The Art of Selling Online Courses

Lara Acosta: How to Grow on LinkedIn and Build a Personal Brand That Lasts

• John Ainsworth

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On this episode, Lara Acosta reveals her proven strategies on how to grow on LinkedIn and build a personal brand that stands the test of time.

With over 20M+ impressions, 300,000 followers across social media, and multiple six-figure income streams, Lara has become the #1 female creator on LinkedIn and a trusted expert in LinkedIn growth and personal branding.

Lara has coached and worked with over 500 clients to help them build effective content systems, increase engagement, and improve their writing—all using the same strategies that helped her achieve LinkedIn success.

Whether you're looking to grow your personal brand on LinkedIn or want actionable tips for LinkedIn growth, this video is packed with valuable insights.
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Connect with Lara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laraacostar/
Check out Lara's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Laraacosta
Join Literaly Academy: https://www.literallyacademy.com/

Want to 2-10x your email list size quickly? Download our FREE Double Your Email List Guide 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guide

If you're interested in growing your online course sales and funnel optimisation contact us at https://datadrivenmarketing.co/

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the art of selling online courses. We're here to share winning strategies and secret hacks from top performers in the online course industry. My name is John Ainsworth and today's guest is Lara Acosta. Now Lara is a personal branding expert and she helps CEOs and founders to build their audience on LinkedIn. I first heard about Lara through a friend of mine, jodie, who had scaled her audience from about 7,000 people to 20,000 people in about six or seven months, and she was like this woman is the shit. She knows what she's talking about. You need to get in touch with her. So we had the chance to hang out a little while ago and I asked her to come on the podcast so she could share her wisdom with all of us and hopefully help a lot of you guys to figure out is LinkedIn going to be a good part of your social media strategy, helping you to build your audience.

Speaker 1:

Now, before we get into today's interview, I want to just tell you about a great resource that we've got for you. If you want to increase your revenue from your existing courses without having to build your audience, without having to build your email list, without having to make any extra sales to new people, then here's how you're going to do that. You can go to datadrivenco datadrivenmarketingco slash roadmap and download the resource there and that's going to show you how you can increase your average revenue per client by 30%. So you get 30% additional revenue without having any more customers by just selling more stuff to those existing customers. So datadrivenmarketingco slash roadmap and download that. Lara, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Hi, thank you so much for having me and for coming to London.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so this is a really interesting one. Most people in the audience they've got courses or a membership. They've got an audience somewhere. People are starting to grow that audience and they might be relatively small at the moment. You particularly focus on linkedin. Can you tell us? I know you do other stuff as well, you're doing youtube as well but why was linkedin such a big deal? Why did you decide to focus on that?

Speaker 2:

well, basically, if we look at the stats, there's about 1 billion users as of I don't know 2024, and only 5 2024, and only 5% are posting, and then only 1% are posting weekly. So when it comes to competition, you need to assess how competitive are you in a saturated market? Mine was business, marketing, entrepreneurship, all of those things. Instagram's saturated, tiktok's saturated Well, I don't believe in saturation, but sort of. And then LinkedIn just felt like an easier place for me to kind of like grow. But that is only in hindsight.

Speaker 2:

The reason why I joined LinkedIn was because I saw something that I was personally lacking, and that was I was over the images, the videos, the, the, the all of that that I was seeing on TikTok. I just wanted to write and LinkedIn seemed to be a platform. But I didn't like Twitter and LinkedIn just was very professional and had the idea of people that I would love to connect with. At the time when I joined LinkedIn, I was looking for a job. I was never trying to build a personal brand and it just happened as a default of me talking about what I'm interested in. And then it just sort of happened. Things aligned, I got very lucky. I was prepared with my knowledge. But yeah, that's why I chose LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Interesting. Okay, so you kind of lucked into it. At the beginning you were looking for a job and then that turned into you managed to build a personal brand. Did you ever get the job?

Speaker 2:

No, okay.

Speaker 1:

So what happened? What was the process? So?

