Welcome to our latest podcast episode, where we take a deep dive into the exhilarating and sometimes daunting world of entrepreneurship. This week, we are thrilled to welcome Tom Hunt, a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully transitioned from the corporate landscape to running his own thriving business. Tom’s journey is a testament to resilience, learning, and the power of strategic thinking.
In this episode, Tom candidly shares his personal experiences, offering listeners an authentic look at both the triumphs and tribulations that come with entrepreneurship. His story is not just about the successes—he’s equally open about the failures that taught him invaluable lessons along the way. This balance of honesty and insight makes for a compelling listen, especially for those contemplating their own entrepreneurial ventures.
One of the central themes of our discussion is the critical importance of customer retention. Tom emphasizes that in today’s competitive landscape, simply acquiring new customers is not enough. He highlights how focusing on delivering exceptional value to existing customers can lead to long-term success and a sustainable business model. This insight is a game changer for anyone looking to build a brand that stands the test of time.
Tom’s company, Fame, serves as a prime example of this philosophy in action. Through strategic initiatives aimed at making his brand known, liked, and trusted, Tom has cultivated a loyal audience. He dives into the specific strategies that have worked for him, offering actionable advice for listeners eager to replicate his success.
In an era dominated by digital communication, social media engagement plays a crucial role in brand building. Tom discusses how effective engagement can not only boost visibility but also foster genuine relationships with customers. He shares practical tips on how to harness the power of social media to create a community around your brand, making it more relatable and accessible.
Copywriting is another area where Tom shines a spotlight. He explains how the right words can captivate an audience and drive conversions. With his background in content strategy, he breaks down the essentials of crafting compelling copy that resonates with potential customers, making this episode a must-listen for anyone involved in marketing or brand communication.
Researching high-performing content is a topic that Tom addresses with great passion. He provides insights into how understanding what resonates with your audience can inform your content strategy. By analyzing successful content, entrepreneurs can better tailor their messaging to meet customer needs, enhancing both engagement and retention.
Whether you’re just starting your entrepreneurial journey or looking to elevate your existing business, Tom’s insights are invaluable. His experience offers a wealth of knowledge that can inspire and guide you toward building a successful brand. The lessons he shares are not just theoretical; they are grounded in real-world application, making them relevant for aspiring entrepreneurs at any stage.
So, if you’re ready to unlock the secrets to entrepreneurial success, be sure to tune in to this episode. Tom Hunt’s journey is filled with actionable insights that can help you navigate the complex world of business with confidence and clarity.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from one of the best in the field. Listen now, and take the first step toward transforming your entrepreneurial aspirations into reality!
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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1SMRqs7TCkLwPRle2We5r3
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VygQa7KcUkI&list=PLr1RB0ygkFCYEjdoc7F-Pr_aY9JZnM5b_
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Transcript:
Tom Hunt [00:00:00]
Every business is in competition with other people trying to deliver the same thing. So the first thing to understand is that’s the truth and if you’re not competing it against anyone then you should probably get out of that business because you’re either going to make it absolutely massive like Uber, you’re like a Silicon Valley type startup.
Or there isn’t a need. So that’s the first thing. Then the second thing is, is understanding who you’re competing against and then have a rational reason why you think you can out compete them. I say rational because we like to convince ourselves of things that aren’t true, especially when it comes to business.
So there has to be a reason why you could be better than other people that you’re competing against in order for this to potentially produce some kind of profit.
Mary Southern [00:00:38]
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This podcast promises to inform, entertain, and inspire. Tom Hunt, welcome to Recruiting Insider.
Tom Hunt [00:01:28]
It is an absolute pleasure to be here.
Mary Southern [00:01:32]
I’m excited to have you. I was attracted to Tom’s LinkedIn profile almost immediately. You know, and I’m not alone because he has over 91, 000 engaged followers. His posts are, I mean, literally amazing.
And he really has a way with storytelling that draws me in and makes me want to engage with them. And he really, he also has an interesting story to tell both in his personal life and his professional life. And today he’s here to do just that. Tom started in the corporate world and management consulting.
