CEO | We Find Purpose Driven Executives For Value Aligned Companies

I’m on a mission to change how we hire leaders in this country. Our employees and customers deserve to work with executives who are aligned on the values and the mission of the company, as well as being highly capable. 

The traditional hiring system is broken. Job boards and AI have created an unholy mess of the recruitment process and no one is winning. Candidates are anxious and over-applying, employers are drowning in applications and paralyzed by choice. 

At Y Scouts, we lead with purpose. We don’t advertise roles — we use our covert discovery process to handpick outstanding candidates for your leadership role. We obsess about 3 key characteristics: 

- Relentless learning
- Developing others
- Delivering results

If a candidate has all 3, they fit our Leadership Model and only then do we progress to assessing their experience and capabilities. We look for soft skills, culture alignment and an expectation of excellence.

My early career in recruiting started at Aerotek, one of the biggest aerospace recruiters in the country. A few years later, I started my own firm, Tru Path (formerly Job Brokers Inc.), a company that grew 100% year-over-year for eight years, scaling to $50 million in revenue. 

We hired over 50,000 people across many different industries. Churn was often high, and I realized that to drive real growth in a company's culture, you have to start at the top.

So in 2012, I co-founded Y Scouts, the world’s first purpose-driven executive search firm. We work with dozens of industries, from fashion to fitness, medicine to manufacturing. 

My philosophy is simple: hire like your business depends on it — because it does. 

Ready to find the leaders who are going to take your business further than you could have imagined? Let’s talk.

Max Hansen

Hi, I’m Abby. I help you stop winging it with your personal brand, by pairing content strategy with media coaching so you sound as good out loud as you do in your head!

Abby S.

There is a new-ish trend on LinkedIn, and I call it Facebook-ification.
It is when "storytelling" turns into oversharing because being vulnerable feels like the shortcut to being liked.

And I am watching a lot of smart founders confuse the two.

At this point, LinkedIn is starting to feel like a mix of:
• Facebook in 2010
• MySpace in 2006
• and a therapy circle no one asked to join

Here are 4 real business issues with this, and why it has me cringing so much.

1. LinkedIn is not for impressing our inner circle.
It is a professional network for earning trust with people who don't know us yet.

2. A CEO's job on LinkedIn is to turn strangers into customers, not collect comments for being "so real." 

3.  Our actual buyers are not looking for some vulnerable personal diary 24/7.
They care about: Strategy. Proof. Value.

4. The goal for CEOs is to be remembered for the right thing, like adding insight, not the vulnerable chaotic thing.

But I'm seeing so much mixed messaging, which, by the way, is hurting the bottom line.

That is why at Demandii we push storytelling with structured frameworks. This looks like content that builds authority, connection, engagement, and proof.

And look, I'm not knocking being relatable, I'm just saying it does not translate to being reputable OR credible.

So, while the goal is to aim for it all, we always want to lead with reputation + value first. 

PS. Yes, this image fully inspired the post.

PPS. Just remember that being relatable is not the goal on LinkedIn - there are other platforms for that.   

PPPS. Not sure how to get your content and lead gen goals aligned? Shoot me a DM, and we'll talk.

Abby E. Schachter

I help busy B2B CEOs create all their snackable LinkedIn content from a 1-hour monthly interview. -> Demandii.com

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This copywriting framework is my absolute favorite to use with my CEO clients because it forces us to stick with a story their ideal buyer connects with. 

It's called P.A.S and is a mini, more potent (IMO) version of the 'why' framework.

→ P – What’s the problem your buyer is living with?
→ A – Why does it suck? What’s it costing them?
→ S – How do you help? What’s the move forward?

And we pretty much build every video and every piece of content around this.

If it fits in PAS, it ships. If not, we redo.
Simple as that. 

The goal is to show how our expertise will make our audience's life better; but we can only do that with proof, and the proof is in the value we add with our storytelling.

CEOs, this kinda sucks but it's true: likeability on its own doesn’t equal trust. 
It means people enjoy your content.
Trust is when they believe you can solve the problem.

Some of the best founders I know, post from the trenches. 
It performs. People relate.

But it positions them as “one of us,” not “the way out.”
That’s why engagement doesn’t turn into leads.

At Demandii, we build content strategy frameworks  for our clients that shift their ideal buyers' perception from: “I relate to you” → “I trust you to lead me out.”

The key is to turn a service offer into strategic content that consistently shows off YOUR expertise by showing:

1-The path forward
2-What you see that others miss
3-Evidence that you  solve problems
4-How you've helped others just like them
5-And a very, very obvious reason to DM you

So, the next time you're stressing over a post with tons of likes but no leads, remember this: Connection without competence doesn’t convert.

LinkedIn marketing isn't about vanity metrics like likes and comments anymore.
Because here's what actually matters in 2026: Dark social intent.
And let me tell ya,  Dark social is sooooo underrated. 

I've seen countless founders chasing viral posts that get thousands of likes but zero new deals...

While others with less engagement are closing mid-market contracts because they pay attention to who is "lurking" in the shadows.

