, #marketing, and #influencermarketing

Founding Member ClickUp / Marketing

Michelle Strom

When ClickUp launched, nobody wanted us. I was our first sales rep and nobody cared what I had to say. So I set a rule for myself...go for 50 no's before I quit.

I made call after call. Most people hung up, while others laughed. A few were polite but not interested.

Then I closed my first deal & that feeling was so sweet I'll never forget it.

I set the counter back to zero & went for 50 more no's.

But I never hit 50 again. I closed another one, then another, and the momentum built from there.

I took a lot of those early lessons from sales & still apply them to content/social media today.

I see the same patterns with content. Founders post 3 times, get no traction, and quit. They never make it to their first win because they aren't expecting all the "no's" or failed posts.

But content is the same game as sales. You're going to hear no most of the time and the algorithm will ignore you. Your first 20 posts will probably flop. Maybe even your first 100 posts.

That's not failure though...that's the process.

Set a number. 50 posts. 100 posts. Whatever keeps you going long enough to see what works.

Because the first win will feel so sweet that you'll want to keep going. You'll start to learn what your audience responds to. You'll build momentum, and eventually you'll stop guessing.

But you have to make it to that first win. Most people quit before post 15.

Thoughts?

It's Monday. Which means we're going to pitch 20 content ideas to create this week. Only 8 will survive. Here's exactly how it works (steal this framework):

I show up with 3 ideas that I usually find from tweets that went viral or something bizarre I saw over the weekend.

Like last week I saw a tweet asking "what would you do if the FBI showed up and you had 30 seconds to hide a thumb drive?" The replies were unhinged. That became a video.

Luke shows up with 3. Adam shows up with 3. Our guest writer - usually some comedian from the LA scene - shows up with 3-4 more.

We pitch them all, and then we vote blind. No one knows whose idea is whose.

The winners are whatever gets the most votes - pure democracy.

After we pick our 8-10 winners, I sort them into what I call the ABCD formula:

A = Stuff we know crushes. Like HR guys dancing. We'll remake 2-3 of these.
B = Concepts that worked elsewhere that we can steal and make our own.
C = Whatever trend is happening. Severance drops? We're making a Severance parody.
D = Complete wild card. Something so weird it might bomb or might get 100 million views.

By noon, we know exactly what we're shooting Thursday.

Tuesday we'll figure out props and locations.
Thursday we shoot all day.
Friday I color-code everything based on performance.

This system has generated over 1,000 videos & we've hit 200+ million monthly impressions with this strategy.

All because every Monday, a room full of comedians and actors who barely understand project management software vote on what makes them laugh.

Your content strategy probably took months to develop.

Ours takes 2 hours every Monday (and adapts to trends in real time).

Head of Marketing: We're done with the brand voice guide.
CEO: The 47-page document we spent $30K on? No way..
Head of Marketing: That's the one.

CEO: Why? It ensures consistency.

Head of Marketing: It ensures we sound like every other SaaS company in existence. I ran an experiment. Took our last 10 posts and 10 from our competitor. Removed logos. Our team couldn't tell the difference.

CEO: That's why we need guidelines.

Head of Marketing: Our customers don't want guidelines. They want to know who we actually are. I looked at every piece of feedback from last quarter. The word "generic" appeared 23 times.

CEO: So what's your plan?

Head of Marketing: Let the team sound like humans. Sarah in product has a sarcastic sense of humor. Let her write like that. Tom in sales tells incredible stories. Let him tell them.

CEO: We'll sound inconsistent. The brand team will hate this.

Head of Marketing: The brand team already agrees. They told me they're tired of writing "synergy" and "leverage" when they'd rather just say what we actually do.

CEO: Legal will have a field day.

Head of Marketing: Legal approved our last 5 posts that said "our competitors suck at onboarding." Got more positive replies than anything we've published in 6 months.

CEO: This could backfire.

Head of Marketing: You know what's backfiring? Our NPS dropped 12 points. Customers said we "lost our personality." We used to be scrappy. Now we sound like IBM.

CEO: One quarter.

Head of Marketing: When our engagement rate triples and customers start saying "this actually sounds like you guys," I want to burn that brand guide.

CEO: Deal.

P.S. - Nobody ever bought software because it "leveraged synergies." Stop using corporate jargon, and start telling stories that are actually authentic.

I'm Chris Cunningham - I run social media at ClickUp.

Follow me for marketing that sounds like it was written by a human.

