The secret to getting consistent clients on LinkedIn

If you're a successful coach, consultant or service-based business owner who knows LinkedIn should be working but you're still relying on referrals, inconsistent enquiries or bursts of visibility followed by silence, this masterclass led by Jen Corcoran is for you.

Especially if:

• you don't want another platform draining your energy

• you dislike pushy sales tactics or cold outreach

• you want paying clients, not popularity

This isn't about posting more or trying to game the algorithm. It's about understanding what actually makes LinkedIn convert.

Topics covered in this session

• The three-part LinkedIn framework that turns visibility into qualified leads (and why content alone never works)

• The biggest reason LinkedIn efforts stall for experienced business owners (and how to fix it)

• A clear plan to hit your sales goals without feeling stuck or overwhelmed

About the speaker

Jen is a multi award-winning LinkedIn strategist and mentor on a mission to help driven midlife women in business to toot their own horn with confidence and authenticity so they can create positive change in their own lives and in the world.

Her corporate client list includes industry giants like LinkedIn, Amazon, BT, London South Bank University, London Chamber of Commerce and the University of Exeter.

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Transcript

Lightly edited for clarity.

Caitriona: Hello, everyone and welcome to today's Lunch and Learn. My name is Caitriona and I'll be your host today.

For those of you attending a Lunch and Learn for the first time, Enterprise Nation is a vibrant community platform for start-ups and small businesses.

I'm pleased to introduce Jen Corcoran, who is a LinkedIn strategist and mentor. In this session, Jen will explain what actually makes LinkedIn convert and the secret to getting consistent clients on LinkedIn.

If you have any questions throughout the webinar, please post them in the chat and we'll do our best to answer them at the end of the session.

Today's webinar will be recorded and we will send a follow-up email to you with the recording and further resources later today. Over to you, Jen.

Jen: Thanks, Caitriona. Hi, everyone.

I've got a lot of slides, so I'm going to be fast and furious to get through them in the half hour. As Caitriona said, don't be shy about putting any questions in the chat and I'll do my best to come back to you at the end.

Let's get cracking. Today, this is what you're going to discover.

• First, why LinkedIn can often feel messy, even if you're following all the advice out there from all the gurus.

• Second, the three elements that most people are missing if they want consistent clients and that's really the secret.

• And third, I'm going to share a simple approach that helps you get quality leads without selling your soul to the algorithm gods or trying to be someone you're not on LinkedIn.

There are also going to be some goodies coming afterwards in the follow-up email with the replay to support you.

There are now more than one billion members on LinkedIn. So if you're telling yourself that your clients aren't on there, I'm afraid you're telling yourself a lie. In the UK alone, there are over 37 million members.

But it's important to remember that not everyone is ready for us.

So what do I mean by that? Three% are ready for what you offer and have already tried other approaches. 20% are aware of their problem, but they're passive and haven't taken action yet. 77% are not even aware of their problem.

So ask yourself quietly: are you speaking to the people who are ready for you or are you broadcasting to everyone, including people who are not even aware they have the problem that you solve?

Add to that the fact that some people on LinkedIn are active, meaning they post, engage and comment. Some are semi-active and some are passive.

We really want to be targeting the 3% who are ready and the 20% who know they need help but haven't taken action yet. We don't want to spend too much time trying to engage the 77%, because that is hard work.

When it comes to getting clients on LinkedIn, there are some common challenges you may be facing.

Maybe you're relying on word of mouth. Referrals are amazing, but they're unpredictable. You never know when they're going to come and if you're relying on them, your income is going to go up and down.

Maybe you've done a lot of in-person networking and you've had leads from that, but you can't commit to regular networking events. Or perhaps you're just fed up with other platforms like Instagram and TikTok. I've been there myself. I'm very much an introverted business owner, so other platforms haven't always worked for my personality or my energy.

Or maybe, despite all the effort you're making on LinkedIn, your enquiries are still inconsistent and you don't feel in control of your business growth or lead generation.

You might be thinking LinkedIn takes too much time. You may be telling yourself that you'll do it when your website is sorted or when you get new photos done and then something else comes up again.

Maybe you think you're just not good at social media. I've lost count of the number of times I've spoken to women on sales calls who say, "I'm not really a social media person."

Maybe you find all the new platforms confusing or the algorithm confusing or you're finding that posting on LinkedIn isn't actually bringing you new clients.

I want to tell you today that LinkedIn does not have to take too much time. If you're using it strategically, you can absolutely get LinkedIn working for you and generating clients.

