Get Leads From Your LinkedIn On Autopilot | Founder @ Hat Tip

If you:

→ Make social content
→ Want to make social content
→ Tried making social content but were unsuccessful

… you’re in the right place.

Truth is, publishing content you’re proud of on a consistent basis is tough.

You get busy. Things come up.

And for most founders, content takes a backseat to whatever fire they’re putting out at their company that day.

That said, its 2025.

Content is king — and the benefits for B2B founders are clear:

→ Drive low-cost brand awareness
→ Generate inbound leads from a new lead source
→ Become a “thought leader” in your space (even though you may hate that word)

And after meeting tons of founders while working in influencer marketing, starting Hat Tip felt like a no-brainer.

You can still benefit from publishing high-quality social content — without worrying about blocking out time to write, being inconsistent, or if you’re making content the “right way”.

Hat Tip handles that for you—while maintaining your voice—through:

→ Bi-weekly content interviews
→ Product and industry-specific thought-starters
→ The will to edit and revise until you’re proud of the content being published

If high-quality, consistent social content sounds like something you’re interested in, DM me or visit the link in my profile to book a call.

Thanks 👋

Christian

📧 christian@hattipagency.com
🐤 Twitter @dibratto

Christian Di Bratto

Yesterday, I had the worst day I had in a while.

It felt like nothing could go right. 

I was frustrated and irritable, just trying to do the best work I can before I shut my laptop for the day. 

But, my YouTube vendor has been hounding me to record this one-hour YouTube video for over a week. 

So when I was finally able to, I sat down to record it.

27 minutes in, I realized my audio wasn't recording through my mic.

Enjoy.

Founder @ Hat Tip. Helping startup founders generate pipeline from social.

I've posted (almost) daily on LinkedIn since November 2023. Today, >60% of our pipeline at Hat Tip comes from my profile. What I wish I could tell every founder wanting to do the same:

1. Nobody cares enough about you to have something "cringe" alter their perception of you.

2. You'll be tempted to chase "growth hacks". Don't.

3. Give it 90 days, or don't start.

4. Your results from content are only as good as the system you build to make it.

5. You get out what you put in. Comments and DMs are your best friend.

6. Analyzing performance on a post-by-post basis is a death sentence for your sanity.

7. "I'm not getting any reach" and "my content isn't valuable enough" mean the same thing.

8. Treat social like an afterthought, and it'll treat you the same.

9. Everyone who has the power to buy from you on this platform can tell when ChatGPT writes your posts. Just saying.

10. If you only post what gets the most likes, you'll end up in the "buy a LinkedIn growth course, make a LinkedIn growth course" pyramid scheme. Did I just say that?

These are all facts and not up for debate.

My agency, Hat Tip, was doing $18,500/month of revenue before I had 2,000 LinkedIn followers. 

For context, there are accounts with 200,000+ followers that don't generate a fraction of that number.

I don't say this to brag, as that isn't the whole lot in the grand scheme of things. I do say it to clarify that you absolutely do not need a lot of followers to make this platform work for your product or service.

3 things I did to achieve this:

1. Avoid the urge to write for likes.

LinkedIn gurus will tell you to post about topics that get a ton of likes and reach...but do absolutely 0 for your pipeline.

Instead, I very intentionally wrote for who I serve - software founders and agency owners. Mainly I tried to solve the problems that came up in all of my sales/client calls.

2. Comment, comment, comment.

In my heyday, when I was really trying to win business, I blocked off 60 minutes per morning and did not get up from my computer before I left 40 thoughtful comments on others' posts.

 It was a complete slog, and I frankly hated it. But the eyeballs it brought me were invaluable (also made a ton of friends this way).

3. Free work. 

I was basically LinkedIn Costco at the time - if you were qualified, you were getting a free sample.

A very small portion of these people converted to clients, but that's fine. All that meant to me was I had to up the volume. 

I'm not saying it was easy, but if you're willing to come into the platform, it is absolutely possible to build a viable business off the back of it without a bunch of followers. 

The caveat is it takes actual work and time, which a lot of people won't tell you.

We grew a client's LinkedIn account from 4,800 -> 20,000 followers in 2.5 years. Here are the best-performing content formats we used to do it:

(it was actually 3,800, but we weren't reporting at the time. C'est la vie).

What we didn't do:

- Post sad selfie slop
- Use copy / paste post templates
- Try to "go viral"

The formats we found to work extremely well:

1. Templates

Most weeks, we create a template this person's audience can use to achieve a result, and explain how to use it. 

RESULTS:

POST 1: 105,635 impressions
POST 2: 104,899 impressions
POST 3: 79,054 impressions

2. Good/bad callout

We take examples of people/companies doing [what their company does] well, and highlight how well they do it, as well as companies doing it poorly, and highlight why it doesn't work.

RESULTS:

POST 1: 445,056 impressions
POST 2: 416,989 impressions
POST 3: 358,956 impressions

3. Niche memes

We post memes that, frankly, only this person's audience would care about. You and I would likely find them boring, but that doesn't matter.

