There are a few sides of me. 

VP of Sales for an organization called Skye & Co-Founder of SaaSBros. and have most recently launched a LinkedIn & Social Selling Cohort ran monthly.

You will see me pivot from one to the other with content, just stay with me! 

At Skye - my job is to evangelize our business and build community around learning, development and coaching. 

At SaaSBros - my job is to evangelize our business and build community around helping non-traditional talent break into tech sales.

For the Cohorts - my job is to empower people to use their voices and change their lives by coaching around linkedin and social sellling.

The stuff that matters is below :)

Father | Husband | Son | Brother 

Personal Mission Statement - 

To build, encourage, support and love my family and all others we encounter.

Show kindness
Show empathy
Show gratitude
Show grit
Show respect

And most importantly

Believe.

Darren McKee

I partner with talent & organizational development leaders to build global executive coaching programs AND I coach individuals and teams how to build on Linkedin and master the art Social Selling (Side Hustle)

Founder of Darren McKee Co. & 531 Social (New Company)

As of August 2025, I’ve coached over 2000 individuals where I helped them build their brands and master social selling strategies. From founders, to account execs, to photographers, to cs leaders, to coaches to landscapers. No one is exempt from building a brand and social selling, it is 2025.

1:1 Coaching
Team Trainings 
Monthly Cohorts
Speaking Engagements

The stuff that matters is below :)

Father | Husband | Son | Brother 

Personal Mission Statement - 

To build, encourage, support and love my family and all others we encounter.

Show kindness
Show empathy
Show gratitude
Show grit
Show respect

And most importantly

Believe.

Fulfillment Policy:

For LinkedIn & Social Selling Trainings - You can reach me at darren@darrenmckee.co - Your payment is non-refundable as it reserves a spot in the training for you and  is not refunded due to your lack of participation. Once your payment processes, you will be added to your specific group and sent calendar invites prior to launch day. We do not guarantee a specific outcome from our programs and, by submitting your payment, you agree to indemnify Darren McKee from any claims arising from your actions or inactions during and after your participation in the program. By executing the stripe payment, you agree to the above.


For 1:1 & Team Social Selling and LinkedIn Trainings - You can reach me at darren@darrenmckee.co - Your payment is non-refundable for any reason. Further,  decisions you make via the insights and trainings I share during the sessions are your responsibility to implement. You agree to indemnify Darren McKee and take responsibility for any impact to yourself or your business. By executing the stripe payment, you agreeing to the above.

Co-Founder

Around 466K people have viewed my LinkedIn profile since early 2022, you might want to save this post because I am going to tell you why this deeply matters and how to possibly achieve this yourself. And no, nothing is gated - you just get it here by reading.

When you get someone to your profile:

they can binge content (learn) 
they can read recommendations (trust)
they can go to your website (tracking & revenue)
they can confirm authenticity (more trust)
they can see where you engage (new people to learn from)
they can see common connections (more trust)
they can read about you (curiosity) 

How to do it:

1 - Comment often on other's content because this puts your name in rooms you have never been in before. Not just little comments because you feel like you have to but deep and interesting thought filled engagement. And for the LOVE OF ALL THINGS LINKEDIN - please stop engaging solely with your 1st degree connections. Aim for 15 comments per day to new people.

2 - Create content from 4 pillars, you can't look the same daily. The 4 pillars are here in this post via a visual (https://lnkd.in/ekkgGrgs)

3 - Follow 5 people daily, many of you expect followers but never follow anyone.

4 - Connect with humans you actually want to engage with, it is wildly important to actually take a look at someone's profile before you add them into your sphere. Do they post? Do they engage? Can you learn from them? Do you have common connections? Are they kind? Do they add value to you? Can you add value to them?

5 - Recognize people when they actually visit your page. Closed my largest deal of the year with a CMO of a massive org by simply saying, "Mark! Thanks for stopping by, appreciate you." Went on to coach his entire revenue org out west. 