Speaker 2:

I joined LinkedIn because I was looking for a reference for university and I was like, okay, I rarely went to lectures. Honestly, I didn't really get to meet my tutors and they tell you to do that at university, like make friends with them, connect with them on LinkedIn. I didn't do any of that because I was honestly not interested in my course. I had a terrible experience at university but then when the pandemic came, I had to go back home, kind of like I live in, I'm Mexican, so I was there and I was like I need to get a reference to now either get a job or go back to university and do a master's. So I had deleted my LinkedIn a year prior because of the pandemic. Everything I saw was my friends getting promoted and getting all the jobs in the world, or like my ex-boyfriend doing so well, and I was just at home unemployed, sad, depressed and having the worst time. I was like I don't want to see this. This is so toxic. Linkedin is the worst platform.

Speaker 2:

And then, a year later, I went back and created a new account from zero and I was like I'm gonna try and make this look as nice as possible. So I went and looked for a Gary Vee video. I binge watched a bunch of LinkedIn videos and two of them were Gary Vee's. He was like you need to start posting on LinkedIn right now, otherwise you're going to miss out so hard. I told you this about TikTok and you guys didn't listen to me. Listen to me about LinkedIn. So I listened to the man and within the first two months I got my first viral post One of my top still viral posts to this day and I ended up changing the entire track of my life forever. So I never got a reference, I never got a job from LinkedIn, but I created my own. So I guess that's it.

Speaker 1:

So who do you think? So? You're posting on LinkedIn a lot still right. You've got over 100 000 followers on there. You're also using youtube. You've started doing videos on there. Why both? Why not just double down on linkedin? What's what's better or worse about youtube?

Speaker 2:

well, I doubled down on linkedin until I had about 100 000 followers I didn't start youtube until 100,000, 100%.

Speaker 2:

I don't think that anyone should be trying to build an omnipresent brand in multichannels until you nail down your message. So now I'm doubling down because it just makes sense and I have the budget to spend on YouTube, I have the time and I have the validated idea and this is very important. I have the validated idea, the validated niche and the validated content to then turn into scripts. And I think a lot of people misunderstand that, because they'll see people like me or Alex Asmosi, grant Cardone or anyone going up my channel, but it's because they already have that validated idea and I don't think I could have done. I couldn't. I don't think I could have could be doing YouTube as well as I'm doing it now without having had those two years of practice in scripting, in offers, in clients, in understanding the problems and understanding how to talk to my ideal audience. So I think that was essential for me and it's honestly created the best path to grow.

Speaker 2:

For example, I'm active on Twitter. I'm active on newsletter and YouTube and also LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is always going to be my main platform. I didn't go to Twitter until I had 50,000 followers. Then I started a newsletter at 80,000 followers. So each time I started to you know slowly branch out. But again, everything starts with my LinkedIn content.

Speaker 1:

And who do you think should be using LinkedIn as a channel? So, for example, there's a lot of people who listen to this podcast, who are running language course creation businesses, right, so I'm guessing probably for them it doesn't make sense. I'm not sure about that, I'm throwing this out there Whereas somebody who is targeting um, business people trying to reach founders, trying to reach people, marketing managers, whatever with their audience maybe it does, what do you think? Who are the people that should be thinking about it?

Speaker 2:

why do you not think that?

Speaker 1:

because I just see I've seen youtube work so well for so many of them, and seo as well, and I've never seen anybody doing that with LinkedIn. Now I might be that there's a massive gap and they're like they absolutely should be doing that. Do you think they should?

Speaker 2:

it's not that they should or shouldn't is. Do you want to build a personal brand? Linkedin is the avenue to build a brand about you. It's not about your business, and that's where people get confused. You're building your own account under your own name. Your personal brand on LinkedIn is separate to your company page, for example. So you're building who you are.

Speaker 2:

Who is John? Your business isn't you. It's part of what you do, but isn't entirely you. You're building the John brand. What are your interests? How did you start your own business? What's actually driving you to keep on going? What happened during COVID? Did you fail? Did you lose? I want to know, and that then becomes an avenue to people to get to know you as a person. Be so invested in what you do that then eventually they end up buying onto whatever you're doing. So it's more like a mindset shift that a lot of business owners need to take when they're building on LinkedIn. It's not about lead generation at the start. It shouldn't be when you're building a parcel brand. So you're not. For me, parcel branding is an art. You're building your story, how it happened, and then ultimately you build those diehard fans that people see in people's comment sections like I don't know. Gary Vee, mr Beast, whatever it is. That is the essence of personal branding. It is not just about lead generation.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so what are some of the benefits of that personal branding? Besides the lead generation, then, what else do you get from that?