RESULTS:

POST 1: 416,489 impressions
POST 2: 316,322 impressions
POST 3: 173,385 impressions

4. Industry-specific, data-backed commentary.

This person operates in a space that is always changing and where people are always looking for a leg up. Using their data, we're able to create hyper-relevant commentary on what's working/what's not that he can share with his audience.

RESULTS:

POST 1: 92,041 impressions
POST 2: 56,122 impressions
POST 3: 34,071 impressions.

NOTE:

These results are not typical. This client is far and away the most committed to social that we have.

They show up to their content interviews prepped and present. They're willing to test ideas and believe in the process.

And beyond the 17K follower increase, they book "hundreds of meetings per year" off social – their words, not mine.

--

DISCLAIMER: A lot of people like to fake reach and impressions numbers. I have permission to verify these. If you want help on social but are skeptical of these, DM me and I'll validate.

Everything I pay for to run and grow my content agency past $1M ARR:

OPS:

Comms – Slack
Call recordings: Fireflies.ai
Video call recordings: Riverside
Content – Notion
(Simple) Graphics – Canva
Client Feedback: SurveyGate (Eli Rubel)
Scheduling – Calendly
Payroll – Deel
Bookkeeping – Intuit QuickBooks
Contracts: Agree.com
Systems-building: Shiv Agarwal (Airtable Wiz)
Site: Webflow

Writing:

Content – Our hands.
Editing/Copy Chiefing – Claude (Anthropic)
Research for clients – ChatGPT (OpenAI)
Edits/Review – Loom

Growth:

Sales Nav – LinkedIn (pls make cheaper)
DMs – Also LinkedIn, but free.
Email nurture: beehiiv

Takeaway: Holy cow.

I think I'm accidentally building the Chick-Fil-A of content agencies.

We're a couple of months into collecting NPS responses at certain touchpoints in the client journey. 

So far, the lowest ranking we've been given was a 9 out of 10, making our NPS a 10 for the time being.

I'm extremely proud of this, as it's a commitment I made from our very first client two years ago, across our entire client base now.

There are 3 things we do that I feel lead to this score:

1. Out of scope work when it makes sense.

People tell me "this won't scale" and "you'll get taken advantage of". They're right, but fail to acknowledge that I don't care. If it makes the client happy, it makes the client happy.

2. Fast comms.

This is the lowest lift way to delight clients, and I frankly don't get how it's not the norm across service providers. 

Myself and the entire team have a mandate to respond to, or at the very least. acknowledge client messages as soon as they come in. 

It's free, but goes a long way in making clients feel heard and taken care of.

3. Proactivity at all stops.

I won't lie and say we're perfect in this regard because I don't think "perfect" exists. 

But I quite literally schedule time on the weekends to think through ideas for clients that are sometimes out of scope and/or would require extra lift on our end.

One of these ideas came to fruition in the last 2 weeks, and booked 6 calls for a client.

That's how we're making great service compulsory at Hat Tip. 

If you're a founder who wants to build a social presence while enjoying this service, DM me.

PS - We're using SurveyGate (by Eli Rubel) to collect this data!

3 years ago: 0 clients, 0 team, no network.
Today: 15 clients, great team, awesome network.

Building Hat Tip has been one of the most valuable learning experiences I've ever had.

But it wasn't my first crack at entrepreneurship. Hell, it wasn't my 2nd, 3rd, or 4th either.

I've (quite literally) been going at this since Grade 2.

Here's everything I tried before landing on this agency:

1: Snack stand business. Six-year-old me made business cards and realized nobody walks down my street. Lost a few hundred bucks on supplies and learned my first lesson about market research.

2: Call of Duty beta codes. Buying for $1-$2 on Twitter and selling for $5-$6, made a few hundred and felt rich. This taught me the value of finding arbitrage opportunities online.

3: Concert ticket reselling. Flipping Toronto concert tickets on Ticketmaster for $300-$400 monthly profit. Worked until I realized the legal gray areas and decided to move on.

4: QR code menu startup. Launched Grubster dot CA during COVID, realized I was too early and couldn't sell to restaurants. Burned through hundreds on domain and hosting costs.

5: Influencer deal brokering. Taking 20% cuts from brand deals, got featured in Forbes. Sold >$500K in ads in a couple of years, but lost clients to bigger agencies. Revenue was unpredictable because everything was commission-based.

6: Founder-led content agency. Started with one Upwork client paying $2,000 monthly, now serving 15+ founders through Hat Tip. This taught me the power of positioning yourself as an expert in a specific niche.

Something tells me I'll be sticking with this one for a while.

h/t to Marshall Haas and Sam Parr for the format inspo.

Reminder: Copying a big account's "viral" post format sentence-by-sentence will never give you the same results.

Remember:

They don't have tons of followers because that post did so well.

The post did so well because they have tons of followers.

Your time and energy are better spent on trying to write something your ICP will like, save, and share.

Brian Halligan (Co-Founder, HubSpot), gave a 41-minute podcast interview talking about growing HubSpot and building culture within it.

