LinkedIn Mastery: How I built 100,000 followers on LinkedIn Publisher in 2 years and 300+ posts...

YOU too can build a "platform" on LinkedIn Publisher. But it's funny because I'm even a bit mystified by my progress hobbling in the dark around Middle Earth after these 2 long years and 325 posts. There were some Millennials running around that acted like Gandalfs and Frodos stirring the pot and believing in me. Jolly little Keebler elves, if you will...

When I set out, I was optimistically shooting for 5,000 Publisher followers and was pretty jazzed to hit this stellar target quite fast. In the process I discovered what sex and LinkedIn Published have in common... wow. David Meerman-Scott, Michael Hyatt and Anthony Iannarino all contributed to my publishing strategy but they all agree on one thing... I'm a lunatic for going all-in on LinkedIn. I migrated my entire blog into here which was actual quite controversial at the time. They posited that LinkedIn might flip the switch and shut off all my content.

I trust Reid Hoffman personally and professionally after 2 years on this odyssey that he will not do that. I can vouch personally for his integrity so I decided not to harvest contact details for marketing purposes and instead 'pay it forward'. I got asked to publish on a bunch of blogs, even was featured as a LinkedIn AUTHOR with my articles hitting the front page of LinkedIn Pulse. I guest starred and cameo'd podcasts.

The first 90 days was phenomenal... and then I settled in for the marathon that has led to today's milestone. I recently started duplicating my LinkedIn blog content on my own websites where the articles are easier to search for key words or topics... David, Michael and Anthony will be proud of me for finally coming to my senses.

Yet I remain a devotee of all things LinkedIn, even now that Microsoft own it... I do however lay awake at night worrying about whether Clippy will make a big comeback.

"I see that you're trying to connect with someone; would you like me to include a solicitation with that?"

I've had more than 1 million page views / reads and just reached the 100,000 follower mark probably as this post gets virally shared. Sometimes I just envision Neil Rackham walking next to me as we share our deeper love for the history of sales, strategy, goats and micro-brewing.

When I'm not trying to be funny for the 7 other people on Earth who have my sense of humor I write about the bots coming to take all our jobs, or AI being the human slave driver in outbound sales centres, or social selling and technology being all the rage... or maybe social being a huge waste of time; more recently I'm preaching the importance H2H selling on the phone and being able to talk the language of leaders. One thing for sure is that selling is getting tougher and the winners will adopt combination strategies... this is the focus of my next book.

Mastering LinkedIn publisher was unlike anything I'd ever imagined. I could only compare it to my forays into martial arts and semi-pro cycling. I've worked up to some big rides where I got up before the sun and was still pedaling when it went down. I feel like a non-corrupt Lance Armstrong writing this... yes that's me in blue and white, always the odd man out being challenged by the devil herself.

Special thanks to Jonathan Farrington from Top Sales World in the UK for discovering me and providing so much support and advice. Here are some lessons I've learned from him, Hugh Jackman and Tyler Hamilton:

• The riches are in the niches. Find your Best in Show cottage industry and link in with the top 200 authors.
• Who am I to give advice you'd ask? Humility has it's place in the world but actually, the world is starving for content and opinions. I took the viewpoint that I would foster a global conversation on every granular detail of selling.
• Do your research and then have an opinion. I went to Richard's home and interviewed him to then write about phenomenal teamwork and leadership that saved hundreds of lives. The LinkedIn article has received more than 270,000 reads. Thank you to Kim Kardashian who even shared my QF32 article!
• Haters are very helpful. There was a deep freeze moment where I was maligned for my postings. I just rolled with the punches and the global community supported me.
• I've turned down multiple book deals at this point and have probably a dozen book ideas.
• I saw the trend of Social Selling come and go and integrated it into my own strategic social selling philosophy. The most heated debate in the world of sales right now seems to be whether sellers should pick up the phone at all.
• Most people are driven by fear and social media really brings this out.
• There really aren't enough women in sales so we really need to support equality. There aren't enough degree programs either. Jason Jordan and Neil Rackham are both doing phenomenal nonprofit work in this direction.
• The image and title is the most important thing to nail... and then you've got to write good content with your audience in mind. What's your main point? Why is it Important? What do you want them to do about it?
• Click bait works and so does humor but don't disrespect your audience.
• Twitter is the ultimate amplifier and so powerful as a notification engine.
• Think of networks in terms of nodes. The Gladwellian mavens, connectors and salespeople stuff is all super apropros to building a brand on LinkedIn. Special thanks John Smibert for freely helping me develop my personal brand and network.
• Anytime you can think like John Cleese, it's a good thing. Also John Candy or Chris Farley.

I feel like I just climbed Mt. Everest and in some ways I just want to bear hug Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner for building something this cool and useful. Reid and Jeff sanctioned this code and in many ways were my sherpas up K2. When I see there smiling faces in articles I think, wow this was the ultimate sale built on trusted advisor. They convinced a bestselling Australian author to entrust all his content to them.

At one point in my career, I thought, this is it. I can simply retire to Tasmania and start a microbrewery. As long as I had a high-speed dial-up I'd be able to consult clients worldwide, perhaps still write. I really wanted to do a series of books that are similar to Dan Brown, that fuse historical fiction with action themes like in Mission Impossible or Ocean's 13.

I get bizarre emails constantly about the goat close gag I ran. I've strived to inject a Monty Pythonesque sense of humor into all this so you'd remember the stories. Stories of Mike Blunt the sales manager who had to be fired. Stories of sales managers screaming to pick up the phone running down the halls screaming about why a sales person deserves to be fired and how they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!

So this post is a huge thank you to all of you, a football stadium full - maybe two. I'm not sure why exactly you follow me or what you get out of these somewhat mad meanderings but I do appreciate you. I wrote a little book called The Joshua Principle in its 6th printing and I'm looking at releasing a few more soon, so I would really appreciate if you gave it a look see and spread the word about it to your friends, family and colleagues. (shameless plug)

I would love to hear more about what's challenging you, where you're falling down in sales, what keeps you up at night (I know it's such a bad question.) I'm really grateful for you liking my posts and spreading them around like Julia Roberts movies or Eboli.

The greatest posts are yet to come as I set my sights on hitting 1,000 LinkedIn Publisher posts by the year 2020. At that point, I think Reid Hoffman may just come meet me in the outback for a walkabout, emerging somewhat like the Dude in Big Lebowski meets Richard Prior in Wizard of Oz. We can have a microbrew and chat about entrepreneurship, whether Challenger Sales is really a thing, and the future of AI robots, algorithms and machine learning.

One thing is certain, salespeople are deathly afraid of all the predictions that they're going to lose their jobs. You LOVE what you do, absolutely completely obsessed. You love people and ultimately each other. The debates get passionate and heated on some of these threads. Use tools, don't use tools – it's pretty amusing on this side of the network.

Very few people read blogs or books at all. If you read this far you are probably 1 in 10 even 100. The best enterprise sellers are strategists and they learn how to write.

Writing will create your 'voice' and narrative. You cannot be successful without both.

I will typically bake in an Easter Egg at the very end of an article so if you've read this far - inbox me. Yep, hit send. You may be amazed how fast I respond. Ask me anything.

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