A few life circumstances made him rethink his corporate career and jump into entrepreneurship. More than a decade later, he has tried and failed 17 businesses, invested in 11, and he says that he’s learned a lot along the way. So Tom, could you tell us just a little bit more about your journey from the corporate world into entrepreneurship?
Tom Hunt [00:02:27]
Yeah, I mean, great research. Uh, really good summary. Maybe I’ll steal that. It’s all yours. I think the interesting part is I didn’t really know what I was doing in my life until I tried out a few things. So I studied chemistry at uni and then in the final project you like spend six months in a lab basically on your own doing really detailed work.
So like, and that’s great for some people but not for me at all. So then I was like, I need to do something with people. So I was like trying to get, I sent like 60 applications to big companies to go and work and finally got accepted to one, which was Ernst Young. And then I did that for two years. Didn’t really, it was a bit boring.
Didn’t really like the work that much, didn’t like the corporate stuff. So I know I’m going to like move to Accenture, get paid more and do like slightly more exciting work. So I did that. And then like six months in, I was like slightly better pay, slightly better work, but still think it’s pretty rubbish.
So. This gets us to 2014, where I basically decided at the start of the year that I want to replace my salary with a business I’ve created myself so that I can leave. So that was 2014, I was doing the Accenture job and trying to build a company. And I’m happy to say I managed to just about achieve that goal and I left.
And then from 2015 to today, well actually, 2015 to 2019, I started trying like so many different things, mostly all failed. And then it was 2019 that I finally started with one that seems to be working out to this day. So that’s like the summary of the journey.
Mary Southern [00:04:10]
Wonderful. And we’ll, we’ll dig into what, what you do now, you know, at fame and that, that success story.
But I, I want to start, start with talking about just some of those failures. You know, you said that you started 17 businesses. And, you know, it sounds like you had more failures than success, which is pretty common. And I can totally relate to that, you know, and I think there are probably a lot of listeners out there too, that feel the same way as you, where it’s like, you know, I have all of these skills, maybe they’re in the corporate world and they either want to take a, You know, their life in a different direction or their career in a different direction, whether it’s another place in the corporate world or even stepping into the entrepreneurial space like you did.
So with those 17 businesses that you started, could you tell us a little bit more about those and why do you think they failed?
Tom Hunt [00:05:03]
Yeah, let’s go through a couple and I’ll explain like the situation. Let’s see if you can guess why it didn’t work. It should be obvious. So a big highlight was a male leggings company.
So me and my two best friends. Decide one day that like jeans gang in England anyway, in 2014, we’re getting like skinnier and skinnier. And so we were like, the next iteration of this has to be leggings, but for men. And so. We called them Meggings, we bought the domain meggings. com, and then we essentially found someone in China to make them and started selling them online.
We have some initial success really because of the remarkability of the idea we got on Dragon’s Den, which is like Shark Tank for the people in the US. Pitch, didn’t get any money, but we sold quite a lot of leggings. But with this backdrop, I’m bearing in mind that none of me and my TV friends had any experience in like fashion manufacturing or marketing DTC.
Can you, can you try to guess like what went wrong with the company?
Mary Southern [00:06:15]
I would imagine that you just couldn’t convince men that leggings are awesome. Women already know it, but men probably are a little bit self conscious. I would imagine. And being sold leggings.
Tom Hunt [00:06:28]
Definitely a barrier,
Mary Southern [00:06:29]
definitely a
Tom Hunt [00:06:29]
barrier.
So, but the main barrier I think was that we actually, oh, I would have survived for longer if we actually were able to build a good product. Yeah. So none of us had any fashion experience or manufacturing experience. So the, actually the leggings, I think we got lucky. We found a relatively good supplier, but they weren’t that good.
So that was the one wrong with that one. So that’s a good learning, right? So the next one, and. This is like kicking myself a little bit for this one. And this is actually the one that I left the corporate world with. So some backdrop in EY and Accenture, I was kind of involved in like big outsourcing projects and so my idea to be able to leave the corporate world was to build a team in the Philippines and then sell that team to people, to startups in London.
