Lead generation is broken.

Too many companies:

- Try to generate leads themselves, but fail
- Hire a lead gen agency with bloated retainers who can’t deliver

Lead generation as a whole is always changing, so unless you’ve got a dedicated team
on it (that knows what they’re doing) — you can expect to overpay for underwhelming
results.

That said, in 2025 — you don’t need to try to generate leads yourself, or pay an
outsized retainers for subpar work.

With Leadbird, you:

- Don’t pay for overpriced retainers
- Only pay per meeting-ready-lead we deliver
- Get the expertise of career outbound salespeople

We achieve this for you through:

- Targeted lead list building
- Domain + inbox set-up and warm-up
- Proven cold email copywriting principles
- Done-for-you cold email campaign management

Book a free demo from the link in my bio to join over 115 active clients getting
high-quality, meeting-ready-leads every single month.

Talk soon,
Nick

Nick Abraham

friEND
girlfriEND
boyfriEND

You know what doesn't END?

A well-run campaign with a great offer targeting 5,000 net new prospects per month.

I send 2M+ cold emails and 1M+ LinkedIn DMs per month for 1,000+ active clients across Leadbird and Cleverly

As expected, outbound marketers are freaking out about Google's AI Inbox update, with some calling it the death of cold email. I’m here to tell you not to panic.

Here’s why this won’t kill cold email as long as you’re half-decent at it, and willing to put the work in:

(1) First of all, this isn’t currently being deployed on Workspace emails (only personal). That means you literally don’t need to worry for the time being.

(2) For when that roll out does happen, Google will not have it easy. Enterprises don't want AI to read or index their data.

This has been why enterprise AI adoption has been so slow, and Google isn't exempt.

(3) Even if SOMEHOW, this got deployed to every Workspace inbox, people will find workarounds and loopholes within 7 days (just like we did for every other infrastructure change).

The ONLY people who can potentially suffer here are people who are weak at cold email and want a low-effort, high-results motion.

And they shouldn't be sending cold emails anyway.

There is no bigger waste of time in outbound than the debate over warm-up pools and which ones to use.

Take it from someone who bought into the hype before (I literally tried to build a company solely focused on this, promising the same stuff a ton of vendors do today): Just use Smartlead’s warm-up pool and move on.

In fact, private warm-up pools can be even riskier than public ones, considering that Seeds can burn out (ask me how I know 🙄).

At the time of writing this, we have ~130,000 inboxes in the Smartlead pool and will continue to add as we need them.

In short: There are a million other things you should spend time worrying about regarding outbound. Your warm-up pool isn’t one of them.

PS - This was a part of Smartlead’s roundtable from last week. It was an awesome time, and I highly recommend watching the replay on YouTube if you couldn’t make it. Thanks to Vaibhav Namburi for having us!

undefined undefined

Hey, thanks for replying. 

Here's the guide:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ogdq83o7sRMARFopD_t_-nqHF0XIOPsD/view?usp=share_link

Leadbird

P.S. If you’re an established agency or SaaS with a GREAT offer and want leads — Leadbird can help

… and we’ll do it on a Pay-Per-Lead basis.

Book today: https://www.leadbird.io/book-a-call

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yuri

If I told you to pick all AI-written emails out of your inbox, I bet you could do so with 90% accuracy. It brings up an interesting point:

AI in outbound is great, but so many people are going way too overboard.

People will use Claygent + another prompt to come up with crazy, “human-looking” lines that sound great on paper but rarely get executed well against an entire lead list.

You might get some right on the nose, but the majority of them will certainly sound a little “off”, thereby killing your campaign altogether.

The variance, even with quality checks, is a little too high (as of Jan 2026…because this will certainly change).

The “right” way to handle this right now is using it to find super simple variables (i.e. company case study name) and entering those variables into human-written sentences.

If you have any other use cases that actually* work, drop them below.

90% of the time someone asks me about cold email infrastructure, I tell them to take a step back and consider what actually matters.