I listened on the way to my beer league hockey game last week, then listened again to note these takeaways (I found them interesting, and hope you do, too):

1. Customers are good validation, competitors are great.

Though most people thought HubSpot’s growth thesis around SEO and social was wrong, they found validation in large competitors (37Signals, Fogbug) executing the same playbook.

2. If you want to create a category, first define its enemy.

HubSpot created “inbound marketing” as a category by counter-positioning against “outbound” – historically associated with spammy messages.

3. Category creation is a lottery...be prepared to play more than once.

Though “inbound marketing” clearly stuck as a category, “inbound sales”, “content optimization system”, and “CMR” (Customer Managed Relationship) did not. 

4. The antidote to an underperforming metric is comp structure for those affecting it.

HubSpot fixed early churn issues by adding NPS as a metric sellers were compensated on, a commission clawback for fast-churned customers, and a retention threshold sellers had to hit before their sales accelerator. 

5. Great support talent lives in non-obvious places.

Brian would walk into Apple to fix his phone, and extend job offers to those he had positive experiences with. The pitch was “If you're making $40,000 standing on your feet all day, why don't you come sit and do the same?”

6. Culture is a product.

After having a culture enlightenment at a CEO group, HubSpot began scaling culture by: 

a) Writing a culture code. 
b) Appointing Dharmesh Shah (Co-Founder) as “Culture Czar”. 
c) Implementing NPS for employees. 
d) Implementing, hiring for, and evaluating on core values. 
e) Ensuring they built something people can get behind in the first place.

7. When asked, "what do you do when a customer is screaming at you?"

Brian: “Listen, and say you’re sorry”.

Also, The Library of Minds by Dara Ladjevardian and Delphi is a growing binge bank of content with leaders like Bryan. Wish I found it sooner - definitely check it out.

Hook-writing is the most in-demand skill on social right now.

Here are my 10 tips to write an undeniably great one:

1\ Create a Curiosity Gap 

The fundamental principle behind every hook: create a gap between what the reader knows and what they want to know after reading your hook. Every word must serve this purpose.

2\ Build Authority with Numbers 

Use specific figures relating to time, money, or volume to establish credibility. Examples include company size, revenue figures, email volumes, or years of experience. The more specific the number, the better.

2a.\ Use Ultra-Specific Numbers 

- Instead of "6 figures," use "$151,323.60." 
- Instead of "dozens of websites," use "37 websites in 22 months." 

3\ Start with Stories 

Story-based hooks naturally create curiosity. Add context about timing, circumstances, or unexpected outcomes to make it hit harder.

5\ Use Colons and Ellipses 

Include ":" or "..." in 99% of your hooks to signal there's more content worth reading. The sentence before these punctuation marks must create genuine curiosity.

6\ Promise Listicles 

Craft lists using odd numbers (3, 5, 7, 9) or 10. Never use 2 or less, and avoid even numbers between 3-10. Combine with authority for max impact.

7\ Highlight Process Outcomes 

When sharing processes, lead with the end result and timeframe. Use "how" language and include step counts when possible.

8\ Make (Calculated) Bold Statements 

Avoid wishy-washy language like "could be" or "might help like the plague" 

Instead, make definitive statements that demand justification.

9\ Borrow Authority from Big Names 

Reference recognizable brands or figures to capture attention. Combine the company name, impressive metrics, and a promise of insights.

You've seen this get overused by a certain crowd here on LinkedIn, but they are worth doing here and there. 

Ex: "Company X is worth $Y. I studied their strategy - Z takeaways:"

10\ Cut Ruthlessly 

Remove any word that doesn't directly contribute to making someone press "see more." The hook must sound natural when read aloud while maximizing curiosity per character.

P.S. This was a small part of my 83-page guide for founders to generate pipeline from LinkedIn. Get it here: https://lnkd.in/eFFv7k9J

If there's one thing I've learned from helping 40+ founders grow a social presence, it's that these 7 mistakes hold them back more than AI or anything else:

1. Lack of strong POV. At least once per week, we have a client sit on the fence on if they want to share a (completely justified) hot take on their space. They're scared it will piss people off. That is exactly why they should do it.

2. Optimizing for LinkedIn "hacks". Posting at 8:01am vs 11:03am, or using one hook template over that another, or holding the selfie camera at a specific angle mean absolutely zero if your content isn't plain good.

3. Blindly outsourcing to Head of Marketing or contractor. This is coming from someone who owns an agency. There's a direct correlation between our list of most successful clients on social and level of buy-in from the founder themself.

4. Lack of a system. Every week, I talk to a founder who says some variation of "yeah, I tried posting, but fell off the wagon". If that's you, I don't blame you. You have a company to run. A proper content system fixes that. Whether it's an agency (I heard Hat Tip is good) or a team member, you have to build actual process around content, or it'll never work.

5. Being afraid to repeat yourself. Every time a founder says "didn't we already post about that?", I say "yeah, exactly". If it performed well, and is something you want to be known for, it is your duty to propagandize your audience with the take or belief.

6. Letting imposter syndrome win. It is insane to me that founders can raise funding from world-renowned investors, but posting on LinkedIn is where they feel imposter syndrome. People (team and investors) obviously believe in the mission. LinkedIn gives you the chance to make others, too.