Like offshore labor, which right now it’s like a very sexy, like business model. And there are big fast growth businesses that are doing this really well. So I start that it replaces the salary, some issues with like client delivery, but that’s like natural in any business. Right. But I didn’t know that at the time.
And so as those issues were happening, I was listening and reading books from like Silicon Valley people, and they are preaching that businesses need to be scalable. Right. And so I’m like, this service business isn’t going to scale to a billion. So if not an opportunity, I should pursue, which is obviously completely idiotic.
Um, and so then I pivoted to like building a Upwork clone and just like a online marketplace, just for Filipino virtual assistants, which I, again, like feasible business. But I’m me with my like 20, 000 are competing against Upwork, which have a billion dollars, you know, and so it’s just pretty stupid. So the lesson there was, is that every business is kind of hard.
And so when you get the issues, you really have to think of the issues of terminal in the case with that service company. They weren’t terminal. I didn’t think. And then be just understand like who you’re competing with and try to compete with people that are not like super intelligent and have massive amounts of cash.
Mary Southern [00:08:36]
Yeah, because if you try to go up against those companies that have billions of dollars, you stand absolutely no chance. I mean, from a creative perspective, from a time perspective, from a development perspective, there’s just no way that you can keep up with that. That’s an important lesson to learn.
Tom Hunt [00:08:56]
Exactly right. So that’s like two or three lessons from the failed companies.
Mary Southern [00:09:01]
Okay, so many of our listeners, I mean, they’re probably many aspiring entrepreneurs, right? Or side hustlers even. What advice would you give to someone who’s trying to grow a successful business right now?
Tom Hunt [00:09:15]
I think we can go back to the competition point.
Like every business is in competition with other people trying to deliver the same thing. So the first thing to understand is that’s the truth. And if you’re not competing against anyone, then you should probably get out of that business because you’re either going to make it absolutely massive, like Uber, you’re like a Silicon Valley type startup, or there isn’t a need.
So that’s the first thing. Then the second thing is, is understanding who you’re competing against and then have a rational reason why you think you can out compete them. I say rational because we like to convince ourselves of things aren’t true, especially when it comes to business. So there has to be a reason why you could be better than other people that you’re competing against in order for this to potentially produce some kind of profit.
Mary Southern [00:10:08]
Yeah, absolutely. Better, or I would even argue just slightly different. I was actually listening to a podcast on dropshipping a couple of days ago, and I thought it was really interesting because their business model. Was finding these products that were super successful and then making them better in some way, whether it was just offering a different color or providing more details about the product or just doing something to go above and beyond a little bit more than what their competitors are doing to really stand out and differentiate themselves from their competitors in the competition out there.
Tom Hunt [00:10:45]
Totally agree. Now, the second, like, once we understand that, second point I would lay on, I think it’s like a fundamental. Belief that any aspiring entrepreneur should have, which is retention is a foundation of growth. Now, again, it’s like quite sexy to find loads of customers, but then delivering and actually adding ideally more value than the paying you is the hard part and the boring part, but that’s also the way.
That you grow in my opinion because if you’re able to over deliver especially for the early customers Then a they’re retained so they’ll pay you more over the long term But b they’ll bring you more through word of mouth and referrals And so the analogy I like to use here is for leaky bucket when you’re starting So important to ensure that the bucket has only maybe tiny holes Loads of holes because that’s just gonna make it much easier and much more profitable to grow
Mary Southern [00:11:47]
It’s all about the customer, right?
I mean and I totally agree whether it’s a product or a service You want to make sure that your customer you over exceed their expectations because if you don’t do that, they’re not going to come back They’re not going to tell other people about you. You know, I’m a big advocate of creating customers as advocates so that they can go out and tell other people about your business and start to spread the word.
So, you know, creating those customer advocates, um, is so darn important. And, and in the end, that’s where the money comes from is, is the customer. So if they’re not satisfied, you probably don’t have a viable business idea at all. Whether again, whether it’s a product or a service that you provide, I think that The same goes
Tom Hunt [00:12:34]
totally agree.
