Lauren Atherton runs a nonprofit consultancy that provides done-for-you branding services. She specializes in helping small to mid sized nonprofits, and is the sole employee of her company.
She started her company back in 2020 after years of freelancing, working at agencies, and working in-house. As the sole employee of her business, she wears a lot of hats including creative direction, marketing, sales, and delivery.
One of Lauren's most important roles as a solo business owner is to bring in qualified leads
Until Fall 2024, Lauren relied heavily on referrals for her consultancy. However, she felt that to get to the next level of revenue and success in her business, she needed to take a more proactive approach to getting leads and building relationships. Waiting around for leads to come via her content (LinkedIn posts) felt unreliable, and doing direct outreach to prospects (LinkedIn messages) felt intimidating and like a black box.
Lauren's existing posts felt stale. While she was posting 2x per week, she felt the content wasn't inspiring her clients, and she was sick of adding a call-to-action at the end of every post. Further, she didn't know how to take the engagement she was receiving on those posts and turn them into conversations.
When Lauren stumbled upon my LinkedIn page, she sent me a message, shared the above background, and asked how I could assist her.
I explained that when we work together, we'll focus on three key areas:
Her LinkedIn profile to make sure her audience knows who she is, what she does, and how to get started working with her
Developing a lead list so she can keep track of her marketing success and know exactly who to follow up with - and when
Building and engaging with her audience through posting and direct messaging on LinkedIn so she gets in front of the right people
Lauren started by investing in her LinkedIn profile
Over the past few years, and prior to working work with me, Lauren had filled out each section of her LinkedIn profile. She had a cover image, about section, experience section, and a few recommendations.
However, Lauren's profile wasn't telling a clear story of the value she adds to her clients, why she's qualified to support them, and what action they should take with her next. She felt her profile was just sitting there, and saw updating it as a baby step toward building her LinkedIn strategy.
The most important element we needed to work on was conversion optimization, where we make sure her client's next-best action of booking a call is extremely clear.
Through my service LinkedIn Profile Optimization, I prepared step-by-step recommendations for Lauren to take advantage of each section of her LinkedIn profile. Lauren felt that my recommendations were doable and was excited to implement them as they felt aligned with her brand and how she wants potential clients to perceive her.
Then, Lauren started my coaching program Leads on LinkedIn
With her LinkedIn profile fully optimized, Lauren was ready to build her lead list, write more effective posts, and start sending non-salesy direct messages.
Coming into my program, Lauren was already invested in LinkedIn. She had build a robust network of more than 2,000 connections and had a consistent schedule of posting 2x per week. She was posting consistently and seeing some results in terms of engagement. However, it was taking a lot of time and she wasn't getting results in terms of discovery calls (leads).
Outside of not getting discovery calls booked, she was still experiencing two primary frustrations:
Despite writing her posts in advance, she was scheduling them the day-of. She'd second-guess them, sometimes spending as much as hours to re-write and perfect them before posting them. This took away precious time from her work with nonprofit clients and growing her business.
She was getting decent engagement on many of her posts, but didn't know how to take that engagement and turn it into clients. This meant that LinkedIn was building relationships but not directly resulting in new business.
She shared that she was asking herself "how can I look at LinkedIn differently to save me time?". She wanted to be more intentional about her marketing efforts with the limited time she has.
Going into the program, Lauren was nervous. She wanted to attract leads in a way that felt paced. Meaning, if business was busy, she didn't want to feel like marketing was a burden. And if business was slow, she wanted tools to engage in and start more conversations (to lead to more clients).
And, as a small business owner, she was overwhelmed by all the options out there. Should she do an email campaign? Launch a new product? Everyone had a different answer for her, and some past approaches didn't feel right or deliver the results she wanted.
She wondered if she's not good at marketing.
Here were a few specific reasons she made the investment in my program Leads on LinkedIn:
She wanted her hands on my templates, which she used both for creating LinkedIn and email content.