7. Playing the comparison game. You aren't Adam Robinson, or a partner at a Tier 1 VC firm. You're a founder solving a unique problem, with a 1-of-1 story on how you're doing it. Put your blinders on, and focus on making the best damn content you can. At one point, you'll look up and realize you're on the same playing field.

I hope this post helped clarify social for you. If you want additional help, or even just to chop it up about LinkedIn, feel free to comment or DM me.

If my job was on the line and I had to generate demand from social for a B2B startup, here's the exact playbook I'd run to save my job 90 days from now:

Step 1: Decide on platform.

Most B2B startups' audience spends time on LinkedIn or X. One or both of those is a good bet 99% of the time.

Step 2: Pick (a) team member(s) to become "company cheerleaders".

Trying to grow from the brand account isn't enough anymore. The timeline is inundated with founders posting high-quality content that will completely overshadow your polished product demo.

To combat this, we need to put up our own fight with actual people from the company as well.

The founder / co-founders are ideal, but other leadership members can work, too.

One is great, two is better. So on and so forth.

Step 3: Map buckets.

Armed with our platform and leader, we need to figure out what they're going to talk about.

To do this, we'd devise content buckets that will help attract, nurture, and convert those we want to sell to. This is best done with top, middle, and bottom of funnel content buckets.

TOF: Industry takes, trends, contrarian opinions (brings new eyeballs)
MOF: Problem-focused content for your ICP's pain points (nurtures audience)
BOF: Product updates, case studies, social proof (converts followers)

Step 4: Prompts.

I'd come up with a list of 12-15 prompts that map to those buckets, which I'l ask the leader on a recorded interview.

Step 5: Interview.

I interviewed the leader with those prompts on a podcast-style conversation, recorded on Riverside so we can clip up relevant answers.

Step 6: Writing.

With the interview recording, I'd draft 10 LinkedIn posts. Each post gets mapped to the appropriate content bucket and optimized for LinkedIn's algorithm.

Step 7: Review/edits.

Send the drafted posts to the leader for review (Notion or Docs). I'd ask specifically about tone, voice, and word choice preferences, then log all feedback to reduce edits in future rounds. 

Step 8: Post!

I'd post the content (each weekday, ideally morning local time) and actively reply to comments to maximize engagement. 

I'd handle the basic comments myself and compile industry-specific questions for the leader to answer personally.

Step 9: Report 

I'd do this weekly using a tracking spreadsheet. I'd monitor impressions, new followers, profile visits, and engagement rates, then summarize everything for easy leader consumption.

Step 10: Connections.

I pull a list of decision makers at our target account list and manually connect with 100 of them weekly. When they accept, the high-quality content we're producing will show up in their feed.

Step 11: ICP Profile Viewers.

Each Friday, I'd filter the leaders' profile viewers down to our ICP in Sales Navigator and export a list to send to our sales/GTM team for outbounding purposes.

NOT DONE - MORE IN COMMENTS:

Content truth few are humble enough to admit:

Consistent weak content performance rarely has anything to do with the algorithm, and far more to do on level of value in your content.

Rarely does an increase in the level of value not correlate with an improvement in content performance.

So, to help here is a week's worth of content prompts that, when answered, generate the most valuable content:

(1) In all of your/your team's prospect conversations in the last 4 weeks, what were the most common concerns, issues, pain points, or objections they brought up? Answer and overcome them in a post.

(2) What is the 1 result you undeniably know how to produce, and how can you lay it out in its simplest form for your audience to do, too?

(3) What is the most common mistake your ICP might make when trying to generate a result? State it, and lay out exactly how to overcome it (for a beginner to understand).

(4) What 3-5 things (stakeholders, systems, tools, etc.) does a [function you serve] team need to have in place to achieve the result they want? Share what they need, and how to set it up.

(5) Pick the 5% of customers having the most success with your product/service. What do they do, or how do they think about the motion that the bottom 95% don't? Clearly highlight how to graduate a reader from bottom 95% to top 5%.

PS - If you're a founder who wants to get this content out but doesn't have the time or systems to do it, DM me. I'll pick a couple to write free posts for.

h/t to Oren John for the tweet.

If your likes and comments are filled with the same non-ICP accounts with each post, do these 4 things:

1) Switch posting time. If you're posting at 8am sharp every day, you're likely mostly reaching folks on the platform at that time. There's a strong cohort of folks who get on earlier and later. Try reaching them.

2) Comment out* of network. 

Commenting on friends' posts is great. Only commenting on friends' post is a growth death sentence. Intentionally get out* of your network, and find other content you care about / can add value to. SalesNav's 2nd degree connections filter is a great way to do this (LMK if you want a tutorial).

3) Connect with / DM your ICP specifically. 

There are whispers that DMing with someone makes your content show up in their feed more. Anecdotally, I believe this. To that point, if you can have proper conversations in your ICP's DMs, all that's left is to make content they care about.

4) Refine who your content is pointed at.

It's VERY easy to fall into the trap of posting what gets the most likes and comments. Often, though, you'll find this doesn't correlate with what people care about (i.e. your ICP doesn't care about your commentary on an unrelated topic).