30 minutes a day is enough when you're taking the right action. A lot of people on LinkedIn are spending 30 minutes a day on the wrong things.

The business owners who get results on LinkedIn are investing in strategy, not messy, spray-and-pray tactics.

I just want to tell you a little about me, because you may be wondering who this woman is talking to you today.

I'm Jen Corcoran. I'm a Dubliner based in Devon. I'm a woman of a certain age. I'm 52. I live in Teignmouth by the sea with my lovely husband Mike, who is a mental health practitioner.

I've been in business since 2017, so this is my ninth year. I'm a LinkedIn strategist for driven midlife women who want to use LinkedIn in a way that suits their energy and their personality.

You might think, why is she sharing all of this? I want you to ask yourself how you are different and whether you are being humble on LinkedIn or truly selling the benefits you bring.

Through LinkedIn, I've generated lots of opportunities for myself and I'm very much an introvert, an empath and a highly sensitive person. I'm not someone who loves the spotlight.

Over time, I've built a method that suits my personality and energy and also the energy of women in midlife. So this is very much an introverted approach to LinkedIn.

I've managed to generate lots of opportunities, many of them through Enterprise Nation and one thing I want you to remember today is that I won the title of Most Trusted Business Adviser with Enterprise Nation back in 2020.

We are living in a trust recession. So ask yourself, what is your secret sauce? What is the thing that makes you stand out from everybody else in your profession? That is what people buy into.

You've probably been trying to make LinkedIn work because you know it's a platform that plays to your strengths. You know your clients are on LinkedIn, but you're not seeing great results yet despite showing up regularly.

Maybe you're wasting a lot of time creating Canva graphics and your posts are just dying in the feed. Maybe you've tried piecing together bits of advice over the last few months or even years, but it's not really working for you.

You may have been following a lot of influencers, but their methods don't fit your energy. You may be trying to stay on top of DMs and remember to follow up with people, while relying on inbound leads from content.

And maybe you're sick of seeing competitors shouting about how successful they are on LinkedIn and you want some of that.

A lot of you have been listening to counterproductive advice on LinkedIn, especially from the so-called "bro marketers" online. There is a lot of guru advice out there that was built for content creators and influencers, not for small business owners who want paying clients.

So if you've heard any of the following advice and it hasn't worked for you, it's not your fault.

Things like: post every day, comment for three hours, beat the algorithm, hack the algorithm. I don't know about you, but I do not have the energy to comment for three hours. And what is the point of engaging with huge influencer accounts if none of your ideal clients are connected to those influencers?

If any of this sounds familiar and you've been doing it, don't worry. It's not your fault.

When you rely only on content, leads are unpredictable. You never know when they're going to come. Just like word-of-mouth referrals, there's no certainty.

Your results depend on an algorithm, which is completely outside your control. Of course, you can learn how the algorithm works, but there are lots of other things you need to do if you want consistent clients.

If you rely only on content, you're creating a lot of work for yourself by putting all your eggs in one basket. Lots of content creators have made people believe that if you post, they will come. That is not the full picture.

So the real reason LinkedIn isn't working is that you need three elements for success, not just one.

The first is a profile that positions you as the obvious solution for your ideal client. Ask yourself what your profile is like in terms of branding, positioning and messaging. Is it clear who you are, who you help and how you help them?

The second is a repeatable way to grow the right network. You can have the best content in the world, but if you don't have the right network, not many of the right people are going to see it.

And the third, which is where the real conversion happens, is a connection strategy that turns conversations into clients. Otherwise, you end up in the online friend zone and don't know how to move the conversation forward.

You need all three. If you're missing even one, everything starts to fall apart.

You could have an amazing profile and great content, but if you don't have a tracking system and you don't know how to move conversations on, you're still going to struggle.

So I'm going to share the framework I built for myself as a more introverted person.

I want you to score yourself out of 40 as we go through this. My framework is called PACT and it stands for presence, action, connect and track.

Let's start with presence. I want you to score yourself out of 10.

When I say presence, I'm really talking about your LinkedIn profile and your LinkedIn company page. Just to flag, you will be getting some goodies after this and there will be something in there to help you flesh out your profile and your company page.

So ask yourself: have you got a clear brand or a confusing one?

I work with lots of amazing women, but when I first look at their profile, it can often be confusing. They're trying to sound clever, but what you really need to do is think like a copywriter and be super clear. No fluff, no filler words, no jargon.