There’s, I think it’s Alex Hamozy that talks about these like three lines that you can use to describe any business. So the bottom line is the cost, which of how much it cost you to deliver the product service, the middle line is the price. So how much the government’s paying and then the ideally the line at the top is the value, right?
And so then the difference between the cost and the price line, which should be the bottom two lines is your margin. And then the difference between the. Value in the price line if your growth rate, right? So if your value is actually below price, you’re probably not going to get word of mouth, right? So you’re not going to grow but if your value is like significantly higher than price Then that’s like the extra happiness the customer is getting so they’re more likely to stay and then refer and so I really like to think about those three lines and you may actually want to bring your Priceline down reduces margin, but should increase the growth rate.
Mary Southern [00:13:30]
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great strategy. So you mentioned in 2019, you started the company that you’re at now, Fame. Fame starts and grows the world’s most profitable B2B podcasts. And you’ve worked with a lot of huge clients like Workday, Zendesk, Ramp, Circle, Lean Data, Signify, people. ai, and a ton more.
And you currently have 75. Full time remote employees. And according to your LinkedIn profile, you bootstrapped this business from zero to 3. 6 million in ARR. How did you come up with this idea? And could you tell us a little bit about your company and what you guys actually do?
Tom Hunt [00:14:12]
Sure. So, you know, we had the time period between 2015 and 2019 where I was like trying and failing a lot.
There was one point where I was failing so much that the cash reserves were running out. So I took a job at a company, actually that I’d It’s head of demand generation, B2B SaaS company. I joined, quickly realized that I wasn’t great at being employed. I thought maybe something had changed in the five years previous, but no.
However, one thing that we did that worked out quite well is when you join any business as a marketing person, you’re like scanning, you’re looking, you’re reviewing the customer personas and deciding if they have any potential. More one or create a new one. For example, there was one customer persona that existed that I thought we should focus on more.
So we thought sales software and this person with the sales operations person. And so I actually, to learn about these people, I tried to. Dm them on linkedin see if they jump on a call with me so I could learn about them Obviously, I just got ignored And so then the master stroke was creating sales ops sales ops demystified which was the name of the podcast And where I’d interview these people and all of a sudden we had these ideal That turned out to be good customer service like coming into our office to be interviewed I’m learning a shitload about these people We were getting some downloads like not massive amounts the guests were like sharing the stuff on linkedin So the business was like generally happy with the podcast and then guest 11 with the vp of sales officer intercom Which is a relatively big sas company.
He actually got chatting with our ceo randomly After the interview and then six months later bought Our software for the whole of intercom sales teams a big chunky deal Like paid for the podcast nine times over. So now the my employer is like super happy with the podcast, right? So as this podcast is absolutely crushing it i’m starting to realize that I probably shouldn’t be employed.
So I leave and then credit to that company They agreed to be the first client of Fame and there’s also one guy called Clay who lives in the Philippines that I’ve worked with for a While who within my marketing team and then comes with me to Fame Then we start delivering this podcast service to my old employer and then slowly to other companies that we’re able to sell to.
Mary Southern [00:16:35]
I mean kudos to your old employer for you know coming on and sticking with you and Becoming that first client of yours and getting winning that first client is huge. So that’s an amazing win right off the bat
Tom Hunt [00:16:48]
Yeah, the if going back to the retention of the foundation of growth thing I’m happy to say that that business is still a client today four and a half years later now for aspiring entrepreneurs I actually think there’s a really good way to start a company like a very de risked way of starting a company Is in your job get really good at doing a specific thing And then essentially, if you want to take the leap, like you can tell your company that you’re going freelance to do that specific thing, would they like to be an early customer?
You can give them a discount. And from the company’s perspective, it actually has pretty good optics for them to say that you’re leaving, especially if you’re like well regarded in the organization to say you’re leaving, but you’re staying on it’s freelance to do this thing. That’s actually much better optics for the company, because otherwise it’s like this person is leaving while they’re leaving.
It looks bad. And so then you have your first client and then you can simply copy and paste the thing you’re doing, document it and deliver it for other customers. So I think it’s a super good way of starting a B2B service company. And then once you have that service up and running, maybe you can build some software in the future, but this is a really good way to become an entrepreneur, I think.