Speaker 2:

You get influence, authority, you can get business opportunities, anything really it can open any opportunities you want, as long as you're creating content online towards that. I never saw LinkedIn as a lead generation thing, and I was listening to a podcast by, I think, alex Smosy and he no, it was Rich Roll and Stephen Bartlett and they were talking about how they would be doing the things that they were doing if they weren't making money out of them. And that's exactly what I would have been doing. I was already posting content on Instagram, on TikTok, anywhere, simply creating an art of sharing information, sharing knowledge, and then ultimately, by luck, accident and preparation, I ended up being able to monetize it.

Speaker 2:

So for me, for me, it's a life's work, like if you're passionate about what you're doing so much, you're able to then teach others what you're so passionate about it. They can then learn your passion, implement it and then ultimately, they come and buy from you. The majority of my clients don't actually pay me until they make their first, you know, $10,000, $5,000, $1,000 from my free content, and then they come in and they buy my services after. So eventually it's just like a circle of like trust and you've helped me, I helped you Reciprocity, buyers, on and on, and then it just creates a community and it's like, honestly, it's amazing, amazing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, jodie, our mutual friend has been banging on at me for a couple of years about um, about building personal brand. I'm just trying to decide whether to tell this story. We might cut this later.

Speaker 1:

Okay, jodie gave a talk at a conference about two years ago right conference I organized and in it she was talking about building a personal brand and she said you need to buy your domain name, so john ainsworthcom or jodyhookcom, whatever, and, um, lots of people listened to the talk when that was great, didn't do it, and she was like winding us up by like searching for john ainsworth on google and then showing who came up, like oh, this musician that must be John, saying you need to be ranking for your own name, you need to get your LinkedIn profile, this kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

So this year she moved her business, or maybe in the last year moved her business over to being AI-focused, and so I thought I wonder if she's bought JodieCookai, and she hadn't. So I thought I wonder if she's bought JodieCookai and she hadn't, so I bought it. And then I put up a quote from Jodie on there and I just left it and about three months later she called me up and she said I know it was you, ainsworth, I know it was. That's so funny. And every so often I would then change the quote and I wouldn't tell her I did that either. And so just every so often I would then change the quote and I wouldn't tell her I did that either, and so just every so often I get another message from her being like Did she buy it from you?

Speaker 1:

I don't know, I have to give it to her. So at the conference this year we had another talk about personal branding and I said to everybody now, a couple of years ago, jodie gave the talk about personal branding and not everybody listened to her. And this year Jodie has given this talk about personal branding. I want to make sure everybody listens. And I told the story about Jodie and how I bought her ai domain name. So I said what I've done is for every single person in the audience. I've bought your ai domain and I'll let you have it back when you show that you've done what Jodie said today. I hadn't done it, but everybody believed me.

Speaker 2:

I love it.

Speaker 1:

So, anyway, personal branding. So Jodie's been banging on at me about this and she's like yes, it does help you to drive more business, but it also makes business easier. She's like because I've got investors in from that, I've made connections with other business people, I've got into masterminds, because I've built out this personal brand. Okay, so let's say, someone's bought into this. They're like yes, I want to build my personal brand on LinkedIn. I get that this is the place to be. What is the approach? How do people do this?

Speaker 2:

okay. So first you need an Everest, because personal branding is simple, but it's not easy. Everybody quits after I don't know. The average podcast lasts about six episodes, right, that's the average podcast length with people is. They last about 30 to 21 days and then they quit because they don't see the fast results.

Speaker 2:

So what is it that you're actually building a personal brand for? If you're building a personal brand to get leads immediately, then it's not going to work. If you're building a personal brand to get invited to events immediately, then it's not going to work. There needs to be a bigger vision of like what is that message that you, john, me, lara are going for? So it's like what is the anti-vision? Or like what are you going? Who is is your enemy? My enemy is like the education system. Um, you know the people that didn't give me a job.

