LinkedIn Ads Specialist | B2B Youtuber/Blogger | Rooftop Cinema Owner

I've been running B2B ads for 9 years, diving deep into LinkedIn Ads in 2020—that’s 5 years of laser-focused expertise on the platform. Since then, I’ve managed millions in ad spend for 150+ clients, helping businesses scale their demand generation, lead gen, and revenue strategies.

💡 What I do:
👉 I run Kiin, a niche LinkedIn Ads agency working with budgets up to $100K/month
👉 I help B2B companies own their demand, lower CPLs, and convert more pipeline
👉 I design and execute high-performing LinkedIn campaigns that drive real ROI

🔹 Want to scale your LinkedIn Ads profitably? Let’s chat. Book a call: https://calendly.com/phil-kiin/30min
🔹 Learn more at www.kiin.co

Philip Ilic

LinkedIn Conversation ads have been some of our best-performing ad formats for a bunch of my clients. 

They are getting demo requests for as little as $120 to $350.

I used to say they were hit or miss. 

50% of the time they would work. 
50% not.

but i am finding more like 75% of the time they do if done right.
 
Cool thing is they also work really well to a cold audience. 

If you think about it they are just a cold message sent to your ICP at scale (like outbound) but with no spam filters. 

I made a deep-dive loom playbook video covering:
+ How to set them up
+ What to write in them
+ How to approach bidding (opposite of what you’d normally do)
+ When and how to use them
+ How to use incentives effectively alongside them

If you want it...
Comment 'convo' down below💪

And i'll send dm you a link. 

p.s. make sure you are connected with me otherwise i can't send it!

LinkedIn Ads Specialist | Dm Me To Access My full LinkedIn Ads Playbooks👇 | Rooftop Cinema Owner🍿

If I've got a list of 1,000–5,000 companies… 
And the budget to properly hit them… 
I don't run a normal funnel. 
I go all in on content distribution. 

Here's exactly how I do it.

1️⃣ Upload the company list.
Then I layer it with job titles.
Make sure the list is super tight. 

If you can add a layer which is more of a signal then that is great,

Now we've got a tight, high-value audience. 
No broad targeting. 
Just the accounts we actually want.

2️⃣ Create up to 10 Thought Leader Ads.

Some video. 
Some image posts. 
Different angles. 
Different people from the company if possible.
Founder content. 
Product content. 
Educational content. 
Social proof. 
Contrarian takes.

The goal is that every time someone from that company logs into LinkedIn… they see us. 
Not once. 
Repeatedly.

3️⃣ Control frequency properly.

This part matters.

I'm looking for minimum 5–10 impressions per post. 
Each person seeing at least 5 different posts, ideally closer to 10. 
Strong penetration across the list.

Post getting tired? 
Frequency too high? 
Engagement dropping? 
Swap it out. 

Rotate creative every few weeks.

4️⃣ Let familiarity build. Then convert.

After a few weeks you start seeing direct inbound. 
Branded searches. 
Website visits from those accounts. 
Random demo bookings.

One way to see this 'influenced pipeline' is using Fibbler, a super great tool for this.

They've seen you 20+ times. 
You're not a stranger anymore.

That's when we layer in Lead Gen Forms, BOF campaigns, Conversation Ads, direct demo messaging, and warm outbound to the same list.

You're not introducing yourself. They should have some brand and personal awareness. 

There is no classic TOF → MOF → BOF. 
We're not building tiny retargeting pools. 
We're hitting the entire list consistently.

This flips the traditional funnel on its head.

It works when the list is under 5k, LTV is strong, you've got enough budget to dominate, and you actually monitor frequency and penetration.

Most companies massively under-invest in frequency. 
But frequency builds familiarity. 
And familiarity builds pipeline.

---
p.s. want us to build this for you, send me a dm to discuss 💪

Most people’s LinkedIn ads fail because they don’t know how to report on influenced pipeline.

If you can only see the directly attributable things such as leads + demos, then you are missing out on major superpower of LinkedIn ads.

this is the content delivery/ demand gen / how pipeline is influenced part. 

But without a way to see that the pressure to focus on demos and leads gets super high. 

And that kind of pressure pushes marketers to lean heavily on bottom-of-funnel tactics...
Things like lead gen forms and incentive ads.

These do work super well. 

but without focusing on the nurture (180 day retargeting content delivery) part, the lead gen part will flatline… and then fail.

demos = pipeline = revenue, right?
Kind of.

In my opinion LinkedIn ads’ true super power lies more in its ability to deliver content at scale to a really high value ICP.

This is the demand gen part.

We push (mostly thought leader ads) to your ICP.

We work hard on multiple bits of content so we deliver a full message.

This all delivers our message, things like…
+ what does your product do
+ why is it awesome
+ why is it different
+ how did people used to tackle this problem before your solution
+ Who have you worked with before
+ what amazing things are they saying about you
+ why do they think you are awesome
+ how do they use you and get massive results
+ what is your position in your general market
+ do you have an opinion on the general topic you work in

This builds trust and teaches your ICP about your product.

And then often they fill out a form or come inbound through…
branded search
or through “direct”
or unknown
or even a lead gen ad

but when you dig deeper you see they actually engaged with your thought leader ads 7 times…
clicked 4 times to your site
and had 200 impressions over the past couple months

This is 'influenced pipeline'.

The LinkedIn ads do the heavy lifting.

before the companies tab on LinkedIn there was no way to really report on this.

And this is why Fibbler is an essential tool for us at Kiin.

If we can’t report on influenced pipline we are missing out on reporting on LinkedIn’s most important metric.

How much pipeline and revenue has LinkedIn influenced.

And then when the lead gen ads fail, which eventually they do, if all your budget is focused on that, then people end up switching off their LinkedIn ads.

They say it failed. 
that LinkedIn ads suck.

Honestly this is why I love Fibbler
It has made my job to tell a compelling story about why LinkedIn ads work much easier.

When a client can see a dashboard (see pic) with the number which states the influenced pipe / revenue it is easy to see why linkedin ads are so powerful.

P.S. This is exactly why Fibbler exists. It connects your LinkedIn ad impressions, engagements, and clicks directly to your CRM so you can finally see the influenced pipeline most marketers are missing. Try it free for 30 days at https://www.fibbler.co/

There is a huge discrepancy between LinkedIn ad landing page clicks and what clients see in GA4. Here is why:

A client yesterday pointed out they were seeing around 5% of clicks to landing page in GA4 vs what we report in LinkedIn.
(If you're reading this 👋)

So I went deep. 
LinkedIn docs, ad fraud studies, GA4 consent mode research, every thread I could find.