Yes, at scale and at the highest level of outbound, the infrastructure you use has a material impact on performance.

But (and I don’t mean to come off as arrogant in saying this), most of the time people ask this, they have issues with the fundamentals of their outbound operation that render the infrastructure question irrelevant.

Things like:

1. Company names not being formatted properly (ex: still having “LLC” or “Inc.” in the name).

2. Having emojis / special symbols in contacts’ first names.

3. Not properly cleaning and formatting prospects’ job titles.

4. Having a lead list that isn’t well-targeted.

5. Not having basic copy variance set up.

These are things that come much before advanced infrastructure, yet people seem to overlook.

My advice: Get all of the above and the rest of the cold email fundamentals down first before even starting to worry about advanced infrastructure.

You’ll save time, money, and headaches.

Something to keep in mind when you see lead generation agency owners flexing crazy Smartlead / Instantly screenshots on the timeline:

Anyone with half a brain knows how to get a campaign to a 10% reply rate and 60% positive reply rate.

It doesn’t come from being some type of cold email wizard.

It’s simply putting an extremely low-friction CTA in with some type of money-back guarantee.

And to be clear, nothing is wrong with that. We still do it for certain clients, where it makes sense for the offer.

But, flexing this to try to show prospects that these are typical results is just silly.

Sure, there may be some people that aren't super familiar with outbound that are impressed by this.

But, there's also a cohort of people who are very familiar with it and know exactly what led to that performance, thereby degrading your credibility instead of adding to it.

You’re better off showing “worse” results for a much harder campaign!

You, not a $32B company: I might burn my TAM!

Ramp, a $32B company: We must email every decision-maker on earth 10 times per year.

As silly as it sounds, it’s true: If you play your cards right, it’s impossible to burn your TAM with outbound.

Playing your cards right, in this regard, means coming up with fresh and unique angles to re-market to the same prospects.

Ramp has mastered this.

They have different reps reach out at different times with overall solid emails.

Though it feels like they’re always in my inbox, I’ve never once felt pestered, spammed, or annoyed.

They’re doing this tastefully, with personalization and relevance.

And if Ramp isn’t worried about burning their TAM, there’s a great chance you shouldn’t be either.

My advice to you: Figure out ways to reach out to the same prospects that weren’t interested or didn’t respond prior in unique ways, and you’ll never worry about TAM burn again.

I would love to tell you that the solution to all your lead gen problems is the intricate Clay workflow I spent 43 hours building, but that’s not true. For 90% of teams struggling to generate leads, the problem is much simpler:

A bad offer.

Your offer, above all else, has the biggest impact on whether or not you book calls from cold email.

To that point, I can’t tell you the amount of conversations we’ve had with clients that amounted to us trying to convince them to improve their offer and make it more suitable for outbound.

Because so many of them simply don’t say anything special or that peaks the prospect’s interest.

Here’s a real example we dealt with:

The client sold CRM implementation services.

They wanted to run with messaging along the lines of: “We help HubSpot users market better and get the full use of their CRM.”

…so can every other company in their inbox.

The right way to think about this (and how we did so for this client) was to instead sell an outcome.

So, we transitioned the offer to strictly companies that used HubSpot, and saying:

“{name] - most HubSpot users don’t have a nurture re-engagement flow. I’d love to help re-book 10-15 appointments onto your calendar by building you one.

Interested in speaking?”

This email has a much higher likelihood of being responded to than the prior one, because you directly promise an outcome instead of using vague corporate messaging.

Let me know if you have any questions on doing this successfully.

Elon Musk bought X and implemented signal-based outreach to sell ads. And honestly, it’s not the worst play in the world:

- The email looks human
- It grabbed media from my post
- They did some filtering to see I talk about business
- They mention “testing” paid ads (lower-risk)
- They emphasize the “free hands-on support”

I’m sure there are ways they’re identifying business owners and automating a lot of the tedious work to set this up, but the end product still really isn’t bad.

This is your signal that no matter how big your company, using the right signals for outreach likely isn’t a bad idea.