6 - Don't be afraid to click the repost (don't add thoughts) when you see good content in your feed, I am tracking this data hard right now and my profile views deeply spike when I do this - gets you into another sphere of talented humans.

7 - DM's are everything. New connections, dm them. Old connections, dm them. Introduce people to people in DMs (did you know you can send group dms to folks? yea that is a game changer)

8 - Be sure your profile is complete. Headline easy to read, like 5th grade level. About section filled out. Featured section done. Banner photo complete. Recommendations down below. The list goes on but you have to have get your house in order here if you want people to come visit. 

Ok.

That is enough now, go do some of this stuff and watch what happens over the next 15 months. Your mind will be blown by the opportunities that fall into your lap after 450 days of consistency!!

darrenmckee.co 
531social.com

Founder of Darren McKee Co. 

As of April 2025, I’ve coached over 900 individuals where I helped them build their brands and master social selling strategies. From founders, to account execs, to photographers, to cs leaders, to coaches to landscapers. No one is exempt from building a brand and social selling, it is 2025.

1:1 Coaching
Team Trainings 
Monthly Cohorts
Speaking Engagements

The stuff that matters is below :)

Father | Husband | Son | Brother 

Personal Mission Statement - 

To build, encourage, support and love my family and all others we encounter.

Show kindness
Show empathy
Show gratitude
Show grit
Show respect

And most importantly

Believe.

Fulfillment Policy:

For LinkedIn & Social Selling Trainings - You can reach me at darren@darrenmckee.co - Your payment is non-refundable as it reserves a spot in the training for you and  is not refunded due to your lack of participation. Once your payment processes, you will be added to your specific group and sent calendar invites prior to launch day. We do not guarantee a specific outcome from our programs and, by submitting your payment, you agree to indemnify Darren McKee from any claims arising from your actions or inactions during and after your participation in the program. By executing the stripe payment, you agree to the above.


For 1:1 & Team Social Selling and LinkedIn Trainings - You can reach me at darren@darrenmckee.co - Your payment is non-refundable for any reason. Further,  decisions you make via the insights and trainings I share during the sessions are your responsibility to implement. You agree to indemnify Darren McKee and take responsibility for any impact to yourself or your business. By executing the stripe payment, you agreeing to the above.

I simplify LinkedIn & Social Selling - Founder of Darren McKee Co & CEO of 531 Social

Talking about hobbies will book more first meetings than any work related post ever will, I can promise you that. 

The bar for being a human has never been lower. 

I love fishing. Anyone else?

A few things I’m most proud of over the last couple of months:

Officially 3 months without email on my phone for my new company, desktop access only. 

Committed to a 9AM-3PM schedule and have only had a couple days where I failed at this, huge difference and revenue hasn’t changed.

Officially signed up for a personal trainer, business was growing but so was my weight and that needed to change. 24 me will be back shortly.

Become comfortable saying no to things I don’t really value or care to do, even if that means losing money or upsetting people. 

Spent way more time outside enjoying nature and picking up old hobbies with old and new friends.

But, to be honest - I don’t really like content like this because it seems unattainable for some. “Some” was me not that long ago.

And I’m going to keep it real, I couldn’t do all of these things above if I hadn’t put an insane amount of effort into my craft over the last 10+ years. 

Your time to slow down is just around the corner, and my hope is that it doesn’t take you as long as it took me.

This was 2012. Shirt was $2.99, pants were $5.99 - both from Goodwill (still shop there, just not out of necessity anymore). Tie was my dads. Shoes were from an old shoe shine shop. Sometimes people leave their shoes and they sell them cheap, Allen Edmunds for $39.00. Bag was from the clearance rack at J. Crew factory.

I didn’t have much. But, I had all I needed to be the best mail room kid in NYC.

My pops used to tell me that it didn’t matter what I did, as long as I tried to be the 1% in that “thing” then people would recognize, Jesse Itzler taught me this also.