Speaker 2:

So those things are in the forefront of why I'm producing the content that I am at the rate that I am and at the excellence I am and what I'm consistently doing. So that is the one thing that's going to keep you showing up every single time. If you don't have that, you're going to be lost, and this is the problem that I see every single day. They're like oh, I'm not growing, oh, I'm not going viral, oh, no one's engaging with me. Would you engage with your own content? To start, probably not, and that's also the main reason. Like people post just to post, people post and ghost people, you know, get tired. They just that you see a Pinterest quote, they copy paste that. They see someone going viral and they copy the same exact same message. But it's not in alignment to who they are. So I think for me, and again why I'm so in love with personal branding, it's an entire different journey that it takes you in your entrepreneurship and like even mindset, where you start discovering the things that you didn't even know about yourself because you're writing so much that you go back to that place at the start of your journey, where you're, you know, going back and trying to decipher for your hero's journey, like how did it all start? Why did I even start this business? I need to tell this story. Lara is telling me to start storytelling, but I don't know what. So I had to go back and listen to myself talk like two years ago and I actually started my business because of this thing and I completely forgot. And then it gives you that inner purpose again of like why you are in the place you are right now. So find that, first, and don't do anything but that until you do otherwise, you're gonna be lost.

Speaker 2:

Secondly, you need to create a content system, content strategy, content pillars whatever that is for you. There's so many different types of brains. I am a creative brain, so I'm scattered all over. I don't have a notion system. I have a notes app and I have a pen and I have a paper down there and my other notes and notion there and Trello, but ideally it's just like what are you going to be educating your audience on every single day that they see you as an authority?

Speaker 2:

That is the biggest part about personal branding. You need to create content that is highly actionable and highly applicable for then someone to relay it back to you when they apply and be like. That person taught me this. I learned that from John Lara taught me that thing. I was at a panel two days ago and so many people came to literally see me and I was amazing. I was like why and they're like you literally helped me land my first client and having that is your unfair advantage, because being able to have done that for someone, for free, no charge. They're going to be loyal to you forever and they're going to love you. So that's the first thing educational content and storytelling content.

Speaker 2:

So how are you going to inspire your audience to want to admire you or at least relate to you? People want to relate to people, right? That's how influencing works. So when you're coming onto parcel branding and trying to become an authority, how are you going to position yourself as an authority? By educating them on things that they don't know and then creating a background story where they feel like you're not here. You're literally here and they're here, and by that's that you start that, by you know, sharing your story about how you suck at going to the gym, or like, maybe, how you came all the way to London and your ring got stolen, like that's funny that someone could could relate to, and then both, both of those in combination create the best rhythm for personal branding. Every single personal brand that I've studied I've studied thousands over the years they all do those two things very, very well. I don't know anyone that doesn't educate well and doesn't storytell well so let's say you've got that figured right.

Speaker 1:

So you've gone through and you've done the work and you've figured out what's your Everest. What is it that you're doing this for? How are you going to make sure you stick with it long term? You're not going to give up after 21 days or 30 days. You're going to keep going with it. And you've figured out a content strategy. So you've got a plan around stories and a plan around education. How often should you be posting? Is this like mostly education with a little bit of storytelling, and is it like every day, like what's the kind of frequency it?

Speaker 2:

just depends on the type of person you are and the type of person around your building. Are you building a brand that's meant to get leads? Then you're probably going to be educating a lot more rather than storytelling, because your your idea isn't to build a brand just about you, is more about your business. So how can you leverage your business knowledge? You educate a lot, probably like 90 to 10 split. Then if you're trying to build a personal brand, to be influential, to get invited to speak, to get into forbes, whatever it is, or get into a good circle, then you'll be more successful doing storytelling content about your business. So like, let's say, remote work right now and LinkedIn just blows up every single time and it's not just using the word remote work, it's the story behind it. Like, why are you working remotely? How is this affecting your productivity, how is this good for your employees, how is this amazing for everyone involved? And it's actually increased productivity in the business. That is a story everybody can tell. So it depends on the goal and the goal can change. Obviously it changes for me.