Alex Hormozi says he books 4x more appointments when he calls his leads immediately after showing interest.

If you’re sending outbound and want to systemize this so that you can do it at scale, follow this process:

Tech / vendors you’ll need:

- Masterinbox.com
- LeadMagic
- Salesfinity
- No Accent Callers

—

1. Build correct tagging within Master Inbox to identify positive replies.

2. Set up an automation to automatically enrich positive replies to pull those leads’ phone numbers via LeadMagic.

3. Build the simple automation to update the contact within Master Inbox and set two tag: “interested” and “phone number found”.

4. Set up the automation to push to a call list in Salesfinity for your rep (via No Accent Callers) to call immediately.

I can’t put the same “4x improvement” tag on this, but we have seen a much better appointment set rate after implementing a flow to call our leads faster.

Comment if you want me to make a video on building these automations / setting up the system.

If someone tells you they can get you consistent leadflow from outbound in 30 days or less, don’t listen.

We send over 2 million cold emails per month for almost 300 clients… trust me, it takes 60-90 days to properly get consistent lead flow coming from outbound if you’re starting from zero.

BUT

There are some things you can do to speed up the process that we are implementing across the client base.

Namely, there are 7 types of campaigns you can keep always on and running in the background, additional to your actual campaign copy. 

Though these won't put a hundred calls per month on your calendar, they are certainly worth running and do not take much input or upkeep at all.

I break down each of them in detail in the carousel below, so be sure to save it:

Always-On Campaigns

Google your name right now. What comes up?

Does your website show up?

If so, does it have a VSL?

Is it full of case studies and customer interviews?

What about your LinkedIn and X profiles?

Are they optimized and active?

Are you showing off your expertise?

This might sound overboard, but this is exactly what goes through a prospect’s head when you email them.

The first thing 90% of them do is Google your name.

If you can’t show that you’re a real person with a real business that solves real problems for real clients, you’re dead in the water.

Really, cold outbound is nothing more than a trust game.

You need to make it so that someone who doesn’t know you one bit automatically trusts you. And you do so by optimizing everything I talked about above.

If you don’t have those things in check, much of your outbound is just a waste of time.

Alex Hormozi famously says that if you want more leads, you should dedicate the first half of your day to getting in front of more people.

Whether that’s content, paid ads, or however else, you need to be getting in front of people.

Outbound, generally, will be both the cheapest and easiest to generate results from immediately.

And let me tell you after doing this first-hand: Alex Hormozi is right about this.

In college, I started an Instagram growth agency.

I did everything I thought I needed to do:

- Make a logo
- Put up website
- Form LLC
- Post blogs

And when all of that was done, I looked up and still had zero people paying me.

That’s when I started dedicating my entire day to messaging prospects and seeing if they’d get on a call.

The business hit $10,000/mo of revenue in the months that followed.

The point:

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of sales ops and revenue tech out there, but most of the time, all you need to do is get yourself in front of more prospects.

Shreya Batra

We manage deliverability for 130,000+ inboxes with Hypertide.io. At that volume, you can't afford to baby underperforming domains. Our 4-step process for handling deliverability issues:

Step 1: Flag problems early

We monitor inbox performance daily. If a domain is underperforming by 40%+ vs that client's average, it gets flagged automatically.

Step 2: Kill it without losing capacity

We delete the domain using Hypertide Layover. The domain gets removed from billing immediately, but sending still works for 18 days. This gives us breathing room without sudden volume drops.

Step 3: Replace while the old one's still running

During those 18 days, new infrastructure gets spun up and warmed properly. This works so that there’s loss in total sending capacity.

Step 4: Protect the replies

Once the old domain shuts off completely, Hypertide Relay kicks in. All replies from the deleted domain automatically forward to the new infrastructure. Importantly, there are no leads missed and no broken threads.

Quite importantly, we don't try to save domains that are already burnt.

A lot of agencies waste weeks trying to nurse underperforming infrastructure back to health. Using this system, we just assume domains will fail and build systems that swap them out seamlessly.