I had never been to NYC before, the largest building in my town was like 11 stories, Victoria Texas for those wondering.

Couldn't afford to live in the city so we decided to rent a 350 square foot 3rd story walk up in Bloomfield, NJ - I told people Montclair.

None of the windows really closed.

Laundry was in the basement, was coin operated and rarely worked.

Bathroom was in the kitchen, yea odd - not sure about that.

Heat came from the downstairs unit, floors got warm but never got above like 62 degrees. Now I’m ruined if a room is above 70 🥵 

Car was a 1997 Avalon with no muffler, loud as heck. Drove it for years after this!

But, it is where we had our START. 

It wasn't glamorous but it is what we had and for a kid without a degree, I went for it and simply tried to be the best.

My first 3 hours of work each day paid for my transit into the city, $28 for those hours.

Patterson 72 Line
Newark
Path
WTC
Walk

Here are some of the things I did that took me from living in that small tiny apartment to getting where I am today:

1 - Never stop telling people hi, you are one head nod away from your entire life changing

2 - Study your craft like crazy, but also know everything about your client or icp (get in their world and out of yours)

3 - Surround yourself with people WAY WAY smarter than you

4 - Be willing to relocate early in your career, we moved 6 times in 8 years

5 - Always have 2 people willing to hire you by next Friday

6 - Start creating content NOW, it will change your life - do double what you think is necessary

7 - Get a coach (If you can’t afford it, find a mentor or ask your company to pay for it)

8 - Your partner is your superpower, choose wisely here

9 - Get really really good at something, 10,000 hours (just crossed this number with social selling and wild things are happening with darrenmckee.co)

10 - Celebrate your wins often, kudos folder

11 - Have fun, love people and laugh daily

Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me!

Yes I share this every 9 months because origin stories are imported, remember that.

CEO | Founder | Motivational + Keynote Speaker | Serial Entrepreneur | Author | Endurance Athlete

For a guy like me, this all feels like a big ole dream. A few years ago I was a college drop out with zero sense of direction and only a handful of people that believed in me.

Now, getting to stand in front of thousands of humans every year to share my story and expertise.

Speaking about my life 
Talking about working in that pizza joint
Delivering mail and making copies in NYC 
Becoming a recruiter
Leading a national recruiting team
Stumbling into that first sales role
Falling in love with the game of sales 
Reaching VP of Sales in 6 years (exit)
Launching my own coaching business 
Launching a b2b SaaS business  

It’s been fun but I truly feel like I’m still in the top of the 3rd inning as it relates to potential impact. 

All of that stuff above, that was 13 years of grinding - I’m now 36.

A tad bit more experienced
Able to see around corners
Know when to ask for help
More energy than ever
Insane desire to lead

The next 13, we ready.

I prayed for this. Time to deliver.

Darren: 1 
Universe: 0

Lando Norris style driving to narrowly miss the largest deer I’ve ever seen this morning.

It’s gonna be a great day, I’ve already won.

The rest is icing on the cake.

P.S. - Just a reminder that people don’t want to read your work related, industry, features, offering content every single day…

So many people told me doing this would be dumb and I’d deeply regret leaving a 9-5, especially having a family at home to provide for and finally making it to a VP position…

Sure glad I ignored it and jumped fully into teaching people how to navigate this platform while mastering the art of social selling.

In 20 days, my 17th LinkedIn & Social Selling Cohort launches (15 slots left) and I truly feel like I’m just getting started, so much more impact to be had. 

But, I don’t want you to think I just up and quit my job without a lot of data tellling me this was the right thing to do. 

I had seen myself match my w-2 income + 30% for 6 straight months while only working 15-20 hours on darrenmckee.co 

I had also built an scaled a startup as a seller and sales leader from 0-1.8M (pre seed) so I knew I could do it again and had the skills to figure it out during the difficult times.

Anyways, just a long post to remind you to bet on yourself with data to support your decision.