For every post you write, ask yourself: Would [ICP] care to like, save, or share this? If yes, post. If not, don't.

If you want to help executing any or all of these, feel free to DM me. I will send you some resources.

How to optimize your LinkedIn profile to convert maximum traffic (A-Z, save this):

1. Profile Picture: Clean headshot with your face clearly visible. Professional but not overly formal.

2. Banner: State your benefit on one line + add social proof underneath (logos work great). Right-align everything and leave padding so it displays properly on mobile.

3. Headline: Must include three elements - benefit statement starting with an action word, social proof, and your actual title. Example format: "Cut SaaS spend 20% before Q3 | Helped 50+ startups | Founder at XYZ"

4. Custom Button/CTA: Add a custom button. Founders skip this completely but it converts surprisingly well. Link to your newsletter, call booking page, or case study depending on your main goal right now.

5. About Section: Follow this structure exactly - Call out your ICP, state their pain points, agitate the problem, explain your solution, back it up with proof, end with a clear call to action.

6. Featured Section: Use this as your social proof shrine. Add one case study, your best-performing post, and a notable press mention or podcast feature.

7. Experience Section: Include your proper title and explain what your company actually does. Relax with the buzzwords or fluff.

Follow this framework and your profile becomes an always-on sales machine.

And if you want me to just optimize your entire LinkedIn profile for you, DM me.

Take Action Copy

www.takeactioncopy.com

I write words that make you money.

Founder, Ghostwriter & Copywriter

CRE Digital

Head of Content & Ghostwriter

AllianceBernstein

Team Lead | Assistant Vice President - Regional Consultant

Assistant Vice President - Regional Consultant

Jackson

Sold variable annuities. Yeah. I know. 



Attained Internal Wholesaler Level 3 status -- the highest level available.  

Was named Internal Wholesaler of the Quarter for quarter 3 in 2017 for the Northeast Region, and was awarded "Top Gun", an internal award given to the top performer in a two-day showcase.

Internal Wholesaler

Grand Valley Lanthorn

Assigned and edited stories, wrote up to four pieces a week, and ran the Lanthorn sports Twitter account. Covered beats for GVSU football, men’s basketball, and baseball.

Sports Editor

Wrote and edited stories and briefs while covering a variety of games and athletic events.

Assistant Sports Editor

Local Sports Journal

At this Muskegon prep website, I wrote feature stories profiling high school athletes and teams. My main focus was football, though I branched into soccer, volleyball, and tennis. I also helped with editing, which involved monitoring our WordPress page, reviewing stories, and posting them to www.localsportsjournal.com.

Sportswriter

FOX 17

With FOX 17, I shot video at local sports events, edited the clips for broadcast and wrote scripts. I covered high school basketball, Grand Rapids Griffins hockey, West Michigan Whitecaps baseball, and various Division I and II sports. I also wrote news releases for the FOX 17 website.

Freelancer

Grand Valley State University

More than 4,000 incoming students went through freshman orientation during summer 2014, and 
I assisted every one. Over the course of 40 orientation dates, I worked closely with faculty members, professional advisers and other student assistants to help freshmen choose courses and ease into college life.

Orientation Assistant

During my time as a staff writer, I covered golf, lacrosse and cross country, as well as club sports like hockey and rowing. I wrote two stories a week, either features or game recaps.

Staff Sportswriter

Getting financial advisors millions of dollars & impressions | $20+ million in capital & AUM raised from LinkedIn | 100+ million client impressions | 400+ meetings booked | $1+ million in client courses sold

If you work in finance or real estate and want to add clients or capital through LinkedIn, send me a DM.

If you want to write a memoir or lead-gen book, send me a DM.

Adam Knorr

Last Wednesday, I knocked on 11 doors and invited 11 strangers to dinner. But the story doesn’t start there. 

In October, I was on a flight from Houston to Austin. 

When I’m on a flight, I like to honor the miracle of air travel by becoming the least approachable human I can be. Hood up, laptop out, headphones over the ears. I’m Simon Cowell with a toothache, Gordon Ramsay judging a toddler bake-off. I’m the Grinch — stuck in economy. 

But on this particular flight, I was sabotaged. 

Her name was Kay, and she was in her 70s. 

Kay caught me with my headphones down and started chatting me up. 

After a few minutes of small talk, Kay looked at me:

“This is nice,” she said. “No one talks on airplanes anymore.”

“Tell me about it,” I beamed. “A travesty.”

Kay went on to tell me how she puts on social events for her friends back home in New Mexico. She talked about how community is dying. How we're all in our phones to stay in touch, forgetting that those phones just keep us out of touch.

Six months before this flight, I had been invited to a dinner in Toronto by Tony Albrecht. 

Tony got some people from LinkedIn together and treated us all to a family-style dinner. 

I told Kay about this — and about how cool it was — and she asked me:

“Do you have anyone you could do that with?”

“Well,” I said. “I have 11 neighbors on my apartment floor, but I never see any of them. I guess I could put together a dinner and knock on their doors.”