I analyzed our last 1,000 videos at ClickUp. Here are 7 things that actually move the needle on our social media content:
(1) Instagram Trial Reels

Trial Reels are free A/B testing that nobody uses to test 3-5 different hooks. They don't show on your feed, so you can pick the winner for your "real" post. We tested 3 hooks - one got 13k views, another got 1M. That's a 77x difference.

(2) Actors cost less than your agency retainer

LA actors: $60-80k/year. They show up on time, take direction, and don't have ego. The social media gurus recycle the same 5 hooks everyone uses.

(3) Your social media "best practices" are why you're failing

I was told to always show the product, always use UTM links, make people argue in comments... I ignored all of it and now we generate 200M+ impressions/month now...the board loves it.

(4) Stop creating new content - recreate winners

Our HR guys dancing video hit 30M views. So we made finance guys dancing, then IT guys dancing, then Sales guys dancing. 100M+ views total that all stemmed from one winning idea.

(5) Weekly brainstorm meetings > Strategy decks

20 ideas go in every Monday, then 8-10 of the best ones survive after the team votes blindly. The winners get turned into content. This 2-hour meeting generates more pipeline than any strategy deck I've ever seen.

(6) Pattern interrupts that actually work

Opening a banana backwards, someone bursting out of a car trunk, literally circling someone's back when saying "circling back." Subtle confusion from visuals works just as well (if not better) than the words you actually say.

(7) Color-code your best/worst creative

Green = 20k+ views (recreate it)
Yellow = 5-20k (tweak the hook)
Red = under 5k (don't reuse)

This system turned random viral hits into predictable viral hits.

What else would you add to the list?

We spent $50K on a bunch of expensive Sony cameras at ClickUp, but our iPhone videos get 10x more views. This is just the tip of the iceberg on a bigger trend I'm noticing...

People scroll past overproduced content now because it signals corporate ad, not authentic insight. Raw content from a phone feels like you're letting them in behind the scenes, and that's what makes them stop.

I see founders all the time that wait to start creating content because they think they need the perfect setup.

They're shopping for cameras, researching lighting setups, and building out entire studios when they haven't even posted their first video yet.

It's absolutely insane because your audience doesn't care about your gear. Especially when you don't have an audience to begin with.

Whether you're just getting started, or you've been in marketing for 30+ years it's good to be reminded of the basics that actually matter.

The hook matters. The message matters. Authenticity matters. Production quality? Dead last.

tldr; If you can't make good content on your iPhone, your $5K camera won't fix that.

Set your phone up. Hit record. Say something worth hearing. Rinse & Repeat until it works. That's it.

That's the whole playbook.

Agree?

POV: You thought making a rap about ClickUp was a good marketing decision...

It was.

I’ve generated more than 1.8 BILLION views for ClickUp in the last year but NOTHING compares to my first taste of virality - when I FAKED winning the lottery in 2012.

Yep. Long before B2B memes, actors, and 300M-impression goals… I was a broke college kid at Virginia Tech with three friends, Photoshop, and a dumb idea that fooled the entire country.

Here’s what happened:
The Mega Millions jackpot was $640M.

Less than an hour after the drawing, with the help of Zeb Evans ClickUp CEO, I tweeted a Photoshopped “winning” ticket with nothing but:

👉 “My life has forever changed.”
That was it and the internet lost its mind.

Within hours I was trending globally. Journalists, fans, haters - even Good Morning America and CNN - flooded in.

People I’d never met proposed to me.
The DMs were… unhinged. Let’s just say some invitations were not PG-13.
My parents had to unplug their home phone because my small hometown Martinsville was convinced their son had just become a millionaire.

Meanwhile… we were goofing around in our apartment debating:
“Should we go out drinking tonight… or should we fool the world again?”

We chose the world - and it worked. Our entire goal with this prank was to get onto Comedy Central’s Tosh.0 - and it nearly worked.

That moment taught me my first real lesson in content:
When you understand attention, the world reacts. When you manufacture a moment, the world amplifies. 

When you break the pattern, people stop scrolling.

Fast forward to today, and the same principles drive everything we do at ClickUp:
• Make people feel something.
• Break the “B2B is boring” mindset.
• Be the cool brand in a boring industry.
• Study people harder than you study algorithms.

Because virality isn’t luck - it’s psychology, timing, and understanding humans.

Last click attribution misses 95% of the story which is why your LinkedIn campaigns are probably performing 10x better than your dashboard shows. 

We solved this...By using Dreamdata to connect pipeline data directly to LinkedIn. Now our algorithm optimizes for revenue, not vanity metrics.

Want the same visibility? Comment "DREAM" below.