Here's what's actually happening:

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗰𝘆

Even perfectly configured, a 15-30% gap between Landing Page Clicks and GA4 sessions is normal.

Some advertisers report only 1 in 3 clicks becoming a session. 
The documented range is 5-40%.

𝟭. 𝗠𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱𝘀

LinkedIn counts the click the instant someone taps.

GA4 only counts after the page loads, JavaScript executes, and a cookie is set.
On mobile there's a multi-second delay. Users hit back or close the app.

Facebook's data shows GA tracking fails on 10-80% of mobile clicks. LinkedIn behaves the same way.

𝟮. 𝗖𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀

"Deny Cookies" = invisible to GA4.
A normal banner reduces recorded traffic by 10-15%. Misconfigured? The drop can hit 95%.

One study found a $1M+/quarter company underreporting by 25% because their cookie platform was blocking Google Tag Manager entirely.

If your clients are in Europe or the UK, this is likely your biggest culprit.

𝟯. 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸

AJ Wilcox (B2Linked) analysed LAN traffic with ad fraud expert Dr. Augustine Fou.
63% was bot or suspicious. Only 37% confirmed human.

2,000 clicks paid for. ~1,000 real people showed up.

Headless bots don't process JavaScript, clicks in LinkedIn, invisible in GA.

𝟰. 𝗚𝗔𝟰 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
If a user grants cookie consent after browsing a few pages, GA4 resets the session and marks it as "Direct."
Your LinkedIn traffic is there. 
Just under the wrong label.

𝟱. 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀 + 𝗮𝗱 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀
Click, back, click again = 2 LinkedIn clicks, 1 GA session.
Bad bots made up 37% of all web traffic in 2024. Ad blockers block GA but don't stop LinkedIn counting.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱:
→ Mobile bounce: 10-20% lost 
→ Cookie denial: 10-15% invisible 
→ GA4 misattribution: 5-10% 
→ LAN bots (if on): up to 63% 
→ Ad blockers: 5-10% 
→ Repeat clicks: 3-5%

Stack a few and 50-80% of clicks vanish before GA4 sees them.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼:
→ Turn off LAN unless there's a reason 
→ Audit cookie consent (GTM must load BEFORE the banner) 
→ Enable GA4 Consent Mode v2 Advanced + behavioural modelling 
→ Speed test landing pages — under 1 second on mobile 
→ Honest benchmarks: 15-20% = normal. 30%+ = investigate. 50%+ = broken.

LinkedIn Ads work. 
We see the pipeline. 
We see the revenue.
But tracking is always a pain in the ass.

A few months back I had a client who was pushing me hard to put $50k a month into bottom of funnel ads.

It actually worked well for a while.

They were over the moon with the amount of leads coming in.

The CMO had super aggressive targets given to him.

 And that pressure got pushed onto me.

For a while it worked really well.

We were getting a ton of demo requests each month.

Things looked bright.
Until they didn’t.

What happened next is the CPL started to rise — not slowly, but really quickly.
It went from $200–300 per demo request to $600–800 in a matter of weeks. 

Then 1000 + a couple of weeks later. 

+ We refreshed creatives.
+ Tried different targeting types.
+ Expanded the ICP slightly.

But nothing kept the price down.

I kept recommending a demand gen strategy.

I could see we needed to invest a lot more in content distribution. 
Nurture. Retargeting. Education.

But they were fully on the lead gen bandwagon.

They were addicted to these leads.

I also pushed hard to get them to analyse actual pipeline and revenue generated, not just demo volume.

They never helped us get the right data for this. Or wanted to.

I have a sneaky suspicion they knew this was a downward spiral and preferred to live in ignorance.

Long story short…
The leads ended up costing $1,200+.

To be fair, their ACV was around $40–60k, so on paper it was still “doable”.

Once we eventually dug into it, after hundreds of thousands spent, the ROI was negative.

Many of the leads were low quality.
Very few converted into real pipeline.

Now I refuse to work with companies that don’t get behind the recommended strategy.

I even introduced a clause that once we present our go-to-market strategy, if we’re not aligned at the strategy level, either side can walk away risk-free. 

Money back.

It’s not worth pushing something we know will fail eventually.

p.s. If you wanna do LinkedIn ads properly, I’ll drop our full funnel strategy playbook video in the comments.

I see people doubting AI will completely take over many marketing jobs in the next 18 months.

I believe it.

I've been building our own internal Kiin Intelligence Agent and it's performing tasks at a level most people can't.

Is it better than the best specialist for each individual task? Maybe not.
But it's better than most.

For example I trained it to do 90% of the work around LinkedIn Ads strategy.

It researches the company, the product, the ICP... ...goes on Reddit, G2, and other places to find both positive and negative reviews.

It analyses messaging.

It looks at how much the company is posting organically and gives a full report.

It literally does 95% of the strategy work for me.
I just add the final recommendations (which it also attempts... and gets a lot right).

We also used to need 2 people at Kiin spending all day Friday building weekly client reports.

Now those reports (releasing this next week to the team) come 95% prepared. 

We just review and refine.

I can clearly see much of my job will be automated.

Not all of it. But a lot.

In the short run it makes us way more efficient internally.

In the long run it means fewer people handling more accounts.

I'm both terrified and excited at the same time.

LinkedIn Ads are easy.
All you have to do is...

- Know your demand gen vs demand capture budget split
- Understand influenced pipeline and how to track it
- Know whether to optimise TLAs for engagement or brand awareness
- Know the difference between CPC and clicks to landing page
- Know which TLA content bucket to use and when
- Know when to promote an organic post vs create something new
- Know your convo ad open rate benchmark, and what to do when you're under it
- Know what each drop-off in the convo ad funnel means
- Know when to use lead gen forms vs landing pages
- Know whether low pipeline is a targeting, message or speed-to-lead problem
- Know when TOFU isn't building retargeting pools
- Know how to design MOFU for influenced pipeline
- Know when BOFU is burning budget on the wrong audiences
- Know how to set up retargeting windows and how to layer by engagement depth
- Know when and how to run incentive ads on convo ads
- Know how to bid on conversation ads and why it matters
- Know how to calculate budget against audience size and CPM
- Know whether audience expansion is helping or hurting you
- Know what exclusions to set and why
- Know the benchmarks for each ad format so you know how to optimise
- Know when creative is fatiguing
- Know when an account is broken at the ad level vs the strategy level
- Remember to connect CRM data back to your LinkedIn Ads
- Remember to pass engagement signals from ads to the sales team
- Remember to align with sales so ads and pipeline actually connect
- Remember to set up self-reported attribution from day one
- Remember to track lead → SQL → opportunity → revenue, not just CPL
- Remember that LinkedIn video views are 2 seconds, and what to track instead
- Remember to follow up on lead gen form leads instantly
- Remember that account historical performance affects current campaigns
- Remember that audience expansion is a LinkedIn revenue feature, not a targeting feature
- Remember that LinkedIn ≠ Google
- Know how to use TLAs to warm up outbound before the first touch
- Know your ICP tightly enough to actually build an account list

Easy, right? 😰

#LinkedInAds #B2B #DemandGeneration

I just hit over 4,000 subscribers on my newsletter.