So Kay made me promise that I would. She even gave me her personal card — the one she started carrying after she retired and no longer needed a business card — so I could tell her when I did it.

And that’s how, last night, I hosted a dinner with nine new friends. 

Turns out, knocking on doors gives you what tapping on screens promises you.

Gratitude post for all writers who continue to use the em-dash in the face of libelous AI allegations.

We will rightfully protect what's ours.

Do not surrender ground.

I stand with you.

Write in paragraphs if you want people to take you seriously.

Not walls of text — never walls of text. But use two sentences. Even three.

Yeah, white space is good. But if it's all you use, you're telling your audience you don't deserve their attention.

My profile appeared 87,495 times across LinkedIn from Nov. 11-18. 41,018 of those appearances were from comments.

Every week, someone sends me a DM saying:

"How do I get more engagement on my posts?"

And I respond saying:

"How often do you comment? DM? Engage with other people?"

And then, 9 times out of 10, they don't respond.

The irony.

Goodness, gracious.

The irony.

Elementary schools should be teaching personal branding, not biology.

Everyone laughs at Gen Z/Gen Alpha for wanting to be influencers.

Do you realize how much of a cheat code having an audience is?

I made my first post on LinkedIn in October 2022.

Since then, I have:

• Made more than $500,000 from writing.
• Created 5 different income streams.
• Been hired to write books. 
• Charged $400/hour for consulting calls.
• Worked with founders, CEOs, and celebrities.

And most importantly, I have built a distribution network for my future work.

When you build distribution, you create optionality and flexibility for yourself.

If every single one of my clients fired me tomorrow, I'd create a new offer and push it on all 15,259 of you so fast you'd think I was Pablo Escobar at a Korn concert. 

I imagine in 2035, I'll be making money online in a way I never considered in 2025.

And that's a heck of a lot more valuable than learning about peas and some guy named Gregor.

I edited 75 posts from financial advisors.

Here are the 5 most common mistakes: 

1. You're burying your hook. 

So many people bury their best content in paragraph 3. 

I'm constantly telling people to move their most compelling line to the front. 

Most common hook fixes:

• Replace vague statements with specific dollar amounts
• Kill the setup — get straight to the point
• Lead with emotion, not explanation

2. You're posting Google-able content

No one goes to LinkedIn to learn that the 2025 401k limit is $23,500.

Instead, write about the emotional reality of money decisions. 

The client who had $2MM and still couldn′t sleep at night. 
The couple fighting about a $400 purchase.
The specific mistakes you've prevented. 

3. You're not being specific enough. 

Instead of: "I saved a client a lot of money" 

Write: "I saved a client $34,317 in taxes with one phone call in August."

Specific numbers stop the scroll. 

4. You're writing white papers. Stop doing that. 

Most advisor content reads like a braided leather belt gained sentience.

If I ever see you write "strategic plan" again, I am kicking you out of my cohort.

5. You're mixing Impression Content and Lead Content 

Trying to make every post convert kills your reach and makes you sound salesy.

You don't need to shoehorn every personal storytelling post into, "Here's what watching the Ryder Cup with my toddler taught me about Roth Conversions."

It comes off as reallllllllly disingenuous. 

You need to give your audience credit. They're not dumb. They can tell when they're being rope-a-doped into a pitch and when you're sharing a genuine story or thought. 

--

P.S. When's the last time you added an unrelated photo to a hyper-specific post to try to game the system and rack up impressions?

I sold this truck for $2,500 yesterday.

It marks the second business I've failed.

Three years ago, I was a brand new freelance writer.

More accurately, I was calling myself a writer, but I barely had any work. 

So, to sleep better at night, I decided to hedge my bets.

And I started a second business.

I opened an LLC — 616 Event Rentals. I bought a truck, a trailer, tables, chairs, and a dance floor, and started taking calls and emails.

I figured it my writing business failed, I could fall back on this.

Luckily, my writing business didn't fail.

(Knock on wood.)

I started getting more and more business as a writer, so the idea of hauling a 4,000-LB trailer across Grand Rapids at 6 AM to set up 8 tables and 40 chairs by hand all of a sudden didn't appeal like it once did.

So I stopped doing it.

When I stopped, I was $20,420 in the hole.

I had made $434 in revenue.

And I started selling everything.

Took a bath on all of it. And not like the kind of bath you give your newborn in the sink. This was a cannonball into the Roman Baths — during Nero's reign.

And, as of yesterday, 616 Event Rentals is officially dead.

This is the second business I've "failed."

I also once launched a writing service called The Emergency Editor that I made a grand total of $0.00 from.

I also once sunk a couple thousand into potentially buying a landscaping business before bailing. 

This cockamamie writing business thing where I write LinkedIn posts for people happened to work, but  this is the first business venture I've had any success with since I illegally sold candy marked "not for individual sale" in 5th grade. 

I've launched just as many things that have failed as things that have succeeded.

And if I have any sense in me...

I'll keep trying to fail as often as I can.

Every year, I work from my dad's office over the holidays. It's a good reminder that I've had more advantages than 99% of freelance writers.