As a result, capacity never drops and your deliverability stays clean. Let me know if you have any questions on this.

Local lead generation is so underrated that we started asking all clients (not just ones with local businesses) if they’re open to it on the onboarding form, so that we can run this campaign.

No matter what anyone tells you, cold email is most definitely getting harder. Each day, we have to think harder about the best way to get in front of prospects in a way that stands out.

This local lead generation play is exactly it.

We:

1. Call out that we’re in the area.

2. Casually mention what we do and share how we did so.

3. Use a soft, casual CTA to gauge interest.

Yes, this is of course harder to scale in that there are finite local businesses you can sell to. But, in most cases and for most offers, this is worth trying.

If I were a local general contractor, for example, I know I’d be inclined to work with an SEO agency in my area as opposed to one on the other side of the country. There’s a local preference there that you can tap into.

If you have anecdotes on local lead generation working well for you, leave them below.

After spending $2M to send 30,000,000+ cold emails for 500+ clients, this is my number one learning about outbound:

Offer. Is. King.

You hear everyone say it, but nobody really internalizes it.

You can have:

- 3-4 blocky paragraphs
- 2-3 links
- Images
- OK-but-not-great targeting
- Basic infrastructure

…and still outperform the “best” outbound teams who spend thousands of dollars trying to optimize all of the above, as long as your offer is strong.

Strong offer = more replies.

More replies = less spam risk.

Less spam risk = more replies.

The cycle repeats.

Before you try to optimize for anything else, make sure your offer is strong to begin with.

I mean this diplomatically, but if you can’t get cold email responses from your ICP, it is not because inboxes are crowded. It’s likely one or more of the following factors:

1. Bad offer
2. Weak email
3. No social proof
4. All of the above

The simplest way to get responses is following this workflow, which attacks all of the above issues:

1. Come up with a no-brainer offer that the prospect would feel stupid saying no to (i.e. performance, money-back guarantee, etc.)

2. Use Apollo to find the email of the right job title to sell to at the company (might be CEO, might not be).

3. Do a baseline level of research (or use Clay) to write a line personal enough to the decision-maker.

4. Put it all together with a template like this:

{{name}} - saw {{personalized line}}.

Just curious, if I could {{generate result}}, would you be interested in speaking?

Only asking because we helped {{company}} do exactly that, and figured {{their company}} might want something similar.

Worth a chat?

If you do this right, you will get responses. Period.

I uploaded this video on November 18, 2024 saying the only 3 channels you need to get 50 calls/month and blow past $1M in revenue are:

- Cold email
- Cold calling
- LinkedIn

It was true back then, but is far more true just 13 months later.

The truth is, as much as nobody likes to admit it, cold email is getting harder. We’re no longer in the 2021 glory days, where seemingly anyone with a few inboxes could book calls from the channel.

Yes, it’s still viable (and still our bread and butter), but you’d be foolish not to diversify into cold calling and LinkedIn DMs (the right way) as you solidify cold email.

After working with 500+ clients and having 283 active right now, there are 3 things I wish I did on Day 1 of my agency.

(they would've made me much wealthier today)

1. Become an expert on my financials early.

This is so easy to overlook but ridiculously important.

At any point when asked, you should know your numbers to a T.

- What was last month's revenue?
- What was last month's gross margin?
- What was last month's net margin?
- What was last month's profit?

The more you can get in the routine of checking and understanding this, the better.

2. Make demos booked your north star.

You should wake up every day trying to improve that metric.

Every single day. Forget "marketing" and "growth" and "building the brand".

Every day, wake up and figure out how to put more meetings on your calendar, and you will grow.

3. Keep fulfillment as simple as possible while still being able to get the results you promise.

The more complex, the harder it gets to maintain.

Once you have these in place, and you can communicate your offer + results in a non-gimmicky way, you're on the right path.

If you have any questions on this, let me know.

We got to 0-10 clients with outbound, but what took us from 10-30 clients was something completely different: Referrals.