Special week. Launched ClickUp 4.0 and we’re bringing the OG crew to the DR to work and celebrate. Grateful for the journey.

It still feels like we're just getting started.

I've written 4,000+ posts for ClickUp's social accounts, and cut my teeth on more failed posts than I'd like to admit. Now, every post I make needs to do at least 1 of these 3 things, or I don't post it at all (share this with your team):

Somewhere along the line B2B marketing got so far away from B2C marketing that it's become out of tune with what actually works on human beings.

That gives the saavy B2B marketer a huge opportunity to fill this gap for their audience. Try one of these angles out for your next post:

(1) Make your audience FEEL something

Anger, hope, or relief. The feeling "that someone finally gets it" is what I'm going for here.

We posted about pretending to understand what your boss said in that meeting while frantically DMing your coworker for translation. It blew up because we said what everyone was thinking but nobody talks about.

(2) TEACH them something they can use today

I'm talking about something they can implement before their 3pm meeting. That's the good stuff people will come back for more of.

Not just another framework or theory.

(3) ENTERTAIN them

Yeah, even in B2B you can entertain your audience.

We had our actors dress up as different departments and dance to old songs. Dumb? Maybe. But it got more than 30 million views while our product demos got 800.

Team leads and VPs are real people who doom-scroll at midnight & laugh at the same stuff everyone else does. Lean into that while the rest of the market is clueless.

If your next post doesn't do at least one of these, edit it until it does.

1 out of 3? Solid post.
2 out of 3? Now you're onto something.
3 out of 3? This is where things compound.

Thoughts?

PS - Let me know why you think B2B marketing has become so...boring. When did things first start to go wrong?

I'm Chris Cunningham - I run social media at ClickUp.

Follow me for more actionable marketing tips & tricks.

Every week I interview project managers using tools like ClickUp to learn about the content they actually watch. Their answers almost never match what "thought leaders" tell you to post about. Here's 3 questions you can steal to figure out what content your ICP wants you to create:

Most marketers live in a bubble talking to other marketers… which is great if your ICP is marketers. But if you're selling to anyone else, you have to escape the echo chamber and figure out what they actually consume.

So I started interviewing actual users. Share these questions with your team:

(Question 1) What content do you actually watch?

They never say LinkedIn thought leadership content. They say comedy sketches, TikToks, and YouTube videos about literally anything except productivity hacks.

That's when I realized that after 10 hours of actual project management, they don't want more project management content. They want to decompress.

(Question 2) What's something cool you learned last week?

Not one person has ever mentioned a framework from a carousel. It's always some random thing that stuck because it was entertaining first, educational second.

This told me to stop leading with value props and start leading with entertainment.

(Question 3) What would genuinely help you?

They don't want another "5 tips" post. They want to feel seen. They want someone to acknowledge that work is absurd sometimes. They want to laugh at the same corporate buzzwords that drive them insane.

So we created exactly that. We started making content that makes them laugh about their reality instead of lecturing them about it.

Project Managers spend 8 hours a day in meetings about workflows and optimization. When they open their phone, they don't want more of that. They just want to chill for a second.

A lot of these execs you're trying to reach - they're still regular people & they like to laugh..

15 minutes talking to actual users taught me more than 3 years of marketing conferences.

You're guessing what your audience wants based on what other marketers tell you. I'm asking them directly and creating exactly that.

One of us is getting 100M views from dancing videos.

Maybe try asking your audience what they want instead of telling them what they need.

We doubled our content performance in 90 days at ClickUp using a color-coded system. Here's how it works so you can steal it (bookmark this for later):

Most teams create content, then move on and never analyze what actually worked.

At ClickUp, we test everything so we can double down on the winners and ditch the losers. Here's the exact process:

Step 1: Create content for at least a full week

Don't analyze results daily, you need to give yourself enough data to spot patterns.

Step 2: Put all your videos/posts into a table

Links in one column, impressions in another, likes, comments, and so on. 

We use ClickUp for this (and you should too!)

Step 3: Color code everything - keep it stupidly simple

Green = Winner. It performed well.
Yellow = Potential. Needs tweaking.
Red = Miss. Don't repeat this.

Step 4: Make decisions

Reds: Stop making this type of content.
Yellows: Change the hook or format, try again.
Greens: Remake it. Your audience already proved they like it.

Most marketing teams try reinventing the wheel every week. This allows you to have an ongoing system. Then when trends happen, you can hop on them without breaking your entire process.

When something works, double down on it. Make more versions of it.

Your greens show you what your audience wants so give them more of it.