I've been writing professionally three years. I'm finally sort of comfortable claiming I've had a little bit of success — but if I want to claim success, I have to tell the truth about where it came from.

And the truth is, I have had every single advantage.

My dad was a freelance copywriter. It was the first job I knew you could do. Before I ever dreamed about playing shortstop for the Detroit Tigers, I saw myself alone in a quiet office, armed with a red pen and an AP Stylebook.

My parents were both entrepreneurs — my mom in real estate — so I grew up watching early mornings, stress, sacrifice. But because it was all I saw, I didn't realize it was remarkable. It just was. That's how everyone works, right?

As a kid, I wrote a lot. Since the guy who determined my bedtime was also a professional writer, I had access to high-quality feedback. I charge $900/month for that now, but he did it for free.

I'm good at writing. It's what I'm supposed to do with my life. But it certainly doesn't hurt that I got professional guidance before I ever put down a Junie B. Jones book for the last time.

I studied journalism, but took a job in finance. It hurt my heart to stop writing, but it helped my bank account.

Six years later, when I finally walked away to try freelancing, I had the thing most new writers never get: time. Runway. Margin for error.

I knew I could go a full calendar year without making any money and still be OK.

Most people trying to make it as a writer don't have this breathing room. Turns out, it's easier to score goals when you aren't white-knuckling the stick. Yeah, I was still tightrope walking, but my safety net was so close it was scraping the rubber off my soles.

For my first 20 gigs, my dad edited everything before I sent it. He introduced me to his contacts in the industry. 

The first time I charged more than $2,000 for a project came when my sister-in-law put in a good word for me at her company.

Yeah, I've worked hard. But I never had to work scared.

My family wanted to see me win, friends wanted to see me win, and strangers wanted to see me win. And instead of just golf-clapping from the sidelines, they each got in the game and dished me some assists.

So, yeah.

When you're comparing yourself to other people, remember that you're not seeing the invisible advantages baked into someone's default assumptions.

Anthropic (the company that created Claude) is hiring two writers for $255,000-$320,000. 

The ultimate irony:

AI is making the best writers *more* valuable.

The more people lean on AI for writing, the fewer talented writers exist.

The fewer talented writers exist, the more valuable they are. 

The more valuable they are, the more they get paid.

AI is making writing a high-income skillset.

I suggest you learn how to do it.

I have been paid $30,000 in a single day for a writing project, but nothing will ever beat closing my first client for $500.

It was October 2022, and I was living in Basecamp — a one-story, tarp-covered house on the bottom of a Kona coffee farm.

There were eight of us living in the house. At 28 years old, I was the Old Man By the Mango Tree, nearly a decade older than all my roommates. 

Often, I would wake up at 4:00 AM to start my day, fist-bumping a couple of roommates I passed in the hallway on their way to go to bed for the night. 

Between the eight of us, the farm provided two vehicles. I figured if I was going to be living in Hawaii, I didn't want my adventures to be constrained based on vehicle availability, so I found a guy with a car rental business.

I also figured if I was going to wear Hawaiian shirts and sport a mustache, I owed it to Tom Selleck to drive something better than a Hyundai Sonata, so I signed up for a long-term rental on a silver Dodge Challenger.

I met the owner of the rental business in the parking lot of a Shell station in Kealakekua, Hawaii.

When he handed me the keys, I pounced:

"Hey man. I respect what you're doing with your own business. I'm actually self-employed, too. I'm a copywriter — I write websites and things like that. I noticed your website still needs to be written. Would you be down with me sending you a proposal for what I would charge to write it?"

His website existed, but it was full of Lorem Ipsum placeholders. He agreed to take a look at my proposal, so I cruised back to the shack and fired it off.

A day later, my phone rang.

"Hey Adam. Let's do it."

I was breathing like I had just done a Polar Plunge into the Pacific, but I managed to choke out:

"Sounds good. I'll send you the invoice."

Then, I hung up, sprinted out to the living room, and high-fived every 19-year-old roommate I could find.

Since then, the numbers have gotten bigger and the projects more exciting, but I have never felt the same high as that first client — and I don't ever expect to again.

Not everything you post on LinkedIn has to be shoehorned into a fake lesson about what you learned. 

You can just tell good stories because it's fun to tell good stories.

And as a bonus, people won't want to vomit you when they read your content.

If you want to learn how to consistently break 10,000 impressions on LinkedIn, read this:

I’m sending out an email tomorrow to 828 people that breaks down the easiest way to create viral content on LinkedIn.

It’s too long for LinkedIn, so I can’t post it here. 

DM me your email address if you want to be added before it goes out at 9:00 AM EST tomorrow.

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

One morning, I quit my 9-5 job and said, “I’m a writer now.” 
 
Want to do something similar? Listen. 
 
Quitting my job to bet on myself is a decision I agonized over for years. 
 
But when it came down to it, the actions it took to create my reality took me less than 24 hours. 
 
-> Woke up  
-> Printed a 2-week notice 
-> Gave an 8:00 A.M. presentation 
-> Quit at 9:00 A.M. 
 
When you're "stuck" in the day-to-day grind, it's easy to get tunnel vision. And it’s hard to grasp the vastness of opportunity that simply being alive offers you. 
 