How we did it:

1. Put a question on onboarding form: "Is there anyone in your network that you think could benefit from this service?"

2. Client would often think of someone and put their name/email.

3. We would manually reach out saying "[name] is a customer of ours and said you might be a fit for out services - worth a chat?"

This worked because it was easy for our client to think of someone, and the person they thought of would likely think "well if they're using this service, there's likely something to it".

NOTE: This is far easier when you have a strong offer + social proof to lean on!

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

Client: I've been looking at Gary Vaynerchuk and Ryan Serhant's posts. We should model our content after them. They get thousands of likes.

Me: What are Gary and Ryan selling in those posts?

Client: I mean...motivation? Personal brand building?

Me: Right. You're selling SaaS implementation services. Do you see the disconnect?

Client: But the engagement numbers don't lie.

Me: Do they though? Have you heard of engagement pods?

Client: What's that?

Me: Groups where influencers coordinate to like and comment on each other's posts. Makes the algorithm boost their content. Plus, Gary's been posting daily for over a decade. You've been on LinkedIn for 6 months.

Client: So we can't create engaging content?

Me: You can. But copying motivational posts won't get you there. Your content needs to demonstrate expertise that gets prospects thinking 'this person could solve my problems.'

Client: What should we focus on?

Me: Case studies. Process breakdowns. Industry insights. Content that shows you understand your prospects' specific challenges.

Client: But that won't get thousands of likes.

Me: No. But it'll get you qualified prospects who actually want to buy what you're selling.

My point:  trying to copy big LinkedIn influencers.
(1) Their content serves different goals than yours. They're selling courses and personal brands, not B2B services.

(2) Much of their engagement comes from pods, years of audience building, or a mix of both.

(3) Focus on content that demonstrates expertise to your specific target market instead of chasing vanity metrics.

The end.

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

A founder told me LinkedIn "isn't doing anything" for him. I figured out why in 30 seconds, and gave him a routine to completely turn-around his results.

To be fair to the founder, he was posting relatively consistently (3x/week). The content was good, not great. But still, it wasn't like this is what was holding him back.

...which confused him. He thought he was doing everything right. Then I asked him the following:

(1) How many outbound comments have you left in the last week? Answer: 0.

(2) How many of your ICP have you connected with in the last week? Answer: 1

(3) How many of your ICP have you DM'd this week? Answer: 1

It just isn't enough. You can play the LinkedIn game hoping for 100% inbound, or you can maximize the platform's utility and get way more out of it.

Here's the routine I advised this founder to follow (that you should steal, too, if you're in the same spot):

SETUP:

- Identify 100+ decision-makers you want to get in front of
- Set up custom feed of their content (guide here: https://lnkd.in/eZ2gPmd8)

DAILY:

- Allocate 15 minutes to leave thoughtful comments on their posts (aim for 3-5)

- Connect with 20 of these people per day

- Track who accepts and start DM conversations accordingly (guide here: https://lnkd.in/e3vXpTFP)

More than getting in front of them simply because you DM'd them, LinkedIn will show them your content while they scroll after you've DM'd them. Win-win.

Do this for 30 days. If you still aren't generating any interest, you have bigger problems than LinkedIn.

Founder @ Hat Tip. Founder Brand for startups.

1.5 years after graduating, I'm trying to grow my content agency to $1M ARR. Here's a 2025 recap at Hat Tip:

(1) Grew revenue just under 1.5x.

(2) Profit increased, but minimally (made relatively large team investments).

(3) Worked with 12 more Series A-or-beyond startups.

It was a great year by most measures, but I'd be lying if I said I'm remotely satisfied.

There are a few key areas I want us to be better in (which ultimately starts with me):

a. Recruiting. I haven't spent nearly enough time on it, which has cost me more time than I'd like to admit in the long run.

b. Training / process. At our stage, I'm still too involved in many aspects of client delivery. I never want to leave it completely, but I need to actively manage my way back a bit.

c. CRM management. The first two issues lead into this: I need more time to work on sales, and that time will come from solving the first two issues.

d. Ironically, I think I need to stop and smell the flowers more. I'm proud of what we've accomplished and the clients we work with, but tend to strictly focus on the "negatives" around the business...sort of like I'm doing here. Lol.