Do this every week and your numbers will climb because you're learning what works instead of guessing.

In App analytics are great, but there is something to having all your channels + posts in a single location to analyze and share with your team. It makes things more accessible.

Thoughts?

The most interesting distribution channel in 2025 isn't TikTok or LinkedIn.

It's AI model training data.

Let me explain:

Warner Music Group just partnered with Suno.

They went from suing to partnering.

Why?

Because they realized something:

If AI models train on your content...

Your brand becomes part of AI's worldview.

When someone asks ChatGPT for music recommendations?

The models trained on Warner content will recommend Warner artists.

This is distribution at the infrastructure level.

Not on the platform.

IN the platform.

And most brands are still thinking about this wrong.

They're trying to block AI from their content.

When they should be negotiating to be OVER-represented.

Because here's what happens:

AI becomes the default discovery layer.

The brands in the training data win.

The brands blocking it become invisible.

Same pattern playing out in:

Recruiting (AI resume screeners)

Sales (AI research tools)

Marketing (AI content generators)

If AI can't learn about you...

It can't recommend you.

Are you optimizing to be AI-discoverable or AI-invisible?

Huge move from the Replit team, Fast Mode is a real step up - and I don't even code haha! 5x faster workflows, and it’s free to try. Highly recommend checking it out if you haven't yet.

Replit is free for the first time ever! 
  
We’re introducing Fast Mode, a 5x faster way to build with AI. Complete tasks in under 30 seconds. 
  
And for a limited time, it’s completely free 
   
Try it out today at https://Replit.com

Ranked #1 Global Positioning | Founder of Beyond Brilliant ™ | Award-Winning Founder & Speaker | Ex-U.S. Congress Comms Director | 35M +Views

Iza Montalvo is an award-winning founder, journalist, and former political communications strategist. For two decades, she has shaped public narratives for elected officials, crafted messaging for high-stakes campaigns, and trained executives to command any stage.

Her purpose is to help brilliant leaders move past modesty to master the art of what she calls "Graceful Self-Promotion."

Montalvo has observed that for two decades, natural modesty, the belief that "work should speak for itself" can hold back the most talented women from promotions, stages, and deals. 

She argues that this is not about imposter syndrome, but a strategic blind spot where brilliant women mistake necessary visibility for arrogance.

As the founder of the Beyond Brilliant movement, Montalvo teaches a strategic approach to visibility rooted in the invisible mechanics of perception to ensure her clients' brilliance is seen and rewarded. 

Her mission is to help leaders stop underselling themselves and start reclaiming their narrative to reach their fullest potential.

Montalvo's work on influence and messaging has been formally recognized on the floor of the U.S. Congress and permanently archived in the Library of Congress.

Connect with Iza: She is available for keynote speaking engagements (including her talk, "Why Brilliant Women Undersell Themselves"), media commentary, and strategic consulting on influence and visibility.

Iza Montalvo 🧲

Everyone reads your presence before your words 💥 
(The 4 ways people read you)

Studies show people form first impressions in under 1 second.

If you show up small, people read you small. 
If you show up vague, people read you vague. 
If you show up steady people trust you. 
If you show up clear people follow you. 

The same principle applies to your leadership:

If you treat people like helpers, they shrink. 
If you treat people like thinkers, they grow. 
If you treat people like placeholders, they leave. 
If you treat people like owners, they lead. 

Leadership and visibility share the same rule: 

People respond to the way you carry yourself 
before they respond to the words you say. 

Skills get you in the room. 
Presence is what people follow. 

If you want people to rise around you, 
show them what rising looks like.

Leaders don't do things for you...
they inspire you to grow. Agree? 

PS: Get access to 74-high performing hooks
here: izamontalvo.com/joinnow

➕ Follow me Iza Montalvo 🧲 for more

Ranked #1 Global Positioning | Founder of Beyond Brilliant ™ | Award-Winning Journalist & Speaker | Ex-U.S. Congress Comms Director | 35M+Views

The first hour of your day is prime real estate.
Spend it on work that moves you forward.

I see the same pattern in almost every leader and operator I work with:

They open the day with tasks that look productive, but don’t change anything.

Email.
Admin.
Quick replies.
Low-stakes work.

It feels safe.
It feels tidy.
But it doesn’t shift the needle.

The important work, the one task that demands focus or courage
gets pushed to the afternoon.

Then the afternoon fills up.
Then the task gets carried to the next day.
And the cycle repeats.

Morning is the one window where your mind is clear.
No demands.
No fires.

Use that block for the work with weight.