She wanted to streamline her content between email and LinkedIn, so she wouldn't have to write unique content for each platform.
She wanted to start more conversations with potential clients, and was intrigued to learn how posts and messages can work together to grow her lead list.
LinkedIn marketing started to feel good to Lauren
While Lauren was initially nervous to make the investment in my program, she realized that she is good at nurturing relationships. I coached her about how good marketing stems from forming relationships with your clients. This felt aligned to her.
Soon, relevant leads were liking and commenting on her posts. She would then steward the relationships. She got curious and added value to them.
With practice, she shared that DM'ing became "kind of fun". She was even DM'ing more people than she could respond to, so had to slow her efforts down. She realized this is how she wants to do business. It's not shouting about an offer. It's based on relationships.
Lauren learned how to build a lead list so she knew exactly who to message and how to follow up. She knows when there's potential. She's getting consultation calls and seeing the results.
Previously, she just thought she could reach out to referral partners. Now, she knows how to proactively find leads which is empowering and comforting.
The results were tangible and quick
Thanks to our work together, Lauren quickly scheduled a month of posts at once. She felt increased confidence and peace of mind. They go live on Mondays and Thursdays and she loves that she doesn't obsess over them anymore.
She's getting at least one new discovery call booked a month from her LinkedIn marketing, only two months into implementing the new strategy. Previously, she wasn't getting any. And she's launching an offer in January that has 1 of 3 spots booked and a clear pipeline to fill it—all thanks to her LinkedIn marketing. She said she feels she can breathe easier now.
A few additional outcomes that Lauren reported:
She has many ways to ask for a call that aren't just asking directly so she can vary her strategy based on the nature of the conversation and lead.
She feels confident that her content is helpful to her potential clients thanks to writing higher-quality posts.
She knows how to repurpose her LinkedIn content and emails so she can grow her audience without always writing different content for each platforms.
She writes posts quicker thanks to the templates I provided so she can more easily stay consistent.
She's spending less time on LinkedIn across the board since she has a clear strategy in place. She feels less overwhelmed.
She knows she has options to attract cleints and is no longer just waiting for leads to come in. She feels she has more control over the business.
As Lauren shared:
"The Leads on LinkedIn program helps me realize it's all about building relationships. If you're considering [working with Sara], I'd say start with the profile update. It will be helpful to start shifting your perspective and through the program you'll get all sorts of tools and templates to help you grow and understand and build your LinkedIn strategy in a way that will benefit your entire business. If you're doing 1:1 services or wants to have a calmer way to run and generate leads, this is a great program for that. This has set me up for success in the next year."
The next steps you can take to get leads on LinkedIn
When we work together, I'll help you achieve results like Lauren. Here's how my offers work:
Step 1: When I start working with a small business owner, we always start with a Profile Optimization so that you clearly explain your credibility, who you serve, how you serve them, and what action the profile viewer should take.
This process takes about 3 weeks from start to finish, and provides you a profile that captures the attention of your ideal clients and gets them to take action.
Step 2: Once your profile is optimized, we then create your LinkedIn strategy so you can get visible to the right audience and attract more interest in your offerings through my coaching program Leads on LinkedIn.
This program takes 2 months. We focus on two main skills - LinkedIn posting and direct messaging. These skills bring the right clients into your orbit so you can consistently grow your business without relying on time-consuming strategies like video and expensive strategies like ads.
Within just a month, you'll have identified and contacted 30 prospects for your business. You'll have the skills and systems to do it again any time you want an influx of leads. And, this rinse and repeat process gets more effective every time you do it!
Step 3: After, we create a habit of LinkedIn marketing through my monthly coaching program so that you can count on ongoing leads for your business. We integrate LinkedIn with your other marketing strategies (e.g. email and in-person networking) to prevent duplicate work and create a marketing ecosystem that is both sustainable and effective.
Learn more and get started here.
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