It’s always been a side project. I’ve neglected it more times than I’d like to admit… sorry 😅

But when I look at it properly, it’s responsible for a really meaningful part of how I bring in new clients.

Email marketing is actually incredibly powerful.

We get 50%+ open rates on pretty much every send, even on the 8th, 9th, 10th email in a sequence. 

It means people genuinely care about what I write.

I don’t write often. But when I do, it’s usually:
• an A/B test
• real performance data
• insights from the hundreds of thousands we spend on LinkedIn ads each month

These aren’t recycled blog posts. 
They’re things we’re actively testing inside client accounts.

Maybe that’s why people keep reading, even though I’m painfully inconsistent.

Here’s why email is worth the effort:

1. You own your media

I have direct access to everyone who subscribes.

There’s no algorithm that can throttle my reach overnight.

For me, a newsletter subscriber is infinitely more valuable than a social media follower.

2. You build an actual relationship

Email, especially if you’re consistent, builds long-term trust with your ICP.

It keeps you top of mind.
+ It nurtures the 97% who aren’t in market yet.
+ It shows expertise.
+ It builds social proof over time.
+ It compounds.

3. It’s mostly free
Yes, I use LinkedIn ads, YouTube and organic LinkedIn to grow it.

But once someone subscribes, I can reach them in their inbox for free.

And if you’re anything like me, you check your inbox more than you check social media.

If it costs me $16 to acquire a subscriber who’s a VP of Marketing and they:
• read my emails
• click the links
• watch the videos

Then I can reach that person indefinitely, as long as I keep delivering value.

And from what I’ve seen, a percentage of those subscribers eventually become customers.

4. It’s a serious conversion engine

I’ve been digging into our data and comparing newsletter subscribers with sales calls and closed clients over the past year.

A large proportion of clients had, at some point, subscribed and read my emails.

Some booked calls directly from a newsletter link.

Email is massively underrated.

It’s powerful.

But it’s also a grind to build.

Still, 4,000 subscribers later, I’m very glad I stuck with it.

P.S. Why not sign up (link in the cmments)
Inside you’ll get:
• Real A/B test results from campaigns we’re actively running
• Deep-dive playbooks on LinkedIn Ads and GTM
• Loom walkthroughs breaking down strategy and performance
• A bunch of high-quality freebies, including 68 LinkedIn Canva ad templates

Honestly, I think one of the best strategies I know, which very few ppl do with LinkedIn ads, is saturation over retargeting.

What I mean by this is if you have a limited account list, then just make sure the audience size matches your budget.

Then the goal is NOT to go broad. 
Then do middle of funnel 180 day retargeting. 
Then bottom of funnel retargeting of the middle.

This works. but what i am talking about here is different. 

What I have been testing instead is saturating a limited cold audience with content.

Making sure the penetration rate is high. 
Decent frequency. 
Enough bits of content. Enough impressions etc.

The goal is to hit up as many ppl on that list as possible with at least: 5-10 bits of content (mostly TL ads) 
With 5-10 frequency on each bit of content. 
Work on penetration rate.

The point is that we get as many ppl on this list to receive content which communicates...
+ who you are
+ what you do
+ why you are amazing
(withh enough impressions and content each)

Then when we launch the bottom of funnel plays (LinkedIn lead gen / to demo page ads + warmbound)

These ppl will already be super primed.

The point is also to be in front of these ppl for a good period of time, as we all know someone might not yet be in market but might be in 6 months.

Its a little different but I see this working super well over the full funnel strategy.

Both work. 
But this is especially powerful if you have a list you want to target and hit up for the next 3-6 months.

Or if you have limited TAM (account-based targeting).

#linkedinads #demandgen #leadgen

I audited an account recently that had a ton of campaigns running.

But it was completely unclear what the point of each one was.

A massive mess.

Here's what I always do to bring clarity. I define two things for every campaign:

1. Is it demand gen or demand capture?

Understanding this changes everything about how you run it.

Most people hope each campaign does both. It won't.

A demand gen campaign should often be zero-click and native to LinkedIn. 

Keep people on the platform. 
Educate them there.

A demand capture campaign should have a harder CTA. 
You're catching intent that already exists.

2. What is the specific objective of that campaign?

Every campaign gets one objective. Not two. One.

The most common ones I use:

→ Get people to watch a video so they learn about X 
→ Get people to click through to a landing page 
→ Get people to download a lead magnet 
→ Get someone to request a demo via a lead gen form

Once you know the objective, you know exactly how to measure whether it's working.

If the goal is landing page clicks, look at CTR, CPC, bounce rates. 

If it's a nurture campaign, look at dwell time. 

If it's video views, look at video views.

Sounds obvious. But most accounts I audit don't do this.

One objective per campaign means you always know if it's succeeding or not.


#linkedinads

We tried Linkedin ads and it didn't work...
I hear this all the time. 

But when I look under the hood, I see a massive mess. 
+ no structure
+ bidding off
+ LAN on
+ no strategy
+ no thought leader ads
+ no attribution 
+ no clue if ads are influencing pipeline (and not using Fibbler to check)
+ 100% of budget in lead gen
+ all the budget in 2 TL ads 
+ $300 spent, then they panicked and decided it doesn't work

Ppl jump straight to 'ads aren’t working' when the issue is buried way deeper.

So I built this mental model I run through every single time 👇

Layer 0: Attribution
Can we even trust the data?
Half the time… we can’t. Tags broken, UTMs missing, CRM a mess. No way to looking at influenced pipeline/revenue.

Layer 1: Account setup
Bidding wrong. Audience expansion on. LinkedIn Audience Network secretly taking 98% of the budget.

Layer 2: Funnel
No structure. Just random campaigns.
No retargeting. No Thought Leader Ads. No flow.

Layer 3: Lead gen
Leads coming in… but none converting down stream.
Or they just die in the CRM.

Layer 4: Targeting + demographics
You think you’re hitting ICP… you’re not.
Wrong seniority, wrong company size, wrong industries. Very few exclusions.