Mary Southern [00:17:58]
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it’s great advice. Like you said, become an expert in one specific area, get to know. everything about that specific area. And so if you do leave and your employer doesn’t want to come along, you still have this really valuable expertise or set of skills that you can take to other employers and eventually build up that business.
Tom Hunt [00:18:21]
Exactly right.
Mary Southern [00:18:23]
So I want to break it down just a little bit more. So what are just a few of the steps that you took to really grow your company from that one client to what it is now with that 3. 6 million in ARR?
Tom Hunt [00:18:38]
So the first thing. It’s really not sexy. It’s like the boring thing, which is trying to make clients happy.
So I’ll just give a couple of things we do for that. We have four values in the company. The first one, we call it client, client, client. Essentially what that means is that if anybody in the business does something or has a decision to make, and they choose the route, which is better for the client, then they’re probably not going to get in trouble.
That’s how I explain it to people in the company. So that’s how we’re able to build. Have this ethos bleed into everyone in the business. So that’s one thing. Second thing is we track happiness scores. So after every meeting we have with a client, we give them a happiness score between zero and three and.
Then we average that out and average that for each account manager and each account director, et cetera, and tracking that every week. And then probably the next most impactful thing is we have what we call magic moments. So if every customer that comes in, there are seven magic moments that we know if we hit those things within a time period, they’re probably not going to leave.
They’re probably going to be happy. And so then if the account manager stopped, uh, essentially ensure they hit those magic moments. So I would say, again, it’s not boring. Sorry. It’s not like exciting, but that’s the number one thing. It’s a magic moment. Now let’s try and do some more exciting stuff
Tom Hunt [00:19:50]
think that if the thing you’re offering Is that has existing demand?
It’s not a ne] crazy innovative thing that no one’s searching for now, I think google is probably the best place to start because The the lead or the prospect already has intent So the job of convincing them to do a thing has already been taken care of And you just have to convince them to choose you and so that’s probably worked Especially the other days work best for us because we didn’t really have the resources To invest heavily in the sales process and these massive long sales cycles, trying to convince someone to do something if they’re coming from Google, whether that’s paid or organic, then they’re already going to do it probably if you get the keywords, right?
So you have to have high intent keywords, eg someone searches for B2B podcast agency. They probably decided they’re going to do a podcast and they probably decided they’re going to do it with an agency. And so then we just have to, there’s only one thing we have to convince them off. So I think, especially if you’re not experienced in sales and marketing in the early days.
Try to make your life easier by focusing your efforts on people that already have intent to do the thing So that’s that’s the second point third point. I super think it’s super interesting much easier for software companies, but still possible for service companies is What I like to call service led growth.
It’s called product led growth in the software world. But the question here is how can you? Have your customers expose your brand to other people in the process of them receiving your service If we can do that, then there’s some kind of virality That occurs with everybody that comes into into your business And so if you grow you’re actually going to be getting more exposure and that hopefully will reduce customer acquisition cost And so just to explain this for us, we sign go b2b podcast And one thing we do is in the show notes of every episode that’s released.
We say this Episode has been handcrafted by the team over at fame. so and we add the link And so maybe in an average month there might be like, I don’t know 90 episodes. To a hundred episodes that go out into the world with that link in. And so that helps. Um, there are probably other ways to do this, depending on what service you’re providing to your clients.
But I think that’s something to try and embed early on in the process.
Mary Southern [00:22:14]
That’s amazing. I mean, so number one, think about your customer, right? Make sure that you’re setting that bar a little bit lower than what you’re delivering. Make sure that the customer is completely satisfied and then figure out the demand.
If you know that somebody wants your product or service. Like Tom said, focus your efforts on those people that have intent and you know, that’ll make your job a whole lot easier, especially like you said, if you’re bootstrapping a company, you don’t have a huge sales and marketing budget. Just knowing that the demands there and then figuring out how to differentiate yourself and show them why they should choose you is so critical.