It’s officially been 13 months since going out on my own and it’s been the best career decision I’ve ever made other than running a restaurant as my first job 😉

Don’t normally share email outreach advice but I’d save this one. Hint - I like long cold emails, because they work.

Stop sending emails like this ❌

Subject: Darren McKee Co <> ABC Company 

Hi Sarah!

I saw you lead the enablement team and also have a background in content creation, dynamic duo for someone in your shoes in 2025!

I launched Darren McKee Co. back in October and I’d love to talk with you about what we are up to, happy to send you some case studies and testimonials if you would like to hear from some companies similar to ABC Company. 

If it’s easier for you, here is my calendar link for you to find some time to chat.

Webinar on 3/7 - {register here}

Thanks, 

Start sending emails like this ✅

Subject: < 10% of sellers creating - EGC

Sarah!

Thanks for reading this, I promise I won’t waste your time. I know you don’t have much as you are leading 2500+ AEs. 

Getting straight to it. For the last few days I’ve been building out an account plan for ABC Company and couldn’t help but notice the lack of organic content from the sales team. Additionally, I couldn’t find any of them engaging with their perspective customers content. I know this drives you mad as you have a content creation background from you last role back in ATL!

Imagine if 20% created twice per week and engaged with 3 prospects content per day:

100 pieces of content per week
3000 impressions average per post
15M + free impressions per year

1500 prospects engaged with per day 
7500 prospects engaged with per week 
390K prospects engaged with per year 

With a team your size, y’all are looking at like 1500+ meetings sourced from a 35 min time block on their calendars to get this stuff done!

Not sure if this is on you and Tom’s roadmap but if it is, I’m here to talk through it and hopefully share some resources or ideas. I’d also be happy to introduce you to Anna at DEG Company, been working with them for about 9 months now. She is in Marietta also!

Here are a few times that work, if this is of interest:

December 8th, 11th or 16th at 2:00PM

Just let me know and I can send us an invite! 

One more thing, I saw that you just went to Costa Rica. Our fam went this year and it was epic, can’t wait to chat about that on our call.

Cheers and here’s my cell ___ __ ____.

Darren McKee 
Founder 
Darrenmckee.co

A hair more than 10K spent for 5M in return. 

One of my clients just sent this message to 13 other leaders in his space.

“Hey! 

I'd love to intro you to my good friend and coach for all things LinkedIn and social selling, Darren McKee. 

We just had dinner recently and were talking about his work. He specializes in helping execs find their voice online while ultimately uncovering relationships and revenue they never knew existed. 

He actually helped our team (me and a few others) close over $5M in new business this year and his guidance continues to drive our pipeline. 

I don't know how much effort you and your team are putting into social selling, but I highly recommend you connect with Darren.”

Let me break it down:

He paid me 1.5K to join a cohort

His company paid me 7K for team training 

He then paid me 2K for some 1:1 coaching

And all while this was happening, they closed 5M in new business. Not pipeline, closed won revenue. 

This is what it’s all about for me and darrenmckee.co 

Delivering insane value and then having our clients tell our future clients about us so they can experience the same insane value.

Off to conquer this day, busy one 👇 

Gym
Head to Raleigh for 531 Social work 
CEO 1:1 coaching 
Back to Chapel Hill for deep prospecting 
CEO 1:1 in person half day coaching 
Early dinner with clients 
Home by 6:15PM

Dave has spent a little over 15 hours with me over the last 365 days. 

I remember him saying, “I’m not a sales guy, I grew up in manufacturing. But, I have to figure this out as a solo founder. I need to double my business this year.”

Guess what?

His business doubled and he’s a sales guy.

120K “closed won”
600K “anticipated close”

Here is stuff we worked on:

His messaging 
His profile 
His offering
His mindset 
His process around sales 
His storytelling
His content 
His feed (making it all prospects)
His video DMs 
His math to hit his number
His partner strategy 
And a good bit more.