Layer 5: Creative
No Tl ads
low CTRs
A mess of ads with no clear objectives. 

Layer 6: Spend
Budget leaking into campaigns doing nothing.
Meanwhile your best campaigns are underfunded.

Layer 7: Pipeline
This is the big one.
LinkedIn might actually be working… just not where you’re looking.
Is there Influenced pipe??? 
(Fibbler is a great one to integrate here to know this one)

And honestly…
When I go through this with clients, it’s never just one thing.

It’s like 5–6 small inefficiencies stacked on top of each other.
👉 Slightly wrong targeting
 👉 Weak creative
 👉 No retargeting
 👉 Bad attribution

That’s why most ppl quit LinkedIn ads too early.

They have no idea why their ads are not working, then they say LinkedIn ads are sh£t. 

Not everyone should advertise, but most b2b companies can find success on the platform. 

p.s. i'd highly recommend Fibbler as a foundation. 
If you do not know your influenced pipeline, you are flying half blind.

Brand partnership • LinkedIn Ads Specialist | Dm Me To Access My full LinkedIn Ads Playbooks👇 | Rooftop Cinema Owner🍿

What should my Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) be from LinkedIn Ads?
It's the question every client asks.
And the question most ppl running your ads love to dodge 
(including me)

Here are the 10 factors that determine your LinkedIn Ads CAC:

1. TAM + In-Market Rate
Big addressable market with lots of in-market buyers = more people ready to buy = your CAC drops.

Tiny niche with 500 companies = every impression is expensive and conversion is slow.

Market size sets the floor.

2. Product-Market Fit
The one everyone skips.
Strong PMF = ppl convert faster, churn less, refer more.
Weak PMF = even great ads can't save you. Every lead is a fight.
The best CAC optimisation isn't in the ad account. It's in the product.

3. ACV
High ACV = you can absorb more spend per close.
$60k ACV deal with a $5k CAC is fine.
$6k ACV deal with a $5k CAC is a disaster.
ACV sets the ceiling on what CAC is even acceptable.

4. Sales Cycle Length
Longer cycles = more spend before a close registers.
Most attribution windows don't capture 9-month journeys.
So your CAC looks worse than it actually is and you kill the channel too early.

5. Lead-to-Close Rate
This is the biggest multiplier.
Same CPL. 5% close rate vs 20% close rate.
That's a 4x difference in CAC.
Sales team quality, SDR speed, lead quality — all of it lives here.

6. Creative Quality
Bad creative gets punished by LinkedIn's algorithm.
Higher CPMs. Less distribution. Worse CAC.
Good creative can cut CPL by 30–50% on identical targeting.
The ad is not separate from the CAC equation.

7. Category Maturity
Do ppl already know your category exists?
If yes, they're searching, comparing, primed to convert. CAC is lower.

If no, you have to teach them they have a problem before you can solve it.
That education costs money.

Blue ocean markets sound exciting until you see the CAC.

8. Brand Awareness
Cold audiences who've never heard of you convert at a fraction of the rate of warm ones.
No brand in market = your ads are doing double duty.
Paying for awareness AND conversion at the same time.
Retargeting audiences are your cheapest source of CAC reduction.

9. Landing Page Conversion Rate
You can run perfect campaigns and blow it all here.
1% LP conversion vs 4% LP conversion = 4x difference in CAC.
Most advertisers obsess over the ad.
They should obsess over what happens after the click.

Our internal CAC is: ~$1,500

What's yours?

#LinkedInAds #B2B #DemandGeneration

Thought leader ads are not necessarily your best organic content.

I hear a lot of people say your best performing organic LinkedIn content is what you should push in TL ads.

I don't think that's true.

My best content is a selfie of me with my cat. 
or me at my roof top cinema in Lisbon
Everyone loves those
Get 20x my normal engagement.

But that doesn't mean I should push that as a TL ad.

Realistically we need to push content which is sometimes more BOF.

This doesn't always get the most engagement, but that's ok.

The point is your ICP needs to know:
+ Your features
+ How you work
+ What you do
+ Who you've helped

That's the point of a TL ad.

An organic content strategy where you post 4x a week is very different to LinkedIn thought leader ad content.

With TL ads we need to be strategic about what we push.

The way I see it, we need to think about what specifically does the ICP need to know about you to understand why they should use you over your competitors. 

Or even why they need your SaaS at all.

So we need content specifically about:

+ Your product
how does it work, what specific features can help them.

+ Your social proof
who have you helped, how did you help them, some stats, ideally some logos.

We need to deliver this content to your ICP in the demand gen part of your LinkedIn ads funnel.

This is the entire point of demand gen. 
A lot of this content from TL ads is designed to be zero-click. 

We are trying to get your ICP to consume the content, to learn about you and what you do.

So yeah, i guess not every vp of marketing needs to see my wit my cat sefie.

Yesterday one of our LinkedIn Ads specialists at Kiin flagged something I hadn’t seen before.

I took a look and realised the campaign was performing incredibly well.

It was a tactic we’d never tested in this specific way before, and for this client it was working extremely well.

It’s rare to find something genuinely new.
We’re constantly testing, iterating, tweaking.
So when something fresh actually works well, it’s super exciting.

I asked the team to roll it out across five more accounts as a structured test.
We’ve just done that. literally 24 hours later. 

This is one of the reasons I love running a large number of LinkedIn Ads accounts.

The cross-account learning is powerful. 
Seeing what works, what doesn’t, how different ICPs respond, how creative fatigue shows up, how bidding strategies behave, that breadth of data compounds fast.

It reminds me why having a specialist partner like us matters.

Not because we claim to know everything.

But because we’re deep in it every single day, always learning.

There are only a handful of teams who operate at this depth on LinkedIn. And i know pretty much all of them. 

Running truly current playbooks is hard.
You need volume.
You need pattern recognition.
You need the willingness to try things that aren’t in a blog post yet.

A lot of people run someone else’s framework.
We try to build and refine our own.

Ai is also freaking me out at the mo also.

But moments like this remind me we can still add a lot of value... for now at least.

That’s why I’m glad we chose to go deep on LinkedIn Ads rather than broad across everything.

#linkedinads

My client thought the account was failing.
I thought it was pretty much on track.
We were both looking at the same data.

So how were we drawing completely different conclusions??? 

Knowing what good looks like, at each layer of the funnel, is half the battle.

Here's how I read the metrics:

👉 Demand gen vs demand capture.

These are two completely different games.
Most people mix them up and then wonder why nothing makes sense.

👉 Cold layer (demand gen)

The only goal here is building high-quality, affordable retargeting audiences.
That's it.