If I looked at your profile today, your banner, your headshot, your headline, would I be clear on who you are, who you help and how you help them?

Remember, a confused mind will always say no. So mentally score yourself out of 10 for your profile.

The second part is action. LinkedIn is a social network. You cannot be passive. You have to take action to get results.

Ask yourself, how active are you on LinkedIn? To get consistent clients, you need to be up at networker status. You cannot be absent, never logging in. There is no point sitting on the sidelines.

Some of you may want to become influencers. Not everybody does and you do not need to be an influencer to get consistent clients. But you do need to be visible.

So score yourself out of 10 for how active you are and for the quality of your network.

Have you actually got the right people in there or have you got a whole lot of industry peers, old colleagues and random people, but not enough prospects or interesting collaborators?

Action creates confidence and it builds momentum. The more you take action on LinkedIn, the more natural it becomes. And I'll say this clearly: start with your profile before you do any outreach.

The third part is connect.

The gurus are telling you it's all about posts and that if you post, they will come. Posts are great. I always think content is great. It is the icing on the cake. It is not the cake.

The cake is your profile, your network, your conversations. But if you want to show up in the home feed, fantastic, content is the icing.

Posts and comments can start the conversation on LinkedIn, but DMs are what close clients and book sales calls.

So score yourself out of 10 here. Think about content, but also think about whether you know how to close clients in the DMs.

A lot of people are relying only on inbound leads from content, but you do need to go into the DMs to move the conversation forward.

These are the kinds of DMs you want: a speaker invite, an intro to a potential client, a lovely message from a client, a potential collaboration. These are the kinds of messages you should be getting, not just spam.

And just to prove the point, a few years ago I worked with the lovely Laurie. She was new to LinkedIn. Before she even got to 40 connections, we built out her profile and before she even had content in place, she converted two of those connections into paying clients and made £30k.

So you do not need to have a huge audience on LinkedIn to get clients. You need to know how to use it strategically and you need to know how to leverage the DMs.

The last part is track. In my experience, almost all my clients come to me without any tracking system when it comes to LinkedIn.

So ask yourself what you'd score yourself here out of 10.

It does not need to be a super-complicated tracking system. It does not need to be an all-singing, all-dancing CRM. I help my clients with a simple Google Sheet.

But you do need some kind of system so you know who to follow up with and who to nurture.

When you have a tracking system, you can easily identify who is a cold lead, who is a warm lead and who is a hot lead.

You need that tracking system so that you can stay in the loop. Eighty% of deals close these days after multiple forms of follow-up. So if you don't have a tracking system, you are going to miss following up with the right people.

And to prove the point, here's the lovely Dr Susan, who I worked with a few years ago. She already had a great profile and really good content, but she didn't know how to move conversations on.

Once I taught her how to use tracking, everything changed. Three years on, she has a full pipeline from using the tracker. She actually told me she has too many leads, which is a nice problem to have.

LinkedIn has got golden opportunities for you. It's helped me get all of my one-to-one clients and team clients. It's helped me get corporate clients too.

It doesn't matter whether you are B2B or B2C. Your clients are on there. There are amazing potential collaborators on LinkedIn too.

So today, you have the opportunity to continue as you are. But if what you've been doing isn't working, doing more of it is not going to work.

A lot of people can slip into a scarcity mindset and think, "It's not working, so I'll just post more. I'll engage more."

But if you do not have the right foundations in place, that will not work for you.

You need to go back. You need to fix your profile. You need to build the right network. You need to have the right content, the right DM approach and a tracking system.

I would absolutely love to help anyone who wants to fast-track this, because that's what I do. I can help you shortcut your success.

I do have an Activate standalone session where I help people with either their profile, their content or their tracking. All the details are on my website. That will help you with your presence, your connection strategy or your tracking.

And for any of the women listening today, if you want to go deeper and you feel like you scored low out of 40 and need help across the board, I've got 15 free calls available this week for women who want to take the next step.

Full caveat: sorry, gents, I don't currently work with men one to one, but please still reach out because I've got lots of resources I can share with you.

There are going to be some goodies in the replay email to help with your profile and your company page.

If you're a driven midlife woman who can see the opportunity on LinkedIn and you are sick of messy marketing and want a strategic way of getting leads from LinkedIn, I would urge you to book in a free call with me. I can tell you where you're going wrong and give you your LinkedIn prescription.