And I love that concept of product led growth or service led growth, you know, and again, I it kind of goes back to creating customers that are brand advocates. And I’m a Big believer in that because you know, if you can figure out a way to have your customers shout your brand, your company, your product from the rooftops, that’s going to be so much more valuable than even pouring, you know, hundred dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales and marketing because then people know that, hey, this person that I trust.
Has had this really great experience with this company, this person, this services product, I’m going to give it a shot. You know, I need, I need this product. I need somebody to produce a B2B podcast for me. I’m going to go to Tom and his team, because I know that he’s done it for, for this guy and they’re super happy and successful in doing it.
So I think that those are amazing, amazing, um, tips there, Tom. And what are. I guess, what are your top three lessons that you’ve learned from the success of FAME? We’ve already kind of talked about, you know, your top lessons from some of your failures, but what are those top three lessons from the success?
Tom Hunt [00:24:04]
I think I would say it always comes back to retention. So retention is financial growth. It’s like the number one thing I’ve learned about, the thing I’ve learned with FAME. But other things are, I think focus. One of the reasons why it’s worked. Relatively well is that we’ve only done one thing and we actually started Iterating on that one thing before fame even existed when I was working for my employer That’s the other benefit of this method is you’re basically learning how to deliver a service When you’re being paid a salary, so it’s probably been like five years.
We’ve been iterating on that process. And so that enables us to increase as a chance that we’re able to deliver a service that is cheaper and the same or better than our compressors. Cause we’ve just had five years of R and D basically. So retention focus. Then I think the final point I’ve been thinking about recently, one way of looking at your job as the founder of CEO of a company is you’re really just managing agreements with three to four different stakeholders.
So it’s the shareholders, which if you’re bootstrapped and solo founder, then it’s just you, but it’s still important to think of yourself as a shout at the stakeholder, your customers, your team employees, and your. Partners and so if you maybe make something a little bit better for one partner Let’s say you give everybody pay rise and you don’t increase prices.
So the customers That are not unhappy, then the shareholders, it’s slightly reduced the deal for them, you know, because there’s less profit. And so just having an understanding of whenever you change something in the system, uh, it’s probably going to have some impact on other shareholders. And so just understanding that and understanding that if you do something here, you might have to do something there in order to keep the system in balance.
It’s quite a nuance, like not tangible point there, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. And so if anybody. Maybe it’s more relevant when you’re slightly bigger as a company and you have more stakeholders in those groups. But I think that’s an interesting thing to consider.
Mary Southern [00:26:19]
Absolutely.
There are a ton of moving parts when you get to that level, I would imagine. So in your podcast, Confessions of a B2B Entrepreneur, you said that you’re nearly the number one business in this space, in the B2B podcasting space, which is absolutely incredible. And in your words, in order to do that, you need to become known, liked, and trusted.
I completely agree with this. So what exactly have you done to become known, liked, and trusted?
Tom Hunt [00:26:50]
I see, well I think the short way of saying this is basically create information that either educates or entertains so that when the B2B buyer comes into the buying window, which is maybe like 3 percent of the time they spend at work, then you’re the person they come to.
So that’s the whole theory behind fame. How you actually do that I think is on three levels. At the top we have social. This is the most fleeting, like you have the, the lightest or lowest intensity relationships. That’s the easiest one to grow if you, if you get to leverage the algorithms correctly. Then I think it flows down to email, and then podcasts sit at the bottom in my opinion, where we get the most intense relationship because you’re in someone’s ears every week.
Uh, but it’s actually the hardest to grow low discoverability And so for for my what i’ve been doing with fame recently is i’ve had the podcast for four years So we’ve had this bottom of the funnel thing, which it is working I put ads for fame in in my podcast That does work to drive customers But instead of investing too much time in the growth of that i’ve actually more recently been focused on the top level Which is social.
So have been relatively basically took LinkedIn from like 000 followers in like two or two, three months. So that’s working quite well. Now the caveat there is the stuff I’m talking about. Isn’t really the stuff that is interesting to fame customers, but that’s a separate episode.
Tom Hunt [00:28:16]
and then I’m kind of skipping the email thing, but the email thing will come, come in the future.