So we're looking at:
+ Clicks to landing pages
+ Engagement
+ Video views

Don't expect leads from cold.
That's not the job.

👉 180 day retargeting / demand gen layer 
This is about content distribution.

Consistently communicating to your ICP...
who you are
what you do
How you do it
us vs them
old vs new 

Bascially we need to get the ICP to know about you and your product 
(brand awareness). 

Here we care about:
+ Engagement rates
+ Dwell time
+ Clicks to landing pages
+ Video views
+ Impressions
+ Frequency and penetration rate

alot of this is zero click and native to LinkedIn. 

You need your ICP to see enough content that you actually become familiar.
Not one impression. Not five.
Enough that they know you.

👉 Demand capture layer

Now we're looking at harder metrics.

+ Lead gen form opens and fills
+ Website form submissions

Basically MQLs/ SQLs / Demos booked etc

This is the bottom of the funnel.
It should convert.

If it doesn't, the problem is usually further up stream.

👉 Each ad type also has its own logic Also.

Thought leader ads need to be read completely differently from single image ads.

CPC doesn't matter for TL ads.
What matters is 'clicks to landing page'.

And especially in demand gen, where I use TL ads most, the real question is: 
are people actually consuming the content?

Dwell time matters.
Video views matter.
Are they sitting with the post long enough to absorb the message, or just scrolling past?

At the same time, we want enough reach within the ICP.
So impressions, frequency, and penetration rate all come into play.

Conversation ads are their own beast.
Most reporting tools handle these badly.

For convo ads you're reading open rates, click-through rates etc

The whole flow matters, not just the end conversion.

Linkedin is confusing 
(luckily for me as it'll take longer for ai to take my job).

But half the battle is knowing what good looks like.

I reviewed an account yesterday that has over $1M in pipeline attributed to LinkedIn Conversation Ads.

Revenue already trickling in.
(we are also doing full funnel here so it is not the only thing happening)

Here's what actually makes them work:

1. Open rate
Everything starts here.

Low open rate = less ppl see the offer = less clicks = less leads.

It compounds downward fast.

Open rate is about 2 things:
Targeting: your offer has to match your ICP. That's a separate post.

The headline: treat it exactly like a cold outbound subject line.

We aim for 30%+ minimum. 40% is great.

(I've seen accounts with lower open rates but cheaper CPL than accounts with 40%+, so it's one factor, not the only factor)

A/B test your headlines constantly until you hit a number you're happy with.

2. The opening copy
Short. To the point. No wall of text.

I reviewed one today that tried to say everything at once.

Overwhelming to look at. Obviously wasn't converting.

Here's the format I use:
Social proof first: "Top brands like X and Y use [company] to [outcome]"

One line on a specific benefit or feature to hook them.

CTA: book a quick 15-min demo.

That's it.

If you want higher conversion, add an incentive: $100 Amazon gift card for a 30-min call. The math always works if your deal size is decent.

3. The CTA options
I keep it to 2 max.

"I'm interested" opens the lead gen form.
"Not right now. 
That's it.

Super simple. 
No choose-your-own-adventure nonsense.

We have a bunch of accounts where convo ads are the entire demand capture engine.

#LinkedInAds #ConversationAds #B2BMarketing

Building Winning Sales Team By Recruiting Top Sales Talent

🚀 I’ve spent the last 5+ years obsessed with one thing: helping companies build sales teams that actually win.

🔥 Before founding Jayce Grayye Consulting & Recruiting, I was in the trenches leading sales teams, hiring closers, and learning firsthand how expensive the wrong hire really is. I built my agency to take that pain off your plate and make sure every new hire is a revenue driver, not a liability.

💼 Today my team and I have placed more than 1,000 sales professionals across SaaS, tech, and high-growth startups. We deliver killers who ramp fast, close hard, and stick.

📈 Recent wins this month:
✅ Placed a COO in under 3 weeks
✅ Built an SDR team of 4 in one shot
✅ Delivered multiple VPs of Sales and Account Executives for scaling SaaS companies

⚡ What makes us different is simple. We don’t push paper. We don’t sling resumes. We build revenue machines by finding the right talent, fast. Data-driven recruiting + relentless focus on results = teams that dominate.

🔥 If you’re scaling and you need closers who bring the fire, this is where you come to win. Let’s talk: buildawinningsalesteam.com

Jayce Grayye

The difference between a $400k rep and a $1M rep isn’t skill.

It’s not territory, the product, or even luck.

Here’s what actually separates them.

The $400k rep works the pipeline they have.
The $1M rep obsesses over the pipeline they’re building.

The $400k rep follows up twice, then moves on.
The $1M rep follows up until they get a yes or a definitive no, and they’re fine with either.

The $400k rep knows their pitch cold.
The $1M rep knows their prospect’s business well enough to write the pitch for them.

The $400k rep treats a closed deal like a finish line.
The $1M rep treats it like an opening, who else in that org needs this?

The $400k rep goes home when they hit quota.
The $1M rep goes home when they’ve maxed the day.

None of this is talent.

It’s standard.

The standard you set for yourself when no one’s watching.
The calls you make when you’re already at 100%.
The follow-through that happens after every other rep has clocked out.

The gap between good and great in sales isn’t a skill gap.
It’s a standard gap.

And you can’t train someone to raise their standard.
They either have it or they’re building it.

I Build Winning Sales Teams By Recruiting Million-Dollar Producers in 21 Days or Less | Featured On Forbes | Book a Call Below

Stop hiring for these things.

They don’t predict sales performance.

Years of experience:

I’ve placed reps with 2 years of experience who outperformed 15-year veterans. Experience tells you what someone has done. It tells you nothing about what they’ll do for you.

Prestigious company names on the resume.
Big companies give reps big territories, big brand recognition, and big support teams. Take all of that away and see what happens. Plenty don’t survive the transition.

“Polished” interview presence:

Some of the best closers I know are awkward in interviews. They’re not performing for you, they perform for prospects. Stop confusing interview polish with sales ability.

Industry experience:

“They need to know our space.” No. They need to know how to sell. Product knowledge takes 30 days. Hunger takes a lifetime to build.

A great LinkedIn profile:

I don’t care how well they brand themselves online. I care how they handle a prospect who’s gone cold for 45 days with $80k on the table.

Here’s what actually predicts performance:

What they do when a deal falls apart.

How they talk about the rep who outsold them.

Whether they ask better questions at the end of the interview than you asked at the beginning.

Stop screening for signals that feel safe.

Start screening for signals that are real.

A founder called me last week, ready to hire.

We got on the phone. Energy was good. They had a budget. They were serious.