Anyway, thank you to friends and clients who made the last year great. I'll see you back here next January for my next list of problems.

My 35-minute, 3-step LinkedIn prospecting routine that's getting me 3-5 pitches per week:

20 Mins:

- Use Sales Nav + LinkedIn's recommended accounts feature on previous ICP accounts to find new ones.

- Engage with their most recent piece of content and add them to your tracker (template below). 

*if they haven't posted / commented recently, I skip right to connecting.

5 Mins:

- Update list with accepted connections from the day prior

- Send voice note follow-up to messages you sent 48h or more ago (I keep it as simple as "I know people get busy, so I just want to make sure you saw this")

15 mins:

- Record personalized 0:45-1:00 videos with your phone, introducing yourself + tying something about them/their company to what you do.

Ex: I saw a post from a VP of Marketing who said they think founders/CEOs should be posting on LinkedIn.

But, their CEO wasn't posting on LinkedIn.

So, I opened my video reading her hook word-for-word, transitioning into a quick intro, and getting into what we do (if you're reading this, let's chat).

My point is, if you do this long enough, you will get responses. It's on you to provide as much value to them as possible.

Template for tracking here: https://lnkd.in/eFFv7k9J

After writing 4,000 posts for 40+ founders in the last 3 years, I've identified 5 high-performing post types every founder should steal:

1. Hypothetical Process - Step-by-step “if I were you” playbooks your ICP will save (and act on). Example: https://lnkd.in/eRB4grEN

2. Strong POV - Timely, divisive takes that spark comments & reach. Example: https://lnkd.in/e4Wuze6X

3. Origin Story - A proven narrative framework that earns support and awareness. Example: https://lnkd.in/eUWwRk_E

4. Case Study - Social first formatting that turns client wins into leads. Example: https://lnkd.in/ePuhB5pT

5. Objection Handling - Pulling objections from sales calls and dismantling them on feed. Example: https://lnkd.in/e3Wu86qs

*examples not all clients, but were in my bookmarks.

AND

I just released a video walking through each, with examples, for you to save and share.

Watch the full video here: https://lnkd.in/eyFMKe-U

I hand-wrote 35 cards to friends, clients, and prospects that helped make 2025 great for me.

Last year, I heard Jesse Itzler talk about this on My First Million. I decided to do it.

So, I spent $102 on cards (and $50 later on stamps / postage 😂) to do this.

Then, I spent 2 weekend mornings in November writing them all out.

Some reflections:

(1) The process was nice. Rarely, if ever, do we stop and reflect on individual relationships like this. It was nice.

(2) I got tons of thoughtful messages thanking me for them. It seems like they were well-appreciated.

(3) My handwriting was never good to begin with (much to the dismay of my teacher mother). I can confirm after graduating 2 years ago and barely writing at all, it has gotten worse.

--

Anyway, this is going to be standard practice for EOY at Hat Tip moving forward.

If you're on the fence about doing it, I strongly recommend!

50% of the time I tell a founder they should post 5x/week, they look at me like I have 3 eyes.

"Isn't that way too much?"

"I don't want to over-do it"

"Nobody cares about what I have to say"

This is the wrong framing. The right way to think about it:

(1) The compounding effects of your social efforts are measured in posts, not months. That means the less you post, the longer you draw out the time to see the benefits you want.

(2) Why would you intentionally hamper the amount of shots on goal you get per week? 

(3) Look at your competitors. If they're posting daily, you have catching up to do. If they're not, you have an incredible opportunity.

Now, I totally get that going from 0 to 5 posts/week off the bat can be intimidating. Heck, I'm thousands of posts in and STILL feel weird here and there.

