How I Generate Over Half of My Company’s Revenue Through My Personal LinkedIn Brand

Spending more time on my personal LinkedIn page grew my company rapidly.

As an entrepreneur and the CEO of Accelity, I’m constantly searching for new revenue streams for my company.

I used to post on LinkedIn just because I wanted to, with no goal in mind. But one day, almost three years ago, I realized that I had a huge business opportunity sitting right in front of me. I wanted to use my LinkedIn platform to make more money without actually having to do anything sales-y.

During my LinkedIn journey I’ve learned:

• It’s possible to drive business without being an “obnoxious salesperson” by adding value instead.
• You don’t need to be offensive or controversial to build your brand on the platform.
• By using LinkedIn strategically, you can generate a massive amount of new website traffic and revenue.

I did this without cold-calling and without seeking out thousands of connections just for the sake of numbers. By focusing on my personal brand, I attracted connections who were interested in the value I provided and who wanted to work with me and my company.

The proof is in the pudding: after optimizing my personal brand and my team members’ personal brands on LinkedIn, we saw massive traffic growth on Accelity’s website (144% in one quarter!).

How to lay your personal brand groundwork

One caveat: this strategy takes commitment, but it’s not difficult. Let’s dig a little deeper into what that looks like in practice on LinkedIn.

1. Sell yourself (and your company) through your personal brand

When I first started optimizing my LinkedIn profile, I needed to make sure I was being authentic. People love stories and we want to feel connected to others. I sat down and thought about what image and message I wanted to put out into the world, and then got to work.

Here are the steps I took to really sell myself as an entrepreneur on LinkedIn:

Use LinkedIn as a living portfolio — and keep it updated

Keep your page fresh to keep others interested. You’re not still working at that coffee shop job anymore, so let everyone know what your success looks like! Highlight skills as you gain them, and prove that you’re an expert.

Sell yourself in the description box

Very rarely in life do you get to provide an impressive description of yourself before meeting someone. Fill this space with your personal story — be genuine and down-to-earth, and highlight some of your accomplishments here. Discuss what led you to where you are now, and show people that even though you’re successful, you’re also human!

Get creative with a cover photo

A plain cover photo isn’t memorable and it tells people nothing about you. A creative cover photo leaves a lasting impression and provides next steps for people that want to work with you. To create a cover photo that fits my personal brand, I added other social handles, my websites, and a CTA encouraging people to get in touch with me.

2. Get your name out there and be memorable

LinkedIn is made up of many communities, groups and individuals looking to connect on a deeper level. Inactivity will be your downfall. Build quality connections and meaningful conversations by engaging with the community.

I began building trust that spanned across my personal brand and Accelity’s brand by discussing different topics with my community and posting original content consistently, which in turn led to a huge increase in people inquiring about Accelity’s services.

Engage, be active and participate whenever possible

Meaningful engagement on LinkedIn could look like:

• Replying to a post that resonates with you with a comment that’s original and specific with the goal of sparking a conversation
• Sending personalized connection requests to like-minded professionals, people you find interesting and people you want to learn from
• Joining relevant groups and creating original content to share with them

Ask for recommendations and opinions

LinkedIn is not the place to be shy. Whether you’re requesting recommendations for someone that does great design work or you want to hear opinions on how to scale a business successfully, you won’t get answers unless you ask. Showing people that you are constantly learning and that you value their thoughts and opinions makes your brand feel more authentic and trustworthy.

Keep your content positive and helpful

No one likes negativity all over social media, especially on a professional networking site. At the same time, I see negative posts go viral every day — with comments on comments that contain complaints and debates. Ack!

People want to work with business owners that see the glass as half-full and strive to achieve success, even when it seems impossible. Turn problems into actionable solutions through your content, and share your struggles while adding what you learned from each experience instead of complaints.

3. Build a following by actively sharing valuable content

After optimizing my brand foundations and putting myself out on the platform, I started to see connection requests, follows and comments flow in. People were enjoying my content and wanted to form professional relationships with me.

This is when I knew I needed to lean into the momentum to drive more people to my page by sharing more compelling content (most often through video, but I mix it up with articles and other relevant posts too! as well as by engaging with more people on a variety of topics.

Tell your story

Avoid pitching your company and focus on telling your personal story instead — which likely overlaps with your business. Then, encourage others to use the comment section to share their own stories. When you humanize the process and reply back to people that engage with your post, you’re more likely to form both a LinkedIn and a business connection!

Connect through video creation

Virtually anyone can shoot high-quality videos now via smartphone (so now you don’t have an excuse to avoid it). Video is huge on LinkedIn right now, and the first video you create and share will have a lot more reach than you think. Talk about your personal experiences, share insights on current trends, and feel free to give business tips that you’ve found helpful during your career.

Be active — comment on industry leaders’ and influencers’ posts

When writing comments, keep them on-topic, thoughtful and reflective. Getting others to interact with your comment is the goal, so add some original insight to the post, ask a question, or write something thought-provoking. Remember to be respectful when disagreeing with others, but don’t be afraid to go against the status quo — you might get some great insight from others by playing the devil’s advocate or sharing a differing opinion.

Network with others in-person or virtually

On top of connecting with people on LinkedIn, sign up for networking events and panels (no, they’re not outdated!) and create deeper connections. Have one-on-one conversations, make friends as well as professional connections and get your name out there!

Watch the leads and revenue flow in

I never would have expected that the platform I used more like a professional diary than a sales resource would become just that, but the business world is changing and, with it, new norms are emerging.

After seeing success on my own LinkedIn page, I encouraged my team at Accelity to also begin building their personal brands on the platform. When the team posts consistently, traffic to Accelity’s LinkedIn page typically increases over 4x and our website traffic increases by nearly 150%. That’s a lot of extra eyeballs, conversations, and eventually revenue coming in directly from LinkedIn!

It all goes hand-in-hand when you think about it: having an extensive following on LinkedIn gives you a much higher chance of finding warm leads for your business before directly reaching out to them. If you’re an entrepreneur and you make valuable content, people will associate your personal brand attributes with your company brand.

Now’s the time to dive headfirst into LinkedIn. Have any questions? Hit me up on LinkedIn!

A little bit about me…

Jackie Hermes is the CEO of Accelity, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based agency that helps software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups get to revenue and grow faster, and a co-founder of Women’s Entrepreneurship Week. Very active on LinkedIn, Jackie sparks discussions about the daily life and challenges of growing a bootstrapped company. Jackie mentors student startups via The Commons, female professionals via Building Brave, is an advisor with Golden Angels Investors and coaches numerous early-stage startups. In addition to her professional involvement, Jackie is an adoptive foster parent and loves to explore new places with her kids.