Then we got to compensation.

I told him the truth: mid-market account executives right now are running 130 to 150k base.

He lost it.

Got defensive. Got rude. Hung up.

And honestly? Best outcome possible.

Here’s what that call actually was:

A test.
A test of whether I’d lower my standards to land a client.

Whether I’d pretend the market was something different than what it actually is.

Whether I’d compromise who I work with to make a number happen.

I didn’t.

And here’s the thing nobody says out loud in recruiting:

The clients you turn away are just as important as the ones you take.

The ones who get upset when you tell them the truth about the market?

They’re the same ones who’ll blame you when they can’t attract talent at penny-on-the-dollar pricing.

They’re the ones who’ll demand you do the impossible because they refused to do what’s realistic.

I could’ve softened it. 
Could’ve said “let me see what I can find.” 
Could’ve strung him along hoping he’d come around.

Instead I just told him what the market actually pays.

And he chose to hang up rather than adjust.
That’s not my problem to solve.

Your standards aren’t negotiable just because someone gets upset about them.

The right clients? They respect you more for having them.

The wrong ones? They were never going to work anyway.

You just found out faster.

💬 When’s the last time you turned down a client or opportunity because it didn’t align with your standards?

Building Winning Sales Teams By Recruiting Million-Dollar Producers | Featured On Forbes

Your sales rep isn’t the bottleneck.

You are.

I know that’s hard to hear.

But I’ve seen this pattern in enough companies to say it out loud:

The founder is so involved in the sales process that the rep can’t actually do their job.

Every proposal needs your approval.
Every pricing conversation needs your input.
Every deal above a certain size needs you on the call.

You’re not supporting your rep.

You’re replacing them.

And then you wonder why they’re not performing.

They’re not performing because every time they build momentum, they hit a wall called “waiting on the founder.”

Prospects lose interest.
Deals go cold.
Reps get frustrated.

Here’s what I’ve seen work instead:

Set the guardrails once. Then get out of the way.

Define the pricing boundaries. Define the personas they can close without you. Define the scenarios that actually require escalation.

Then trust the person you hired to do the job you hired them to do.

The founders who scale fastest aren’t the best salespeople in the room.
They’re the ones who built a sales process that runs without them.

That’s the goal.

💬 At what point did you stop being the bottleneck in your own sales process?

“Fired my SDRs. Replaced them with AI. Revenue up 40%.”

I keep seeing this same post recycled every week now.

Founders celebrating, reps are panicking.

And a few people in the comments calling B.S.

Those last ones are onto something.

Here’s the truth nobody’s saying out loud:

Companies aren’t replacing their sales teams with AI.

They’re using AI as an excuse to stop hiring average ones.

Fewer reps.
Higher bar.

Bigger paychecks for the ones who make the cut.

The SDR who just dials and pitches a script?

That role is dying. Slowly but surely.

The SDR who thinks, builds relationships, and uses AI to do it faster?

That person just became the most valuable hire in the building.

And here’s the part that should end half these conversations immediately:

The FTC banned AI and robotic outbound calling.
So before you fire your team and hand the phones to a bot you might want to google that first.

And the real kicker?

Every company out here posting about replacing humans with AI?

Currently hiring sales reps.
Every. Single. One.

Because nobody at the enterprise level is closing a six figure deal with a robot.

They want a human, you know someone they will like, know and trust. 

Someone who listens. Adjusts. Gives a damn.

You can’t automate that.

AI didn’t kill the SDR.

It just made mediocre ones impossible to hide.

💬 Are the companies pushing “AI replaces SDRs” the same ones quietly posting sales job listings? Go check. I’ll wait.

A mentor told me something I didn’t want to hear.

“You’re playing small.”

I’d just walked her through everything I was building.

The clients. The placements. The momentum.

I thought she’d be impressed.

She wasn’t.

“You’re solving problems for people who already found you. You’re not going after the ones who need you most.”

I sat with that for a week.

Because she was right.

I was comfortable.

Comfortable with the clients I had.
Comfortable with the referrals coming in.
Comfortable with the version of the business that didn’t require me to push.

And comfortable was making me average.

The version of my business I was building in my head, the one that actually makes a dent, required me to do things that felt uncomfortable.

Cold outreach to founders I admired.
Saying no to clients who weren’t the right fit.
Charging what my work was actually worth.

I did all three within a month of that conversation.

Business changed immediately.

Not because I got smarter.
Because I got honest about where I was holding back.

The most expensive thing in your business might not be a bad hire.
It might be your own comfort zone.

💬 What’s the uncomfortable move you’ve been avoiding that you already know you need to make?

It’s Sunday.

I am not thinking about pipelines.

I am not thinking about comp plans.

I am not thinking about the founder who hung up on me last week.

(Okay maybe a little bit about that one.)

But mostly?

I’m doing absolutely nothing that requires a calendar invite.

And I’m calling that a win.

To every recruiter, founder, and sales rep reading this on their day off:

Put the phone down.

The deals will still be there Monday.

The pipeline will still need filling Monday.

The inbox will absolutely not have fixed itself by Monday.

But you’ll be sharper for having ignored all of it today.

Rest is a strategy too.

A wildly underrated one.

Happy Sunday.

A founder almost left $700k on the table.

Because a candidate was 26.

I heard it in July.

"She's 26. I need someone with more experience."

I pushed back.

"Tell me one thing about her track record that concerns you."

He paused.

"Nothing. The numbers are great. She just seems… young."

She'd been a top-5 rep at her last company for two consecutive years.

Average deal size $40k.

Promoted to lead a pod of three at 24.

Young + Ambitous.

I said: "Give me one reason her age affects her ability to close your deals."

He couldn't.

We moved forward.

She's been in seat for eight months.

$700k closed.

Highest average deal size on the team.

Two of her clients have expanded into new product lines.

Last month, the founder called me.

"I can't believe I almost passed on her."

I know.

Here's what that story is really about:

Bias in hiring doesn't always look like bias.

Sometimes it looks like "I just think we need someone more seasoned."

Sometimes it looks like "I'd feel better with someone who's been in the industry longer."

Sometimes it looks like a gut feeling that's actually just pattern-matching on the wrong things.

The best hire for your next stage of growth might not look like what you expect.

That's kind of the point.

What assumption almost made you pass on a great hire?

AI screening candidates is the fastest way to lose the best ones.

🙄 

I came across another AI screening tool this week.

The pitch was the same as always:

"Saves time."
"Removes bias."
"Creates consistency."

And I thought:

Have any of you actually asked a candidate how it feels to be screened by a bot?

Because I have.

