Max Radman's Linkedin Analytics

3 years ago, I spent 40 hours a week cold-calling strangers who didn’t want to talk to me. Today, I help founders & execs with their content strategy. Both of these roles have 3 principles in common: For context, cold calling was my first real job ever. (Shoutout HeyJobs) 100 times a day I called people that already know that I want to sell them something. It was brutal. I got hung up on dozens of times a day. But every “No” taught me something. Fast forward to now – I’m in a completely different game (content creation). Yet every time I write a post, I find myself applying those 3 same lessons from my cold-calling days: 1. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 • On a cold call, I had little time before the prospect lost interest (or hung up) • I learned to spark curiosity within the first 10 seconds • It’s the exact same with content • If the first 1-2 lines don’t pull you in, you scroll past 2. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀 • I dialed 100x per day – knowing 95 calls would be a “No” • But I only needed to hear “Yes” 5 times to hit my targets • Success was literally just a numbers game • Creating content is no different • 20% posts make up 80% of impressions & leads • Without enough reps, it’s impossible to find that 20% 3. 𝗥𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 • For the first couple of months, every single “No” hurt • Eventually, I stopped taking it personally • Each rejection became free feedback to tweak my approach • I could use it to gradually adjust my pitch and get a “Yes” • In content, the feedback loop works the same • When a post goes viral, I learn • When a post tanks, I learn My takeaway: 3 years ago it was 1-1 communication. Today, it’s 1-to-many communication. The principles stay the same.

I just onboarded a teammate who’ll work on his first client project at notus. As Team Lead Content, here are 2 copywriting principles I’m now DRILLING into his brain: 1. Storytelling Stories are a fundamental building block of human communication. Everybody knows them, everybody loves them. Any information packaged into a story is instantly more digestible - especially if it’s subject matter information. All of our clients are founders or execs who have: 1. great stories to tell 2. a lot of subject matter expertise to share Combine 1 and 2 and you have valuable content. Missing either one will make it suffer. ____ 2. Concreteness In today's world the average attention span is 4 seconds. Writing content here is like painting a picture. If the picture is blurry, people won’t bother to squint their eyes and figure out what it is. Even if it’s relevant to them, they’ll just look away. If the picture is clear and full of beautiful detail, people won’t be able to look away. To paint a clear picture with words, we have to be as concrete as possible: • concrete examples • specific scenarios • vivid explanations A great content strategist knows how to extract these out of the client in a conversation, and use them to paint their picture. ____ I’d add a 3rd one because it feels more complete, but I think getting these 2 things right is a good starting point. If I can get my new teammate to follow both principles in every single piece he creates: Then I have done my job.

Last month, I had an interesting 8am convo with an AI founder in the Soho house sauna. He runs his business with 4 full-time employees. He’s not looking to hire anymore. I asked him why: “Great companies get smaller, not larger. If I could short every company over 1,000 employees I’d do it.” A very radical stance - but I fully agree. The complexity of big companies slows down the whole beast: • Bureaucracy builds up • Decision-making slows down • Communication becomes harder And with the pace of AI, companies will be able to do the job that a 1,000 person company is doing now with a fraction of the head count. His business is already living proof of that: • 6 people total • 4 full-time employees • 2 contractors That also makes them super agile. Market shifts, new tools - whatever comes their way, they can pivot. At notus, we’re trying to achieve a similar level of agility. I’m certain that in a couple of years, we’ll see billion dollar companies with: • a small team of A-players • specialized AI agent teams That’s a future I’m excited for.

Selim Burcu recently had a call with a prospect who was worried we’d be unable to write for his niche + get his tone of voice down. After working with 150+ clients, here’s how we make sure each piece of content suits the client: This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this doubt. That being said, it’s completely understandable. Especially clients in highly specialized industries assume within reason that “an outsider” won’t be able to appropriately capture and express their knowledge. At notus, there are a couple of steps we take to ensure we reflect the client’s unique expertise and tone of voice: 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 (𝗗𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗗𝗶𝘃𝗲 + 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵) The foundation of our process is a two-hour deep dive interview. This helps us - as outsiders, we represent the layman’s perspective. If the client can simplify it for us, we know it’s ready to be communicated clearly on LinkedIn. In addition to client input, we do our own research: Tools like Perplexity AI or OpenAI’s Deep Research model make it easier than it’s ever been to do a lot of accurate research on a niche topic in a short amount of time. Combining these two - client input and detailed research - creates the foundation for content that reflects their knowledge. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗧𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 Having done my research, I can now prep every content call and know which questions to ask that extract the right information out of the client. In this case, it helps that I’m naturally curious and eager to dig deeper into any topic. When it comes to creating content, I can then just go back into the transcript and use the actual words, stories & examples my client told me. The result: content that doesn’t just align with their expertise but sounds exactly like them (because they said it). In the case of the prospect: He wanted to see some content samples to see proof we’d be able to write for him. Lucky for us, he had a ton of previous podcasts filled with expert insights. All I had to do was: • choose a snippet • extract their insights • package it into content And it worked. He was happy with the result and signed the quote yesterday. TL:DR We don’t come up with new content. We just package what’s already there.