And because the years whip by at breakneck speed, it can feel impossible to find the time to break patterns. 
 
So instead of taking advantage of the limitless sandbox of the human experience, you blink and years have passed and you still haven’t progressed toward That Thing You Wanted To Do. 
 
But the life you live is simply a result of the actions you take. 
 
Most outcomes are determined by your input — not by random chance. You have control to change situations you don’t like. 
 
And look — these don’t have to be drastic things. They usually aren’t. I know plenty of people who love their patterns. Their jobs. Their relationships. 
 
But you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t have something they want to change. 
 
So whether that’s quit-your-job-and-move-4,000-miles-away drastic or man-I’m-sick-of-eating-the-same-thing-every-day mundaneness, the actions it takes to change your situation are often less daunting than your brain makes them seem. 
 
Remember: 

Who you are is who you choose to be.

What would 21,018,197 views do for you?

What about a measly 3,546,825?

These are some screenshots from content performance for myself + clients.

(Note that the ones around 3.5 million are less than a year into working together.)

These are all folks in commercial real estate and finance (and me). 

And before you ask...

Yes, this does lead to results.

-> 500+ booked calls
-> $20+ million invested
-> $1+ million in paid transactions

I'm going to tell you something that risks cannibalizing my business:

This stuff isn't hard.

Writing great LinkedIn content is literally:

• Applying hook formulas
• Understanding topic selection
• Telling stories and sharing controversial opinions

I can teach you how to do all of this in just 30 days.

As of today, enrollment is open for the Q1 2026 cohort of The Advisor GPS starting in January.

If you're a financial advisor who wants to learn how to do this stuff yourself, send me a DM today.

Spots are limited.

--

P.S. From current Advisor GPS students:

"I loved it!!! I thought it was great. Super useful stuff in there and I want to go back through a few times to really sink in a lot of these new ideas about writing content. My only regret is not working with you sooner"

"I thought the program was great! Definitely a lot of information that I will be revisiting."

"Seriously though this course and community is awesome. I am learning so much and stretching my comfort zone more than I thought possible."

Always makes me laugh when people get mad that hooks matter on LinkedIn. No — having “educational insights” isn’t enough. 

Who are you? 
Why should anybody care? 
Why do your ideas deserve to stand out?

(Nobody.)
(They shouldn’t.)
(They don’t.)

You could be Einstein mixed with Ghandi with a touch of Marie Curie thrown in and no one will care what you have to say until you either:

1) Do something that gives you enough clout/fame for your reputation to precede you 

Or 

2) Write great hooks that make them care. 

You are not owed attention. 

You have to earn it.

I've helped people land 1,000+ clients on LinkedIn.

3 simple DMs will book you the most calls:

I'm breaking them down in my newsletter at 9:00 AM EST tomorrow.

Join 821 subscribers here:

(And get a free gift!)

https://lnkd.in/gM87JAVf

Yesterday I taught a session inside Mando Sallavanti III, CFP®'s LinkedIn community — 83 financial advisors who are already investing in their growth on LinkedIn.

If you were there, you got a preview of the system I use to help advisors generate leads and smash impressions in 30–60 days.

If you want to go deeper, I’m opening up 5 new spots for my 30-Day LinkedIn Accelerator in January.

This includes:

• the complete Advisor GPS LinkedIn system
• weekly live coaching with me
• access to our private community
• templates, scripts, and growth frameworks
• and full support for 30 days

DM me "GPS" and I'll send you the details.

Stuff My Clients Say

I've written 4,100+ hooks. One mistake kills engagement more than any other: 

Assuming your audience knows who you are. 

Most creators have a "World Revolves Around Me" mindset.

You think people are paying attention. You think people have been following along. You think people have been reading your stuff, connecting the dots, building a mental map of your expertise, your offer, your point of view.

They haven't.

Most people skim. 
They catch a post here and there. 
They don't remember what you wrote yesterday.

So every single post, you should be starting from scratch.

When you write a hook that skips the authority, skips the context, skips the problem-naming — because you assume your audience already knows — it has zero chance at getting inbound leads.

Yeah, it's going to get comments from the same 15 people who show up every day...

But they were going to be there regardless. It doesn't mean the content was actually good — it just means you successfully clicked "post."

It's an inconvenient truth for 99% of creators, but you actually have to be good at copywriting if you want inbound leads.

You have to understand:

• Audience awareness levels
• Problem awareness levels
• Solution awareness levels 

This is why persuasive writing was destined to become a high-income skillset since Johannes Gutenberg started monkeying with his tiles in the 1440s. 

And this is why most people are deluding themselves into thinking ChatGPT can "write" content well enough to get inbound leads.

If you understand this stuff? 

Sure.

If not? 

You're going to keep showing up for another year wondering why no one is DMing you "financial freedom."

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The Battle

Christian Di Bratto

Adam Knorr

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Performance ScoreChristian Di Bratto's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Christian Di Bratto

Adam Knorr

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);}Christian Di Bratto's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAdam Knorr's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreChristian Di Bratto's LinkedIn Performance