I'm in the weeds of hiring every single day.
I talk to candidates constantly.

I have not heard a candidate say this, even once:

"You know what made me excited about that company? The AI that interviewed me."

Here's what they actually say:

"I felt like a number."
"It was impersonal and cold."
"I couldn't tell if they even cared about hiring me."
"I answered their questions and got ghosted anyway."

AI screening optimizes for one thing: 
The company's time.

Not the candidate's experience.
Not the relationship.
Not the first impression.

And here's the brutal truth:

The candidates who have options?
They're not sitting through your AI screening.

They're taking calls from companies that respect them enough to put an actual human on the other end of the conversation.

The only people who complete AI screenings
are people who don't have better offers waiting.

You're not filtering for quality.
You're filtering for desperation.

Now… I'm not anti-AI.
We use AI everywhere in our process.
Sourcing. Outreach. Scheduling. Research.

But the moment a candidate enters your process?

That's a human conversation.

Because hiring isn't a transaction.
It's a relationship that starts the second they hear from you.

And if your first impression is a bot asking them to record answers into the void, don't be surprised when your best candidates walk.

I'm open to being proven wrong.

But until I hear from a single top performer who loved being AI-screened, I'm calling this what it is:

A solution built by people who've never been on the other side of the hiring process.

💬 Candidates, be honest. How do AI screening tools make you feel?

💬 Founders, have you ever asked your hires what they thought of your AI screen?

Four bad hires in two years.

He came to me after the fourth.

Not angry. Not frantic.

Just tired.

The kind of tired that comes from doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he said.

I asked him to walk me through his last hire.

He posted the role. Got 200 applications. Picked the one with the best resume.
Did three rounds of interviews. Checked references. Hired.

Textbook process.
Textbook result.

Mediocre rep. No pipeline. Gone in seven months.

Here’s what I told him:

“You’ve been hiring the resume. We need to hire the person.”

We spent two hours building the actual profile.

Not the job description. The person.

What they’ve overcome. How they handle rejection. What they do when a deal goes cold for 60 days and the commission check is nowhere in sight.

We found that person in 18 days.

She’s been in the seat for five months.

Closed $520k.

Pipeline sitting at $1.4M.

And she’s just getting started.

Same founder. Same business. Same market.

Different hire.

That’s the whole game.

💬 How many hires did it take before you found the one that actually changed things?

My first sales job paid me $11 an hour.

A list of names and a phone.

Cold calling past customers with no script.

Working at a car dealership.

Six days a week.

Fourteen hour shifts.

All commission.

They sent me back to the wolves on day one.

“You’re gonna learn from the wolves,” they said.

Told HR manager:

“If they send me to the wolves, I’ll come back leading the pack.”

I was young. Hothead. And absolutely certain nobody was going to outwork me.

I spoke two languages.
Most reps saw that and were intimidated.

I saw it as a way to solve problems for more people.

That’s all I cared about.

Solving the problem.

Within thirty days I closed fifteen cars.

Thirteen new with two used.

Then I didn’t stop.

I dominated it.

But here’s what got me recognized by the general manager wasn’t the numbers.

It was how I treated the customer’s time.

There was this brother and sister who came in looking for a car for their dad’s Christmas gift.

Every other rep passed. Walked away.

Too much work. Not enough commission.

I spent four to five hours with them.

Made calls. Fought with finance. Kept pushing until they got approved.

They drove off the lot in a car their dad didn’t even know was coming.

That’s the job, it’s not about the close, but the actual giving a f**k.

That job paid me $11 an hour.

It gave me something worth infinitely more:

The ability to sit in discomfort and not quit.

The willingness to do the work nobody else would do.

The refusal to take shortcuts with people.

Every rep I’ve placed who’s gone on to do serious numbers?

They have that same thing.

It’s not charisma.

It’s not a perfect pitch.

It’s not natural talent.

It’s showing up when it’s hard.

Staying when others leave.

Caring when caring costs you time.

That’s still the whole job.

What’s the first sales job that taught you something you still use every single day?

The most powerful man at McDonald's just proved one thing:


You can run a billion-dollar company and still have no idea how to sell it.

By now you've seen the video.

Brand new burger.

Tiniest bite you've ever seen in your life.

Then looks dead into the camera and goes:

"That's a big bite for a Big Arch."

Buddy.

That was not a bite.

That was a kiss on the cheek.

And then, AND THEN, he called it a "product."

Not a burger or a lunch, but a product.

Burger King didn't even wait 24 hours.

Posted their president eating a Whopper with sauce all over his face like a normal person who has eaten food before.

No apron or hesitation.

The internet did what the internet does.

But here's what I keep thinking about:

Your team knows when you don't believe in what you're building.

Your candidates know when a founder is overselling a role they know isn't ready.

Your clients know when you're pushing a placement you're not confident in.

You cannot perform conviction.

It doesn't work on camera.

It doesn't work on a sales call.

It doesn't work in an interview room.

The moment you call your own burger a product, everybody already knows.

Lead with honesty or don't lead at all.

Also, please just eat the burger. 😂

💬 What's the most unconvincing "sell" you've ever watched someone try to pull off?

"We can't afford a top sales rep right now."

You just raised a seed round.

Sit down.

Same founder with the same excuse. 

Same empty pipeline six months later.

Let me translate that sentence:

"We'd rather stay broke than invest in the person who stops us from being broke."

Here's the math nobody wants to do:

A mediocre rep at $60k who closes nothing costs you $60k.

A killer rep at $120k who closes $800k in new revenue costs you $120k.

One of those is an expense.

The other is a money printer.

The founders who can't afford top talent are usually the same founders who:

→ Spend $40k on a rebrand nobody asked for.
→ Fly business class to a conference with zero pipeline.
→ Hire three junior reps instead of one senior one.

You don't have a budget problem.

You have a priority problem.

Revenue fixes everything. 

But only if you hire someone who can actually create it.

The best investment a founder can make isn't software.

It isn't marketing.

It's the person who can walk into any room and come out with a signed deal.

The best reps don't cost you money.

They print it.

Start acting like you know the difference.

Founders, what's the hire that changed everything for you?

The résumé is dead.


And nobody’s mourning it.

I just read that Business Insider piece about résumés becoming obsolete.

Work trials. Portfolio reviews. Social presence checks.

Recruiters are moving away from the one-page document that never told the whole story anyway.

And honestly?

Good.

The résumé was always a terrible hiring tool.

It tells you where someone worked.

Not how they worked.

It tells you what they claim they did.

Not what they actually delivered.

I’ve seen résumés that look like works of art.

Perfect formatting. Impressive logos. All the right keywords.