Love coaching humans like, Dave. 

P.S. 

A couple 1:1 spots left for January 
6 spots left for December Cohort # 17

Details here: darrenmckee.co

Some odd work things I do:

I use the desktop version of LinkedIn 90% of the time.

I don't schedule content here, just post when it feels right or when a thought hits my brain - posting at the same time daily is probably crippling your impact but that is just my take.

I rarely take my laptop out of my office space.

I don't really work from home, choose to go into an office from 9-3 daily. Call me weird but it just feels right to me.

I am very very close to having zero email access on my phone, down to ONE.

I do not have any AI tools as apps on my phone, desktop only.

I work off of one screen, laptop only.

I am up to 50% of my meetings being on the phone while walking or in the car vs zoom or google meet.

I rarely respond to a "work" email post 5PM, we are in sales - we aren't surgeons. If someone needs me NOW, they can text me.

I don't use slides for my trainings or presentations, just my thoughts paired with words and a lot of show and tell.

I choose to fly to important meetings vs sitting at my standup desk from on a tiny screen.

I try to meet 3 people every single week that were non existent to me last week, this has been a massive unlock.

I don't believe that working more hours makes your more money, I think it might actually hurt you in the long run and cause you to lose in many other areas of life. 

Alright, that is enough. 

Time to go get ready for a dove hunt tomorrow with the family.

I wanted to quit so many times, like every single day for years. 

Here are a couple of posts from 3,190 days ago. My content looked like this for a long long time but I knew it would eventually get better. I knew I had to put in the time before I was a name that people would want to follow and learn from.

Keep going. It gets better, I promise. 
Don't quit, make it 15 months and it all changes.

Since that day:

mail room 
mail room manager
recruiter 
director of recruiting 
operations manager
regional operations manager
sdr
smb ae
mm ae
ent ae 
vp of sales 
founder of darrenmckee.co and 531social.com 

Content, my effort and this platform changed my entire dang life.

Give me the content from people who have actually done the job, like 10+ years of experience. 

If you are in that 🏕️ (camp) I hate to hear the bearer of of bad news but you a missing out deeply.

Give me the content from people who are new to their job, like 3-12 months of experience as well as people 10+ years of experience. 

If you are in that ⛺️ (other camp) then I will see you around for a few more years, because you won’t become stale.

Long story short:

I’m kind of sick of folks bashing rookies for sharing things their learnings in public. 

Just a reminder, the largest and most successful companies in the world do this thing called “reverse mentoring”, maybe it’s important to learn from those years behind us. Just sayin.

Also, camping emojis are fun.

So you are telling me that I’m supposed to have my profile built out, explain what I do in multiple areas, comment thoughtfully on posts that I’m learning from, follow those people, connect with those people, dm those people, create content that helps and educated those people, respond to engagement on my content, ignore content I don’t want to see, and then I’m good to go?

I keep reading content about this new “brew algo” thing and I’m just confused 😂 

Were people not using LinkedIn this way before?

I feel like this isn’t new. It’s legit what I’ve been coaching for years. Be a darn human.

I never believed in the whole “banner photo” hype but since updating mine 6 months ago, it’s responsible for easily 15% of my monthly revenue.

1 change, thousands of dollars.

Logo. Website. Offering. Simple.

Miles Adcox - we don’t know each other at all and I just stumbled into your content on another platform. Put some of your stuff here on this platform, I promise the relationships you make here will be 10X of what you make on IG. Users hare are yearning for this type of real stuff, trust me.

Thanks for this video, I’ve watched it 641 times in the last week. 

Now 100K people here will see it.

I was closing deals left and right via my content, engagement and outbound DM strategies here on LinkedIn - 80% of my revenue over the last few years. As a college drop out, mail room and pizza restaurant guy who was told he would never amount to much, I was truly enjoying this ride.

