Most founders tell me LinkedIn is oversaturated. They’re wrong, but I empathize with why they feel that way.
Yes it’s true…the platform IS NOISY with more content than ever.
Thanks ChatGPT. *eye roll*
BUT, fixating on saturation is pure defense. You’re trying not to lose instead of playing to win.
That’s no way to run and grow a business.
Every thought you have should be about how you’re planning on growing for the right channel and with the right strategy for your target audience.
I’m going to show you exactly how founder-led content becomes a business asset, why most CEOs miss the opportunity, and how to build an ecosystem of support in just 1-2 hours per month.
The saturation myth holding you back
When someone tells me LinkedIn is oversaturated, I think about water bottles.
There are thousands of water bottle companies doing over a million dollars a year. Same with agencies.
I built my first SEO agency to multiple six figures in a “saturated market”.
The question isn’t whether there’s room.
The question is whether LinkedIn is an opportunity for you to generate business, build your brand, or find customers.
If the answer is yes, then you need to figure out how to resonate with the folks who need you and stand out from a brand and product differentiation standpoint.
With AI content and generative chatbots, the amount of content on the internet is only going to grow on any platform forever.
That’s not a good reason in and of itself to do or not do something.
The two signs your content lacks market positioning
I can spot founder content that doesn’t understand market positioning immediately.
First sign is regurgitation. They just repost a company message. They repeat something from the company about page or solutions page. It’s hollow business jargon with no emotional resonance.
Second sign is pure promotion. They blast out their thoughts without any empathy or understanding of who they want to speak to or what that person’s needs are.
Combined, this makes for a very annoying and bland experience.
People just aren’t going to tune in.
The turning point that came from deep introspection
Founders and CEOs need to deeply introspect and ask themselves these questions:
- What do I believe that is unique or contrarian?
- How does that map to what the company believes?
- How does that map to what our audience or target customers need?
- How can we make sure that stands out in the market amongst other voices in our space or competitors?
This isn’t about creating content.
This is about knowing yourself, your unique verbal identity, and your values.
It’s about sticking to your guns when you have a difficult choice. And it’s important to communicate that to your audience and your employees.
The $500 price increase that taught me a ton
I learned this lesson the hard way when I raised prices by $500 for my SEO agency clients.
I had bought new software, created all new deliverables and systems. I knew what I was doing was right and fair and going to help my clients perform better.
One client didn’t take it well. He was upset. I felt really bad for weeks.
But I was right. The tools were better. The processes and systems were better. My business model was more secure and sustainable.
I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I didn’t slightly raise everyone’s pricing.
Why AI tools miss your authentic voice
As a founder, I understand how you wake up and even if you have your time blocked out and your priorities for the day, there’s 20 different fires that are going to pop up within the first hour.
A lot of founders and CEOs, especially early stage, are going to be time crunched. They’re not going to have unlimited resources to hire teams of content writers and subject matter experts.
But they’re also not going to have the desire and sometimes not even the technical knowledge to set up a complex customized GPT or an N8N workflow or some kind of crazy Zapier automation.
A lot of AI content tools are efficient and cost-effective. Same thing with the generative AI popular chatbots like Claude or Gemini or ChatGPT.
But there’s a group of individuals who value authenticity, critical thinking and integrity.
Your unique stories can’t be uploaded
A lot of these other tools where you just say I want to sound modern or authoritative, or upload some content documents you found, that’s not really going to capture your unique verbal identity.
If those tools are trained on the quote unquote most viral posts on LinkedIn, how is it going to reflect your specific thinking or connect the dots with your stories and your beliefs and your lived experiences?
From being a founder and learning from founders who are conscious like myself, it’s not only important to have the efficiency, the speed and a good output.
They actually need their own self and perspective and unique verbal identity baked in as well to feel good about it.
It’s got to feel authentic to them to be sustainable long term.
The 1-2 hour a month system that actually works
When I say 1-2 hours a month, I mean it.
This will result in 12-15 posts that you are proud of that your audience will enjoy and that will resonate with potential customers.
It’s not difficult, you just need to know the recipe for the sauce.
Start with five core beliefs
I agree with founders who say they don’t have time for LinkedIn.
In terms of spending hours thinking of topics on the spot without any preparation, typing something up, manually posting it to LinkedIn and creating graphics, they don’t have time for that.
But what they do have time for is sitting down once or twice, maybe a couple times a year, and saying these are the five things that I believe.
A few examples for me are:
- SEO is about revenue
- Leave everyone 10 times more inspired and encouraged than before you met them
- You always need to have a strategy before deploying tactics
- No dogma about channels
Having those is going to inform company decisions, product decisions and team training. So they should do that anyway.
Build your annual content arsenal
The company should have core messaging pillars. The CEO doesn’t need to create these. They should have the marketing team help. But their beliefs, their values and their vision for the future should inform those conversations.
From there, really just getting a handler, somebody to interview them, using the voice to talk function of your generative AI tool of choice is very simple.
Spend 20 minutes, 30 minutes a month just getting out their thoughts, what they’re seeing in the industry, what they’re working on and unique beliefs and perspectives.
Then realistically, they can pass that off to somebody to put it into a template for LinkedIn or a newsletter or a blog post and take it from there.
I truly believe that in maybe 15 to 20 hours a year, a CEO or a founder could give their team the ammunition for the entire year’s worth of content coming directly from their thoughts and their beliefs and their voice if they do it correctly with a system in place.
It’s a no brainer
Founder-led content becomes a business asset when it reflects your unique beliefs, connects to your audience’s needs, and stands out in your market.
You don’t need hours. You need 15 to 20 hours a year with a system in place to build an ecosystem that drives real value.
Block 30 minutes this week to write down your five core beliefs. Not your company’s mission statement. Your beliefs. The things you know to be true that inform how you build and lead.
Use Meet Sona to easily create authentic content with AI voice interviews
Meet Sona helps founders, consultants, and coaches define what makes them special and turns 10 minute guided interviews into weeks of tasteful LinkedIn, newsletter, and blog content.
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