And the person behind it couldn’t close a deal to save their life.

I’ve also seen résumés with typos and gaps.

And the person on the other end became the best hire the company ever made.

Here’s the truth nobody wants to say out loud:

Résumés optimized for ATS and AI screening tools.

Not for finding great people.

Candidates learned to game the system.

And companies built hiring processes around a document that rewards good writing over good performance.

Now the rules are changing.

And the people panicking the most?

The ones who were relying on their résumé to do the talking.

Top performers don’t need a résumé to prove they’re good.

Their work speaks.
Their references speak.
Their results speak.

If your entire hiring process hinges on a PDF
you’re not hiring for talent.

You’re hiring for formatting skills.

The résumé isn’t dead because it got replaced.

It’s dead because it never worked in the first place.

💬 Honest question: have you ever made a great hire based purely on their résumé?

Bam Adebayo scored 83 points last night.

83.	

And I’m happy for him. I really am.

But Kobe scored 81.
And Kobe did it without fouling out an entire team at the free throw line.

36 free throws made.

36.	

I’m not saying it’s not historic.
I’m saying Kobe did it in a way that made your jaw drop differently.

Anyway.

This is not about that.

This is about what Bam did that nobody’s talking about this morning.

His career high coming into last night was 41 points.

41.	
He had 43 by halftime.
Already past his best ever.

And instead of coasting?
Instead of being satisfied?

He kept going.

62 after three quarters.
83 when it was over.

That’s the lesson.

Most people hit their personal best and celebrate.

The ones who make history don’t even notice they passed it.

They’re already onto the next quarter.
In sales. In recruiting. In business.

The reps who break records aren’t the ones watching the scoreboard.

They’re the ones who forgot to stop.

Congrats Bam. Genuinely.

Just know Kobe did it cleaner. 😤

No alternative text description for this image

FOUNDERS: You’re burning $300,000 and calling it a “hiring strategy”

I’ve seen it play out a thousand times in this exact way:

You chase the “sure thing” rep and find someone who ticks boxes.

They’ve got big logos on the rèsumè.
They’re a smooth talker in the interview.
Their references sound impressive.

You think you’ve struck gold.

Six months later, you’re writing a severance check and explaining to investors why the pipeline’s empty and payroll’s torched.

It happens because you hired BACKWARDS ⏮️

Experience first.
Skills maybe.
Culture and attitude last (if ever).

Doing things in that order, you might as well go find a roulette table and chuck 300k at red or black.

The only order that actually works:

1️⃣ ATTITUDE
2️⃣ CULTURE
3️⃣ SKILL
4️⃣ EXPERIENCE

Because a stack of past jobs doesn’t close deals.
People who can actually SELL do.
The best people don’t wow you with a CV. 
They simply don’t need to.

What they have is way harder to fake:

→ HUNGER you can feel in the first conversation.
→ CURIOSITY that makes them ask the right questions.
→ GRIT to hear “no” a hundred times and keep plugging away.
→ A CHIP on their shoulder that makes them outwork everyone.

You can’t demonstrate these things on paper or on a LinkedIn profile.
Where it actually shows up is in REVENUE $$.

Who’s going to be honest: 
What’s the most expensive hiring screw-up YOU’VE made?

undefined undefined

Founder

Inside Sales Marketing Manager

Business

Car Salesperson

The $300k Hiring Mistake

The worst client I ever took taught me the most important lesson in business.

They were referred by someone I respected.
The budget was real.
The role was in my wheelhouse.
Every sign said yes.

So I said yes.

Six weeks in, I knew I’d made a mistake.

The goalposts moved every week.
The feedback was contradictory.
The urgency was constant, but the decisions were nonexistent.

I spent more time managing the relationship than doing the actual work.

Three months in, they ended the engagement.

Said we “weren’t the right fit.”

And honestly?

They were right.

But here’s what that client gave me that no good client ever could:

Clarity.

On who I will work with.
On what I won’t tolerate.
On the questions I ask before I take any engagement.

Now I have a filter.

Not just for candidates, but for clients as well.

And every time I’ve been tempted to skip the filter because the money looked good?

I think about those three months.

And I pass.

The right clients aren’t just good for your revenue.
They’re good for your standards.

Don’t let urgency talk you out of them.

Most candidates don't fail interviews. 

They fail positioning.

Saying you're: 

"hard worker" or "team player" 

means nothing.

Every candidate says that. 

What hiring managers actually want is clarity: 

What problem did you walk into, what did you change, and what happened after?

If you can't explain your impact without buzzwords, you're forcing the interviewer to guess and they don't hire guesses. 

Before your next application, you need to answer one question in under 30 seconds: 

"How do I make this company money, save it time, or reduce risk?"

Can't answer that cleanly? 

You're not failing interviews. 
You're entering them unprepared.

She countered your offer.

With one that made yours look like an insult.

I watched this happen last week.
A founder extended an offer to a top candidate.
$110k base. $200k OTE. Standard accelerators.

He thought it was generous.
She thanked him.

Then sent back a counter 48 hours later.
$120k base. $240k OTE. Uncapped commission. Equity.

The founder's first reaction?

"She's being unreasonable."

His second reaction, after I walked him through it?
"She just told me exactly what she's worth."

Here's what most founders miss:
A candidate who counters isn't difficult.

They're confident.
And confidence in sales is the entire job description.

The rep who accepts your first offer without negotiating?
That's the same rep who'll accept a prospect's first objection without pushing back.

You don't want someone who takes what you give them.
You want someone who fights for what they're worth.

Because that's the same person who'll fight for your deal when it's stuck at 50%.

The best hires I've ever seen didn't take the first offer.
They made the founder earn them.

And the founders who said yes?
They got reps who closed like their life depended on it.
Because they understood their own value.

If your offer gets countered 
don't take it personally.
Take it seriously.

That counter is the first close they're making in your process.
Pay attention to how they do it.

💬 Have you ever countered an offer? What happened?

Founders, let me save you a Google search.

Every recruiting term, you've been nodding along to? 
I translated them.
All of them.

And the pattern is the same across every single one:
We made simple things sound complicated to justify how long they take.

Hiring doesn't have to take 90 days. Decisions don't have to go through 6 people. A "talent pool" doesn't have to be a graveyard.

The glossary isn't the problem. The behavior behind it is.

Hiring isn't hard. Indecision is.
💬 Which term made you laugh because it hit too close?

taplio

The Battle

Philip Ilic

Jayce Grayye

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taplio

The Battle

Philip Ilic

Jayce Grayye

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);}Philip Ilic's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScorePhilip Ilic's LinkedIn Performance