That's me having flown through. Thank you for listening and thanks, Caitriona, for your patience. I know I've gone through that at speed.

I'm curious to see what people have been saying.

Caitriona: Great, thank you. If anyone has any questions, please do pop them in the chat.

In the meantime, let's get started with a question here. Somebody is asking about the difference between a business profile and an individual profile on LinkedIn. Do you need to apply this method for both?

Jen: Everybody needs their own personal profile. That's the main thing you start with.

Then there's a second thing called a company page. Do you need one? I think they're a really good positioning tool. So even if you create one and never post on it, it still gives you another place to be found.

And on your personal profile, when you have a company page linked, you get that lovely logo showing. If you don't have one, it's greyed out.

As I said at the start, we're living in a trust recession. You want people to trust you and believe that you are a real business owner.

So I would say definitely create one and the goodie you're going to get afterwards with the replay will help you set one up.

In terms of content for both, you may not necessarily need to create separate content all the time because every business is different.

There's no one-size-fits-all answer. The general advice I'd give is definitely create a company page for positioning. But whether you need to post there regularly or not depends on your business model.

For a lot of small business owners and sole traders, you are the business, so I would usually say focus more on your personal profile. But if you're a larger business, it can definitely make sense to post on both.

So yes, definitely create one for positioning.

Caitriona: Thank you. A question from Ivor: "I find LinkedIn very cluttered and a nightmare to navigate. Has it peaked?"

Jen: I think having a tracking system makes all the difference.

When I go on to LinkedIn for 30 minutes a day, I'm not just scrolling the feed. I've got a tracker that I work from. I pick a tab, I know who I'm focusing on for that session and when I'm finished, I log out. So I don't go down the rabbit hole.

If you don't have a tracking system, LinkedIn absolutely can feel very messy. I would say create some kind of tracker to help you stay in touch with the right people.

Because yes, there are over a billion people on LinkedIn, but they are not all your people. Even if they look like potential clients, what matters is nurturing the ones who are in the 3% who are ready or the 20% who know they have the problem.

So yes, a tracking system and staying in your lane really helps. Otherwise you can spend half an hour on LinkedIn and do nothing strategic at all.

You've just scrolled, read some posts, maybe liked a few things, but not actually had any conversations, followed up with anyone or added anyone useful. So yes, tracking is the game changer.

Caitriona: Thank you. We've got a comment from Lisa. She says:

"I do all of these things and get into DMs. I'm not sure how to then introduce my services, find out if they would be interested or get people on a call naturally without being salesy. Do you have any advice?"

Jen: That's exactly the kind of thing I help with one to one.

There are definitely cues you can pick up from people in the DMs and there are definitely questions you can ask to qualify whether it's worth proceeding.

If I were doing a DM strategy session or working with someone for longer, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd help with.

Please don't worry, because this is really common.

Especially if you're a small business owner and you've never had sales training or you're completely new to social selling, you're not just supposed to know how to do this.

It's something I've had to improve over the last few years too. I didn't automatically know how to social sell either.

So yes, there are cues and questions that help you determine who the right people are. If the conversation comes to a close and they're not the right fit, that's okay. You just focus on the ones who are.

From what you've said, it sounds like you've already done a lot of the good work. You're already getting into the conversations. It's just knowing how to move them forward.

Caitriona: Thank you. We've had a few questions about the tracking system. This one from Tess is simply: can you explain what the tracking system is?

Jen: Yes. It's just a very simple spreadsheet, really. I create mine in Google Sheets for clients, but you could do it in Excel if that's more your thing.

There's not one tracker that works for everyone. I create different trackers depending on the business and what they need.

But there are two tabs that I would say everybody can use.

One is a tab for all your clients. That's a really good way to keep in touch with them on LinkedIn. Past clients can work with you again or they can become brilliant referral partners.

So that's one group of people I would always be tracking. The second is people you've had sales calls with.

Some sales trainers say only go back six months. I say go back a year, because on LinkedIn you never know. Someone may have had a call with you 10 months ago and it wasn't the right time, but now it is.

That's a really strong group to keep following up with.

Those are two of the hottest tabs you can have, because your clients can become repeat business or referrals and your sales call leads may now be ready.

Start simple. Use a Google Sheet or Excel. Just have some kind of system.

Then what I help my clients with is what to actually do to keep in touch with those people, whether that's DMs, comments or another follow-up approach.

The detail will always depend on the business owner and their goals.