Here's how you can do this too:

1- Tracking profile visits over post likes. 
↳ Most of your buyers won't comment, but they will check your "About" section after reading a sharp insight.

2- Creating for the "Save" and the "Share."
 ↳ Your ideal buyer is secretly sharing your content via DMs with their internal team to build a business case.

3. Opinionated insights over generic advice. 
↳ Stop trying to please the algorithm and start challenging the industry status quo.

High reach doesn't matter if it's the wrong people watching BUT when we focus on shadow consumption first, the pipeline will follow.

CEOs: The LinkedIn posts that "fail" on day one are often the ones that close the deal six months later.

Well that's been my experience.

And it's because we are "baiting" the 95% of the market that isn't ready to buy today. 

They are lurking. They are watching. They are "human-ing" just like us.

If you delete the post, you delete the trail of breadcrumbs they were following to trust you.

Believe me, I know how low engagement feels like a bruise to the ego, but "likes" don't reveal who is secretly reading. 

Here is what we need to pay attention to instead:

1. The "Lurker" is the Decision Maker

I’ve seen CEOs get zero engagement from a target account for months, only to have a VP of Sales quote a specific "low-performing" post during a high-stakes discovery call. If that post had been deleted because it "tanked," that connection never happens.


2. Conversations > Conversions

Winning CEOs stop treating LinkedIn like a vending machine and start treating it like a cocktail party. When you focus on starting a dialogue rather than just forcing a conversion, you build actual rapport.


3. Warming the Cold

I’ve watched cold outbound response rates double simply because a prospect "saw the CEO’s name somewhere recently." That "somewhere" was usually a post the CEO almost deleted because it only got five likes.


So, just remember, if you give your content (and your audience) time, they will convert.

Okay? Okay!
 
PS. Demandii Iis really good at this if you need help.

CEOs  I know you're used to competence and being really good at what you do. So personal branding can feel weirdly exposing because you’re building a new skill in public.

So not only are you learning something new … You’re learning where people can see the reps in real-time. It's gross. 

Which is why I tell my founder clients: embrace the suck.
Super comforting, eh? 

Look, I know it’s not what a CEO  like yourself wants to hear,  but it’s what  YOU need to hear… because it’s the reality. 

I've seen it play out hundreds of times.

The first reps are awkward. 
You’ll overthink everything. 
You’ll want to quit.

Don’t. Reps compound.

And every time you show up, you get a little better.
Even 1% a day? That adds up fast.

And like, #StevenBartlett says in this super astute post, “embarrassment” is the entry fee. And it's worth it.

Brand partnership • Founder of Steven.com

Embarrassment is the price of entry - and most people just aren’t willing to pay it. 

they never hit record, write the post, or launch the thing… because the thought of “Dave from work” seeing it and making a snide comment is too much. 

that's so tragic to me.

how much potential are we wasting because we’re scared of what Jenny from our hometown, our mum, or - worst of all - our supposed "friends" might think? 

so many people hold their potential back because they’re scared of what some half-friend on Facebook might think - someone they haven’t properly spoken to since Year 11

I don't think anything holds us back from the life we could have lived more than the opinions of people who don’t even know us.

pressing record that first time felt cringey, awkward, and exposing - but discomfort has so often been a doorway, so I'm ok with it now. I'm okay with people thinking what they wanna think and saying what they wanna say. 

at the end of the day, I'm going to die someday - and so are you. 

So you might as well live.

Too many people wait until they feel ready, polished, or ‘credible’ enough to start but every good thing that's happened in my life started with me accepting that I would have to inevitably "practice in public" - be bad at something in front of the world before I'd figured it out

are you willing to practice in public? 

It's one of the reasons I invested in Stan - because the world needs more creators who launch before they feel ready. I didn't back them just because it's a creator tool. I backed them because they also remove the technical friction so you can get out of your own way.

P.S, don’t be a Dave. Clap and encourage when you see someone practising in public!

We live in a world of instant everything:
-Meals + groceries on demand
-Same-day shipping
-Instant messages

So when our content takes months to show results, what do we do? 

↳ Blame the algorithm
↳ Panic, the content sucks
↳ Pull the plug on the whole thing

And it makes TOTAL sense to feel this way.

However, a feeling isn't data. 

I sat with a CEO who was ready to quit personal branding because he didn't see a lead in 60 days and felt embarrassed that his LI posts weren't getting more than 5+ likes. 

I showed him the receipts: 4 VPs from his "dream" accounts were lurking on his profile every week.

He was focused on the "Decision" phase, but his buyers were still in "Discovery."

If you’re only posting to get an instant lead, you’re going to pivot too fast and break the trust you're building.

That post you wrote today? It's "bait" for the 95% who aren't ready to buy yet. Stay helpful, stay human, and stay top of mind.

I promise, the ROI will come, but only if you don't pull the plug too early.

taplio

The Battle

Max Hansen

Abby S.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

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Performance ScoreAbby S.'s LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Max Hansen

Abby S.

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);}Abby S.'s LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAbby S.'s LinkedIn Performance