In just 40 weeks, Adam Robinson grew his company from $0 to $4M ARR using LinkedIn. Gal Aga drives 70% of his revenue from LinkedIn. Behind both of these success stories is 1 person: Alec Paul. Alec is the mastermind behind some of the most successful personal brands on LinkedIn - yet most people don’t know about him. So I’m taking it upon myself to give him a little shoutout. Because in fact, Alec is the one who changed the way I think about writing hooks. His hooks break all the “LinkedIn guru hook best practices”: • “Traditional hooks”: 1 line max, generic statement, super fluffy • Alec’s hooks: super long, information-dense & always story-based Many of them are so long, they don’t even fit the desktop view - but they work. After obsessively studying ALL of his hooks, I noticed a very clear pattern: (Alec, if you’re reading this - please feel free to sh*t on my breakdown) The hook is made up of 2 lines: 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝟭: 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳 + 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 The opening sentence immediately builds credibility and teases a story. Example hook from Marvin Sanginés - Line 1: “I grew notus to $80k MRR using only LinkedIn” • Social proof = being able to show you did something that's relevant to others. (I grew my company to x, I talked to x founder, etc). It signals to the reader: “Oh, this is worth reading.” • (Personal) storytelling just increases firepower. Everyone’s story is unique AKA. there is only 1 of it. By definition, this makes it more valuable, because you can’t find it anywhere else. Not every hook follows these criteria to a tee, but the best performing ones I’ve seen leverage both. _____ 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝟮: 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 The 2nd line tells the reader exactly what they’ll get from the post. Example hook from Marvin Sanginés - Line 2: “If I had to start from 0 again, here are the exact 6 steps I’d follow.” This creates curiosity. The reader knows what the post is about and why it’s relevant - but now they want to know “how it works”. That’s what keeps them reading. _____ It’s simple: good hooks combine emotion, clarity, and curiosity. They immediately tell the reader why they should care while leaving enough room to spark intrigue. I’ve adopted Alec’s framework in my own writing, and it’s made a huge difference. Alec Paul , if you ever create a digital product with your insights, I’ll be the first to buy it.

These are the 25 tools we use to run our 7-figure content agency: - Kleo - for LinkedIn research - Gumroad – to sell digital products - Canva – for creating visuals easily - Typeform – to gather event signups - Notion – our main operating system - Text Blaze – for keyboard shortcuts - Close – to manage our sales pipeline - Slack – all communication happens here - Make – to automate processes of any sort - Google Workspace – for literally everything - OpenAI – to outline and draft content pieces - TurboScribe – to transcribe YouTube videos - join.com – for recruiting and job applications - Miro – for visualization and process mapping - Calendly – for meeting booking with prospects - AuthoredUp – for post scheduling and analytics - Aware – to do inbound & outbound commenting - OpusClip – to generate short-form video content - Sales Navigator – to create highly targeted lead lists - HeyReach – to expand our network (no spamming) - Hemingway Editor – for copywriting quality assurance - Loom – to record videos instead of having meetings - Kit (formerly ConvertKit) – to send out newsletters - Riverside.fm – to record & transcribe our content calls in high-quality audio and video This is the tried & tested notus tech stack. (Maybe I’ll tag all of these companies and see if I can get some engagement 👋) If you have any tools you swear by, drop them in the comments. P.S. Spotify for the vibes.

I’ve worked more in the last year than the previous 3 combined – but I’ve also never had this much fun. My routine is the same every day: • wake up at 6 • go to the gym • work until 1pm • 1h lunch • work until 7pm • 1h dinner • 1-2h of work after dinner • in bed by 10pm Saturday I usually work. Sunday I work at least half the day to prep the week. This is a pretty stark contrast from just a couple of years ago. I was the classic university student: • doing the bare minimum • partying every week • taking it easy Now this post isn’t supposed to be the usual “look how much I work, escape the matrix, hustle p*rn” you see on LinkedIn. This is more my personal reflection on the fact that working a lot can be enjoyable. In fact, I think working a lot is a natural byproduct of finding something you like working on alongside cool people. I’m blessed to say I found that in notus. 1 important caveat here is that, even though it’s fun, it’s not easy. It’s actually really hard. Working in a young, fast-growing company means: • there’s ALWAYS more work to do • pretty regular self-doubt & anxiety • great time management = survival • it’s so easy to spread yourself too thin • there are very ambitious growth targets • the client doesn’t care if you’re not motivated • you have to learn & do stuff you’ve never done Despite that, there is 1 thing  I’ve come to believe very strongly over the past year: Working 60-hour weeks and getting challenged every day alongside great people is 100x more fun & fulfilling than working 40 hours in a boring job you could care less about. My worst nightmare would be looking back at my 23-year-old self when I’m 60 and realizing I didn’t go all-in on something I love.