Caitriona: Thank you. A question in from Jacqueline: "How often should we post on LinkedIn each week? Is there a good number of times that gets results? And should I post as me and as the company page?"

Jen: Because I don't know the size of your business, I would always start with your personal profile rather than your company page. There isn't one right answer.

Some businesses will want to post five days a week and that works for them. Others might want to post two or three times. Some people might only want to post once a week.

There's no single formula. I'd need more data about your goals and your business model.

If you are relying more heavily on content, then yes, you'll probably want to post more often. But one good quality post will always beat five average AI-written posts.

So I would only really get into the content mindset once you are 100% sure that your profile is strong and you are building the right network.

A good starting point is once a week, just to get into the swing of it.

Personally, I don't think you need to post more than three times a week at the moment, especially with the current algorithm. So that could be spread across the week.

Again, every business is different. A larger product-based business is very different from a service provider. I work mainly with service providers, often coaches and consultants and they do not need to post every day.

So don't post seven days a week. You definitely do not need to do that.

Caitriona: Thank you. A question from Eva: "How can we use LinkedIn groups to get more sales?"

Jen: If I'm honest, LinkedIn groups are pretty dead. I used to run one myself and I deleted it a year or two ago.

I wouldn't be trying to leverage groups heavily for clients. They were great about 10 years ago and very engaged, but because of how the functionality works now, they've become quite spammy.

That said, smaller, more relevant groups can still be useful. Enterprise Nation groups are good, so definitely go into those. There's one for general members and one for adviser members, so start there because you've already got something in common.

Another example would be an alumni group from your university or a local chamber of commerce or FSB group, because they're smaller, more relevant and often connected to real-world networking.

But large open LinkedIn groups are usually very spammy now. It pains me to say it because I used to run one, but they never gave us the functionality we really needed. If they had allowed live streaming into groups, for example, they could have been brilliant.

So yes, smaller, more relevant groups can be useful, but I wouldn't build your strategy around groups.

Caitriona: Thanks. A question from Jean: "Is it about putting in place a system that helps develop habits and discipline outside of pre-existing clients and lapsed prospects? Are you saying to cold pitch the other contacts?"

Jen: I never cold pitch anyone. It's all about speaking with the people who are warmer and hotter leads and prequalifying people. It's about working out who is not a lead and not wasting time following up with that person.

So no, it is not about trying to speak to everyone.

If you want to leverage LinkedIn for clients, you can't just think of it as social media and posting. You have to think of it as lead generation and you need a strategic tracking system to support that.

There are definitely some people who put their service into the very first DM or connect and then immediately say, "I do this." It's too fast.

You have to think of LinkedIn as a network. It's like walking into a networking event. Imagine someone comes up to you before you've even had a coffee and says, "Hi, I do this, this and this, buy from me." You'd think, I've only just said hello.

So you have to be willing to have that initial chat and figure out who is a lead and who isn't.

Like any networking, it has to be a win-win. You have to go in with curiosity, not with your pitch.

We've all met those people at in-person events who throw a business card at you and jump straight into sales mode. The problem is not usually the message itself, it's that it's too soon.

There is definitely a science to knowing when you can move the conversation on and how to extract the right information so that people step forward to you.

That's really the LinkedIn doctor method. Just like when we're sick, we go to a doctor, explain the issue and then they prescribe.

You want your prospects to step forward and tell you what is going on for them. You do not want to be bashing them over the head with "buy my service".

And when you know how to leverage the DMs well, people will step forward to you and start the conversation.

A simple example is after a webinar like this. I'll often get people messaging to say, "That was great." Then I can naturally say, "What resonated for you?" and start a proper conversation.

I don't immediately think, "Oh my God, this person is a lead, let me sell them my biggest package." You have to find out more. You have to be a human being. You have to be curious.

That's what's gone wrong over the last few years, especially since the pandemic. People have become panicky or they've heard LinkedIn is good for leads and jumped straight into selling.

Yes, LinkedIn can absolutely get you clients, but you need to be patient, just as you would be with any networking.

You cannot expect to walk into a chamber of commerce and come out with 10 clients just because you showed up. You have to have conversations first and then you discover who the right people are.

So yes, you definitely need a system and there is a science to it. There are absolutely things you can do that make people step forward more quickly and that's the kind of thing I help people with.

Caitriona: Thank you. That feels like a nice summary and a good place to leave the session as we've come to the end.

Thank you so much, Jen, for your presentation. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We will be sharing the recording and further resources in a follow-up email this afternoon.

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