So, if I were you and wanted to ramp up posting without feeling overwhelmed or out of place:

- Ramp up to 3x/week
- See how you feel / how it's perceived
- Once comfortable, work to 4/week
- See how you feel / how it's perceived
- After that, move to 5x/week

DM me if you have questions about system / workflow and I'll send you some resources.

My peewee hockey coach mandated each player to shoot 500 pucks/day in the summer. For context, that is RIDICULOUS volume for a kid.

Luckily for me, I was doing it before the mandate. I just loved it (it may or may not have required us to get a new garage door).

Now, I was a terrible skater. Like, really bad. 

But, because I was shooting close to 15,000 pucks/month, I could shoot like it was nobody's business.

It probably kept me on teams I should've been cut from, if I'm being honest.

Now, how the heck does this relate to social content?

Volume.

I wasn't a gifted shooter. My form, to this day, isn't perfect. But putting in a ridiculous amount of reps is what made me good at it.

This works the same way for social content.

Your first 10 posts will suck.
The next 10 will suck, but less.
The 10 after will look half-decent.

But, as long as you keep showing up and put a baseline level of effort into your content, you WILL get better at it.

All the accounts you follow on here who you think have it "figured out" put in the reps.

Now it's your turn.

Factors that determine post performance:

(1) Topic
(2) Hook
(3) Media choice
(4) Overall value the reader derives
(5) Amount of comments it drives.

Factors that do not determine post performance:

(1) Length

Stop worrying about if your post is "too long" or "too short".

Get your message across in a succinct, compelling matter, and move on.

If you're asking "how can we automate this" with anything relating to LinkedIn, you've already lost.

So many people openly brag about building AI agents that find them topics, write content that "actually sounds like them", and engage on their account as if we can't already tell.

Nobody cares for that. 

I can't think of a greater insult to your audience than telling them they're not worth spending time on, but expecting them to buy from you.

After writing 4,000+ posts for over 40 founders, I can confirm this picture sums up ~75% of writing for LinkedIn:

1. Prioritize your hook. 

The first thing the reader sees must give them no choice but to keep reading (if you're reading this, I succeeded).

2. Say more, with less.

No filler words or sentences.

3. Appeal to the reader's brain.

Organize ideas the way the brain likes to. Keep your writing to one idea per sentence.

4. REPS.

The writer didn't include this, but I will. 

Your first post will suck. Good. So will your second, third, fourth, and fifth.

But over time, it will start sucking less. And less. And less.

And eventually, after enough, reps, you'll be good at it!

Save this for the next time you have to write.

If I wanted to guarantee I generated 0 pipeline from social, I would:

(1) Expect results by lunch on the first day of posting.

(2) Write posts with no regard for the hook.

(3) Be terrified of saying anything remotely divisive.

(4) Never repeat a topic or take.

(5) Leave 0 comments on others' posts.

(6) DM nobody.

(7) Only post bottom-of-funnel product updates.

(8) Only post top-of-funnel material.

(9) Use AI to draft posts end-to-end.

(10) Track nothing.

(11) Completely outsource the creation process.

(12) Obsess over posting time and other LinkedIn "hacks".

(13) Join an engagement group.

(14) Write when I want instead of building a system.

(15) Compare myself to huge accounts.

(16) Send 0 connection requests.

(17) Format my posts like LinkedInfluencers.

What did I miss?

If your New Year's resolution was to post more on social but you don't know what to post about, here are 20 post ideas:

1. What are outdated strategies your ICP is trying to use to achieve their dream result?

2. Share your company’s origin story in detail.

3. What’s one trend in your industry you don’t like and why?

4. List five to 10 pro tips your ICP can use to get the desired result.

5. Share an early failure you had with your company. How did you overcome it?

6. What is an industry prediction your peers disagree with you on?

7. What’s your favorite interview question to ask a candidate, and why?

8. Share a case study of a successful client.

9. What are the top 5–10 traits of an [ICP job title]?

10. Pick the most common FAQ you get from prospects and answer it.

11. Share a growth strategy you didn’t think would work but did.

12. What’s your company’s tech stack? Tag the companies.

13. Highlight a specific feature or part of your service and why it helps your ICP.

14. Comment on relevant news in your industry. Make sure to add value here.

15. Share an unconventional behind-the-scenes story of how you grew your company.

16. What’s your favorite founder framework that helped you grow your business?

17. List every stat your ICP should track and why.

18. What is the ROI of using your product or service? Illustrate it.

19. What’s one recruiting take or opinion people will disagree with you on?

20. Share a hot take around your industry / space.

Get 400 more + an 82-page guide on generating pipeline from social here: https://lnkd.in/eFFv7k9J

We generated 83 high-intent lead magnet opt-ins for a client, many of which from massive logos, using something I see nowhere on LinkedIn.

*I say "high-intent", as submissions were only counted after prospects went through 15+ questions (in which they let us know exactly what they were struggling with in relation to our client's product.

This is NOT your typical "I got 4,000 leads from this lead magnet" post.

We got 83 qualified* people who put their hand up and voluntarily filled out 17 questions worth of information about their pain points in relation to the client's product.

Here's what we did:

1. Brainstormed an idea for an interactive lead magnet their ICP could fill out and receive something at the end of.

2. Came up with 17 questions prospects could answer that would help get to their desired outcome (we did this by combining source knowledge + directly asking the client for his expertise).

3. Used Tally to make an interactive lead magnet with name + email + qualification questions on Page 1, and toggled partial submissions. 

4. Ran it as a comment-to-get giveaway on the founder's LinkedIn.

5. Followed-up with commenters who didn't fill out the lead magnet for ~1 week after the fact.

NOTE: This is without* putting spend behind this post or enrolling prospects into a nurture sequence.

If you want us to run this exact same playbook for you, DM me.

1. Origin story
2. Tech stack
3. Industry myth-bust 1
4. BTS story 1
5. Case study 1
6. Industry commentary 1
7. Hiring take 
8. Fundraising story
9. Objection handle 1
10. Favorite interview question to ask
11. FAQ answer 1.
12. Product update
13. Team member shoutout 
14. Early mistake 1
15. Industry commentary 2
16. Framework for ICP 1
17. Core values explanation
18. Industry meme / shitpost 1
19. Top 3 traits of [user job title]
20. Good vs bad [function] process
21. 80/20 of doing [function] right
22. Industry prediction for 2030
23. Industry trend you think is underrated
24. Biggest interview red flag.
25. FAQ answer 2.
26. Industry myth-bust 2
27. Right way vs. wrong way [function]
28. "If I were [job title], I would..."
29. Underrated metrics to track for [ICP]
30. Objection handle 2
31. Unconventional things you do internally.
32. First 5 customers story
33. Team member shoutout 2
34. AI take / opinion
35. Existing [function] audit process
36. Best city to build in opinion
37. Fundraising lessons learned
38. Early mistake 2
39. Last 30 days recap
40. Specific feature highlight
41. Underrated candidate trait
42. Personal interest/hobby post
43. Industry meme / shitpost 2
44. Early mistake 2
45. [Big company] strategy breakdown
46. Customer churn lesson
47. Company momentum (use metrics)
48. How you build culture
49. Scariest moment story
50. Case study 2
51. Industry trend you think is overrated
52. Unpopular industry opinion
53. Remote vs in-person opinion
54. Unconventional pro tip for ICP
55. How you make roadmap decisions
56. BTS story 2
57. Biggest interview green flag
58. Industry open role roundup
59. Step-by-step process guide
60. ICP common mistake highlight

Founders: I don't want to hear that you "don't know what to post about."

These are enough posts ideas to last you a full quarter.

Save them.

taplio

The Battle

Nick Abraham

Christian Di Bratto

Followers

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Performance ScoreNick Abraham's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreChristian Di Bratto's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Nick Abraham

Christian Di Bratto

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);}Nick Abraham's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreChristian Di Bratto's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreNick Abraham's LinkedIn Performance