A project that moves the business forward.
A decision you’ve delayed.
A problem that needs thought, not speed.
A task that shapes the week, not one that fills an hour.

Block your first hour.
Protect it.

You end the day lighter.
You end the week with momentum.

If this lands, try it tomorrow: give your first hour to the task you’ve been avoiding.

Watch what shifts.

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Your product is strong.
Your message isn’t and that’s what’s costing you.

You use AI to work faster.
To fix your deck.
To shape your pitch.

I use it too.

But here’s the issue in this economy:

If your message isn’t clear or unique,
AI will make you sound even more like everyone else.
The problem isn’t the tool.

It’s how you explain:

✅ the problem you solve
✅ the answer you built
✅ and who you are as a founder

Right now, the market can’t feel any of that.

Anyone can say they fix a pain point.
Anyone can claim innovation.
Anyone can show a roadmap.

But very few founders can talk about their idea in a way that makes people think:

“I haven’t heard it said like that before.”

That’s what creates separation.
And separation is what gets you meetings, partners, and funding.

Let me give you a simple example:

I worked with a tech founder last month who kept pitching with heavy jargon.
Only people in his field understood him
but the people who needed his product the most didn’t get it.

So we refined his message.

We stripped out the “company mission” no one reads anymore.
We rewrote how he explained the problem and the solution in plain language anyone could follow.

In 30 days:

🔥 he closed 2 deals
🔥 booked a big presentation
🔥 and landed media

Nothing in his product changed.
Only the way he talked about it.

Here’s the part most don’t want to admit:

You’re not showing up as the founder people expect behind a company like yours, not in panels, not in industry talks, not in the rooms where decisions get made.

This isn’t about visibility.
It’s about positioning.

The founders who rise right now do 3 things well:

👉🏽They explain the problem in a way the market sees itself in.
👉🏽They describe the solution in a way only they can.
👉🏽They show they can move the space forward not just sit in it.
👉🏽They lead conversations others avoid 

And it’s why some founders jump ahead
while others keep waiting to be noticed.

PS: If you want to stand apart from your category,
send me one sentence: your biggest messaging challenge.

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Iza Montalvo 

Ranked #1 in Global Branding | 35M+ Reach | 3M+ Media For Clients | Advisor To Fortune 500 & Public Figures | Ask Me About My 6-Week Accelerator For More Clients, Stages & Press 💫

5 laws that shape our success
(And how we tend to pass them by)

I’ve been sitting with these ideas.
See if any of them feel close to your own life.

1. Murphy’s Law
When we fear something, it takes our focus.

The fear grows if your attention feeds it.
When you set simple safeguards, the fear loses its pull.

2. Kidlin’s Law
A problem on the page loses weight.

Once it’s written, the shape shows.
The pieces get clear.
We stop carrying the whole thing in our heads.

3. Gilbert’s Law
Our outcomes shift when we take the lead.

Not through blame.
Through a simple step:
“This part is mine. I’ll start here.”

4. Wilson’s Law
When we chase knowledge, money tends to follow.

Skills stack.
People notice when we’ve done the work.

5. Falkland’s Law
If a choice doesn’t need a decision, we can set it down.

Most of our tension comes from choices that can wait.
When we pause, the right moment shows itself.

♻️ Share with your network 
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The 5 Most Famous Laws in The World 

If you feel behind, this is your sign: you’re not.

Every goal you label “out of reach” it’s possible next year.
I used to roll my eyes at reinvention.
Now I understand it.

Here’s what one focused year turned into:

🌟 Featured in Forbes
🌟 On a magazine cover
🌟 On a Times Square billboard
🌟 Gave an international talk
🌟 Joined the global faculty at Maven
🌟 Served clients across Europe
🌟Ranked #1 Globally in Branding & Positioning (Favikon)
🌟Brand partnerships 

…and more is on the way.

The shift wasn’t magic.
It was focus and career experience.
It was starting despite feeling "too old."

If you want a different 2026, begin with one step:

One clear sentence about who you help and how
One story that proves your work
Clean one part of your profile: Headline, About, or Featured

You don’t need a full plan.
You need a starting point.
And the courage to keep going.

PS: I’m opening the “Founder Authority Lab” a private container for founders. This is for founders who want authority, not just activity.

Limited enrollment. 

More details here: https://lnkd.in/eBvTaXW8

The real performance gap isn’t hours.
It’s operating systems.

Do you trade time for output?
Top operators trade focus for output.

I’ve reviewed teams with high output and teams with low output.
The difference is structural, not personal.