I knew I had a gift that needed to be transferred to others but I also had sales leaders and highly influential people in my life telling me to not bet on myself and go full time with coaching people on LinkedIn & Social Selling. They said it was a fad and that I would deeply regret my decision and that I had worked so hard to get to VP of Sales, to then just throw it away. Like a handful of people all saying the same thing, but 4 people told me to JUMP.

Instead of listening to them, I asked myself these three questions:

What is the worst thing that could happen?

No one wants to work with me, this stuff fades away and I keep selling deals as an account executive and maybe I lose a few thousand dollars trying to build something on my own. Not a terrible outcome.

What is probably going to happen?

It is going to be difficult and I will want to quit a few times but overall, I am able to keep going. Impacting a couple hundred people and feel totally fulfilled. Not a bad outcome.

What is the best thing that could happen?

I find my true passion which results in coaching 922 humans in a group setting over 17 months, 85 humans 1:1 and another 1200 via team coaching + thousands in a webinar setting and 20M via content shared for free here on LinkedIn.

Those questions led me to JUMP and the "best thing" scenario came true and I get to live it out daily now, truly wild.

This morning, I went through a lot of the screenshots from the groups since launching and spent some time looking at each one of these faces in the pictures below. So many wild things have happened in these individuals lives and it makes me so incredibly happy.

Listen, I don't guarantee for you to have a life changing experience after joining 3 group sessions with 50 other leaders but if you put in the work and implement what I walk you through, your opportunity will be endless.

On December 1st - I will be running my last group session of the year, but will be back strong starting in February to continue this journey. There are 8 spots left for December, happy to field some DMs today if you have questions or you can just look through testimonials down at the bottom of my page or you can just type my name in the search bar with posts and see some folks talking about coaching.

Enjoy the weekend and remember those three questions when you make decisions.

P.S. - If you're on the fence about anything in your career right now, ask yourself those three questions. They work.

If you're trying to sell enterprise deals, you'll want to run this Sales Nav search.

I know this post will be long, so save it (3 little dots at the top of this post) and come back if you're busy!

Both of these are "filters" in the LEAD search via Sales Navigator:

Years in current company: Less than a year 
Years in current role: Less than a year

Reasoning before I get started: When you're selling enterprise deals, you want to get the people that are super high up in the organization but are also new to the organization. 

Why? They've been hired to come in and shake things up, and typically they come in with ideas and a budget to accomplish the tasks they were hired for—hence the two filters above!

A couple deals I've closed via this search:
2.7B dollar logo (500K ACV)
680M dollar logo (188K ACV)
2.2B dollar logo (104K ACV)
1.9B dollar logo (143K ACV)
1.2B dollar logo (684K ACV)

Step 1: Open Sales Navigator.

Step 2: Click in the white space where you see a magnifying glass and the word "search," then press enter.

Step 3: See that little right-facing arrow? Click on that and your additional filters will pop open.

Step 4: Scroll down on the left and click the two filters titled "years in current company" & "years in current role."

Step 5: Select "less than 1 year" in both of those filters.

Step 6: Change the "company headcount" filter to reflect your target customer size. For me, I'm going to select 5,000-10,000.

Change the personal "geography" filter to reflect where your focus should be today. For me, I'm going to pick Austin, Texas.

Step 7: I'm down to 5K potential prospects (leads or individuals)—you'll see all of those people pop up on the right side of your screen once you complete these filters.

Step 8: Type the title of the person who is normally the decision maker or buyer of your product or service. For me, I typed in "Talent Development." 

Be sure to put the quotation marks here or your search will come back incorrect.

Step 9: I have 29 leads now in 5,000-10,000 headcount companies, new in their role and new in their company, also in Austin, Texas.

Step 10 (BONUS): Add a new filter on the left called "posted on LinkedIn"—it's under "recent activity." Now go engage with those folks' content.

I know this was long, but hopefully it helped at least one person!

This is the type of stuff I teach at darrenmckee.co - real, tactical stuff that helps you close deals. 

Happy prospecting.

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