And so my strategy basically in the last six months has been, instead of focusing effort on growing the podcast, keep the podcast running. Make the episodes better and better, but then invest the mind energy, uh, of growth into the top where it’s potentially higher leverage.
Mary Southern [00:28:38]
Yeah. And I know that, you know, you mentioned with, with your LinkedIn profile, that could be a whole nother episode.
And I totally agree, but I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask just a couple of questions about your LinkedIn presence, because I do think that that’s incredibly powerful and you’ve built an amazing personal brand on there. Like I’ve already said, what are some of your secrets?
Tom Hunt [00:29:00]
Let’s do three. So it only really started blowing up when I started engaging with other people.
So I spent maybe half an hour a day just like going through people’s pro I have like bookmarks saved to people’s profiles that I know I like their content. I’ll go through those. I’ll leave like authentic comments, but then I’ll also just scroll the feeds as like random stuff as well. So I think that is crucial.
Like if you want to get more engagement. And you have to give it first. So that’s the first step. The second step I think is that I actually was posting for like 3 years and never really got more than 100 likes on a post. But what that did is that I had like if I was posting let’s say 3 5 times a week for 3 years you know like 2000 posts, maybe 1000.
They’re like practice. So if you read like one of my story posts now and it’s like quite silky smooth, you know I’m picking myself up and it’s probably only because i’ve done a thousand of them, you know So I think practice copywriting practice is the second point the third point which I think is perhaps the most impactful In fact, if you want to grow the LinkedIn audience, you, you have to consistently release posts that perform.
And so if you release one post and you get it wrong, like you put a link in there or it’s just rubbish and you get like five likes, then that’s going to mess up your reputation with the algorithm. Not irreversibly, obviously, but you just want to have wins. Consistently this is how you grow fast And so one way you can mitigate the risk of not having wins Or another way of saying that i’ve increased the chances of getting posts that consistently get engaged is by researching Other content that has worked previously now, you can’t copy you’re getting trouble for that and it also looks bad But you can take a concept or an idea add your own flair and then Use that because that concept has already been proven to get engagement So I think that’s something that if you get it, right can have the biggest impact.
So let’s say we’re engaging We are being consistent and training ourselves and getting better and better at writing and then we’re also reducing risk by Posting about stuff that has proven to engage. I think those are the three biggest earnings
Mary Southern [00:31:26]
Yeah. And I think that that’s so important because in, of course it’s a super digital world and there are a lot of people that are, that should be, or are trying to build a personal brand, whether it’s to build up their personal brand, to land that next career, or whether it’s to attract clients and step out into the entrepreneurial space, there’s no getting around it.
I mean, social media is important and especially LinkedIn in both of those spaces, whether you’re trying to better yourself in your career. or in your company. So those are amazing, amazing tips. And I love that you said, you know, you commented that, you know, if you can post for years and years and years, but if you’re not engaging with other people’s posts, you’re probably not going to get very far because other people aren’t going to want to engage with your posts.
If you know, you’re not taking the time and the effort to engage with their posts and especially, you know, in an authentic way, not just saying one or two words, but actually. providing actual value if you’re going to take the time to engage with those posts. And so I think that’s something that really resonates with me and a conversation that I’ve been having a lot of, with a lot of people lately as well.
Yeah. So what are you working on at the moment, Tom, and where can we find you online?
Tom Hunt [00:32:48]
So yeah, the only, only business I have is fame. so is the domain and then yeah, LinkedIn is where I am the most active and then also been experimenting with Twitter. So it’s Tom Hunt basically, if you search on LinkedIn or Twitter, you’ll find me and yeah, also happy to answer any questions.
If people just want to email me tom at fame. so with questions about LinkedIn or business, et cetera, then I’m happy to answer.
Mary Southern [00:33:12]
Thanks for coming on today.
Tom Hunt [00:33:14]
My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Mary.
Mary Southern [00:33:17]
Thanks for listening. I will be releasing episodes every Monday, so be sure to subscribe on the platform that you are watching this. Give it a five star review, and we’ll see you next time.