Meetings are tools, not habits.
30-minute max.
Agenda or cancel.

One protected deep-work block.

👍 Daily.
👍 No interruptions.
👍 No exceptions.

Delegation based on leverage.
If the task doesn’t match their rate → offloaded.

Recovery is built in.
Clear mind equals sharp execution.
Fatigue means poor judgment.

Work ends when thinking degrades.
Not when the clock hits a number.

Teams that operate this way show:

🔥 Higher throughput
🔥 Fewer errors
🔥 Stronger decisions
🔥 Lower turnover
🔥 Predictable results

Long hours don’t scale.
Systems do.

If your calendar is full, your judgment is weak.
If your day is reactive, your output is low.
If you stay late, your systems are broken.

Remove one low-leverage task today.
Replace it with one high-leverage block tomorrow.

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5 YEARS OF FOCUS 

If your private success is bigger than your public presence…
this isn’t your fault.

(It’s your system)

Influence isn’t built from occasional brilliance.
It’s built from the signals you repeat,
the perceptions you reinforce,
and the identity you make your digital footprint.

There are only 3 things people use to judge your influence:

1️⃣ What they see you talk about
If your expertise isn’t visible, it isn’t perceived.
People assume you’re an authority when they can predict your point of view on a topic.

2️⃣ How consistently you show up
Repetition builds recognition.
Recognition builds trust.
Trust builds demand.
You aren’t under-valued, you’re under-seen.

3️⃣ The proof you make public
Wins. Lessons. Patterns.
Not to brag, but to signal what you know, how you think, and why you’re credible.
Private success only matters publicly when you translate it into visible evidence.

And here’s the part most people miss:

Your reputation doesn’t grow because you’re good.
It grows because you make your value unmistakable.

Influence grows when your signals become a system:
a repeatable rhythm that teaches people who you are,
what you stand for, and why your voice carries weight.

When you control the signals,
you control the perception.

When you control the perception,
you control the opportunity.

And the real shift is this:

You don’t need to become someone different to grow your influence.
Make the real you, the skilled, proven, exceptional you, the version people recognize.

Influence isn’t a spotlight.
It’s an operating system.

Build the system,
and the visibility follows.

PS: I talk about these topics every week in my free newsletter.
Sign up here and get 74 high-performing hooks: izamontalvo.com/joinnow

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I spoke with a founder who’d been in his field for almost 20 years.
Not the “social media expert” kind of experience.

The real kind.

The kind that holds companies together when everything feels like it’s falling apart.

👉 He led teams.
👉 Handled crises.
👉 Built things people relied on.

But when he tried to build something for himself, a side income, a little freedom, nothing moved.

He spent months trying to understand how others were using LinkedIn and AI to make a steady income, book stages and get featured as experts in top-tier media.

As someone who has ran campaigns for big names, and learned how to leverage LinkedIn in 1 year, I understand the pain too well. 

Then he confessed…

“I’ve signed up for webinars”
“I’ve tried posting more”
“I’ve tried writing in the right tone.”
“I’ve tried figuring out personal branding”

Every attempt ended the same way:

🚫 No traction.
🚫 No interest.
🚫 No real path forward.
🚫 Less money in the bank.

One night, he told me he sat in his car after work for almost an hour.
He didn’t want to walk into his house and pretend he wasn’t disappointed.
He said, in a quiet voice:

“I feel like I did everything right. And it still didn’t turn into anything for me.”
That’s the part most founders never share.
That’s what I call “The Hamster Wheel Trap.”

You’re not stuck because you lack experience.
You’re stuck because you think: 

I need to post more motivational content.
Which is getting you messages like: 
"You're so inspiring"
but not DMs asking for your help. 

You wait for something to click.
You spend hours prompting ChatGpt.
And none of it works.

That weekend, I showed him the part he’d been missing:

✅ How to package what he already knows.
✅ How to use AI to reduce the time it takes.
✅ How to build a simple machine that brings clients, media and stages
to him.

He didn’t expect much.
Not after months of quiet failure.

But he tried anyway.
Eleven days later, he brought in $12,400.

He didn’t cry because of the money.
He cried because something finally worked.

He said, “I just needed someone to show me the part nobody ever showed me.”
If you’re in "The Hamster Wheel Trap", era read this:

Your experience isn’t the issue.
The missing system is.
And that can be fixed.

PS: If any of this felt too familiar, that’s not failure.
It’s a sign you have been carrying everything alone. 

I speak about these topics in my newsletter: 
Sign up here: izamontalvo.com/joinnow

📸 Hotel Catalonia, Santo Domingo, November 2025

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Ranked #1 in Global Branding | 35M+ Reach | 3M+ Media For Clients | Advisor To Fortune 500 & Public Figures | I Reengineer How You’re Seen For More Clients, Stages & Press 💫

Being the best isn’t enough.
Being seen as the best is.

For years, you won the same way:

✨ Referrals.
✨ Reputation.
✨ Relationships.
✨ Time in the field.

Do solid work.
Stay steady.
The next client shows up.
That pattern broke.
Attention shifted.

Here's what I've learned:

Decision-makers changed how they hire.
They search first.
They follow the ones who teach in public.
They stick with the voices they see often.

Familiarity moves faster than introductions.
This shift is shaking entire industries.

1/ A consultant with decades of wins loses a client to someone posting insights.
2/ An attorney with a track record gets replaced by someone explaining hard topics in simple language.
3/ An advisor with a full résumé gets overlooked because their thinking never shows up online.

This is the real risk:

If people can’t see how you think,
they assume someone else is a better fit.

🤚🏽 This isn’t age.
🤚🏽 This is access.
🤚🏽 This is presence.

Legacy trust still holds with the people who know you.
Everyone else meets their next expert on a screen.

If your voice isn’t there, the contract goes to the one who is.
Invisibility kills deals faster than lack of skill.

🔥 The experts who stay chosen do this:

They show their work.
They explain their point of view.
They build trust before the first meeting.

This isn’t ego.
This is staying in the deal flow.

If you want clients to think of you first and if you want new buyers to find you without a warm intro, your brand has to travel.

PS: If you’re ready for that shift,
DM me "TRANSFER".

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She ran a company that moved markets. 
But online, her presence didn’t match her power.

That gap cost her millions in lost deals.

Most CEOs build their public presence like they're managing risk.
The ones who win build it like legacy.
This is perception engineering.

She came to me in August with a stacked résumé:

→ Board positions  
→ A leadership record
→ Negotiations across the US

Her public presence was polished and forgettable.
That’s the most expensive brand position a CEO can have.

So we tore the whole thing down and started again.
We rebuilt her public identity from the foundation.

No corporate filler. 
No recycled commentary. 
No messaging that sounded like her comms team.

🧲 We made her thinking unmistakable. 
🧲 We made her decisions quotable. 
🧲 We positioned her with the force she uses behind closed doors.

Here’s what happened when her presence finally matched her influence:

→ 120,000 + monthly impressions (up from 200) 
→ Prospects in her inbox without outreach 
→ Podcast hosts requesting her as a guest 
→ Media booking her without a pitch 
→ Industry peers treating her like the authority she is

This is what it took:

✅ A defined public identity 
✅ A messaging strategy using my proven frameworks
✅ A clear link between values and vision 

If your public persona undersells you, your deals run slower and your room access shrinks.

P.S. The gap between who you are and who you appear to be online is costing you more than you realize. 

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The most useful daily hack?
Noticing when your habits stop matching your growth.👇

You already know how to get things done.
What you may not notice is this…

How often you work inside a system you outgrew.
If you move fast, lead teams, or run your own shop, you’ve built a set of habits that keep your days efficient.

They’ve served you well.
They’ve also shaped an invisible box around how you think.

Rules that say:

✅ “this is how I work.”
✅ “this is what gets results.”
✅ “this is the fastest way.”

And sometimes it is.
But not always.

We slip into this without noticing.

A task you can drop without anything breaking.
A pattern you’ve been repeating out of comfort, not usefulness.
A method that worked last year but slows you down now.

You don’t need a new system.
You don’t need more discipline.
You just need enough space to notice where your thinking hasn’t caught up with you yet.

Inside the box, you’re efficient.
Outside it, your ideas have room to stretch, which often leads to better work in less time.

If you’re craving more freedom in how you operate, more control of your hours, better decisions, simpler days, it starts here:

Not with a hack.
Not with a tool.
Just the willingness to ask whether the rules you follow are still yours.

♻️ If you’re in a season of changing how you work, this is a good place to start, pass it on.
➕ Follow me Iza Montalvo 🧲 for more

You didn’t outgrow your life.
You just got used to the desert.

This video reminded me how many people 
stay in places that no longer fit
simply because they’re familiar.

Take Lena.
She worked in corporate HR for nine years.
Good title. Steady paycheck.

Everyone assumed she had it figured out.
But at night, she restored old furniture in her garage
pieces people rushed to buy.

She kept saying she wasn’t “ready” to open a store.
Then one afternoon she heard herself repeat it
and felt the gap between her words and her truth.

Three months later, she rented a small workshop.
Now there’s a waiting list.

Then there’s Jordan.
He stayed close to friends who pulled him down
because it felt easier than walking away.
He wasn’t choosing connection.
He was choosing habit.

When he stepped back, his days grew quiet
and light.

Maybe you’re here too:

💫 A job that pays you but drains you
💫 An idea you keep pushing aside
💫 A version of yourself you keep delaying

Here’s something simple:

You can change your direction when the path stops matching who you’re becoming.

You didn’t outgrow your life.
You just got used to the desert.

And like that camel, you might shock yourself
when you step toward your ocean.
Not with a leap.
With one honest move.

PS: Leaving the desert for good in 2026?
Let’s talk in the comments.

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🎥 Video credit: ytinopp34/X

Staying in a place you’ve outgrown isn’t loyalty.
It’s a slow kind of shrinking.

Most people don’t stay because they’re fulfilled.
They stay because it’s familiar.

Because it’s quiet.
Because it asks nothing new of them.
But there’s a cost to that kind of comfort:

💔 Your skills level off
💔 Your ideas stay small
💔 Your drive dims

Your network stays narrow
Your confidence stalls
You feel it long before you name it.

The meetings get predictable.
The work stops teaching you anything.
The ceiling lowers a little more each week.

You’re not dramatic.
You’re not impatient.
You’ve simply outgrown the room.

The people who move forward don’t wait for a crisis.
They pay attention to the early signs.
They choose places that stretch them.

They leave before their talent goes quiet.
You don’t need permission to want more space.
You only need to trust the part of you that knows when the season has ended.

Staying small isn’t stability.
It’s delay.
Leaving isn’t chaos.
It’s courage.

Your life expands the moment you do.

♻️ Repost if someone you know is staying somewhere they’ve outgrown
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The struggle isn’t blocking your rise, it’s shaping you for it.

Ever feel like every step forward comes with another test?
You’re not the only one.

But what if the leaders you admire didn’t rise despite their hurdles…
but because they stayed long enough to learn what those hurdles were trying to teach?

You treat this challenge like a glitch, like life dropped the wrong assignment on your desk.

But you know this pattern.

The moment you avoid is the moment that forces the shift you’ve delayed.
Not fate.
Not a lesson wrapped in a bow.
Just pressure pointing at what needs your attention.

Try this: 

1/ Take one breath before you respond.
It gives you space to see the situation, not your fear.
2/ Ask a clear question:
“What does this open right now?”
The answer often sits in plain sight.
3/ Change the method, not the aim.
If the straight line fails, use the turn.
The target stays the same.
4/ Look at what the moment exposes.
A gap.
A habit.
A truth.

Treat it as information, not judgment.
If you’re carrying something heavy today, don’t rush past it.
Stay with it long enough to understand it.

There’s direction inside it…
And once you see it, the next step becomes obvious.

PS: What is the obstacle in front of you trying to tell you?

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If your work is strong but your opportunities are weak, 
the problem isn’t talent.

It’s positional disadvantage.

People with less skill but stronger positional advantage 
will always advance faster
because decisions are made through perception, not spreadsheets.

Your work is the engine.
Your positioning is the leverage.

For 20 years, I’ve sat in rooms where decisions are made.
The gap between leaders and overlooked performers is clear:

Leaders shape the narrative around their work.
Others wait to be discovered.

Old rule: Do great work and hope it’s noticed.
New rule: Do great work and direct the attention it creates.

This is not ego.
This is execution.

You’re not missing visibility.
You’re missing positional advantage.
And positional advantage is built on purpose.

It doesn’t appear. 
It doesn’t drift in.
It comes from deliberate action, not extra hours or more effort.

Most high performers never learn this.
They produce excellent work, then wait for someone to connect the dots.
They assume track record is enough.

But decision-makers move with the story they’ve already heard.
Positional advantage is when your value is understood before you walk in
not after you prove it again and again.

Here’s what strengthens it:

1/ Clear evidence of value
Real results and outcomes.

2/ A concise, memorable narrative
If people can’t explain your value fast enough, it won’t travel far.

3/ Strategic placement
Your story and your work need to sit where decisions form
not in the background.

When these align, opportunities shift.

🤝 People advocate for you.
🤝 Your name comes up sooner.
🤝 Your work carries farther.

All without changing your talent, only your position.

PS: I share more about these topics in my free newsletter. Join here and get access to 74 high-performing hooks: izamontalvo.com/joinnow 

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