Speaker 2:

For the majority of the year I'll be storytelling and educating 50-50 split, sometimes 80-20, depends and then, if I'm launching'll be a hundred percent education, maybe one percent storytelling to relate to my audience, that that will help them sell them on to me and why I'm the best person to buy from. Because people don't buy the coaching, they buy the coach as well. So there's always that need to remember. Okay, how can I sprinkle that in my education? I do this mix in most of my content where I'm like story educating, where the majority of the content is educational, but two lines at least two have a story about me that is personable, so it distinguishes from every single other.

Speaker 2:

How to you know personal branding, grow LinkedIn, uh, posts that you'll see online, which helps the audience again relate to me. You're like, okay, um, if I say I started from, if I started from zero all over again, here's exactly what I would do, then it makes it more approachable, it makes it more simple. People would just feel like it's easier rather than here's how to grow to a hundred thousand followers in one day. Like it doesn't.

Speaker 1:

It doesn doesn't feel the same and do you do much where you're because you've got coaching programs? Now, right, you're coaching other people how to do this. Do you do much sharing stories about the client successes or do you find it's better to focus on sharing how you've done it?

Speaker 2:

if I'm launching, yeah, so because I run a launch uh model. I don't really like talking about the business, I just like talking about what I'm learning, etc. So I treat my LinkedIn like you know, almost a building a public journey. But then if I'm launching a hundred percent, it's essential. I think every single time I post a testimonial, a video testimonial specifically, people will buy a hundred percent because they relate to their stories. So the approach for testimonials is I asked them about how they felt where they started, what they were doing, what they were doing wrong and how they felt working with me. Again, it's a story educating people on my product.

Speaker 1:

And what are you finding in terms of video versus written, because it seems like LinkedIn's mostly written. I saw an interesting post from you the other day about how you've started doing video, but you think that that's maybe, if I understood right, because you've already got the audience, so it's something where you can provide video for the audience rather than audience building. Is that right? Did I understand it properly?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a hundred percent. One of my clients literally just got 1 million impressions in one single post in 24 hours on LinkedIn for absolutely no reason. It was insane. Video right now on LinkedIn is a new trend, but I don't think it's the best way to grow an audience.

Speaker 2:

If you think about culture and I'm very big on this people do not understand the different cultures and different social medias TikTok, instagram and even a little bit of Twitter they're kind of like video platforms, like not Twitter actually and that's the culture there and that's your mindset. When you're going into the platform and consuming content On LinkedIn and Twitter, it's the opposite, because it's written and that is something that's been enforced onto us because that's the natural way that people consume content. So when you're trying to force video onto the platform, people don't care because they're not used to seeing your face or hearing you. Even they're not prepared for that. So video isn't great for audience building. It is great for, like, nurturing your existing audience and actually getting them to get to know you a little bit further.

Speaker 2:

So I started my video journey by going on podcasts, because I was like I want to know if this actually is impacting anything at all. So I started going on podcasts, posting a little bit of them, um, on my on my LinkedIn, and people did watch them and resonated with them and then eventually, when I moved to YouTube, it just became like a non-negotiable because I already had the content. I might as well start repurposing it, but I don't think that people my videos would be as successful as they are if I hadn't built my brand written by, with written content for two years.

Speaker 1:

Interesting.

Speaker 2:

So, no, don't do videos, not going to grow your LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

But didn't you just say one of your clients has just had a million impressions on her.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything Like impressions are invisible to anyone unless you brag about them. The data showed us that her post that had a million impressions versus the one that had 50,000, they all had the same like count and the follower growth was actually less. So realistically, it doesn't really even matter unless you're going to brag about the impressions that you got, because no one can see your impression. So it doesn't really matter. It's a bit confusing right now and I don't understand it. I understand that platforms like to play with other features, but LinkedIn is just intrinsically not a video platform platform. It's a text only platform and I think it should stay like that all right cool, so someone's bought in.

Speaker 1:

They are figured out their proportion they're going to do between storytelling and education based on what you'd explained. They're they're writing their content. How often should they be posting? Does that depend, or is it like everyone should do it once a day, ideally?

Speaker 2:

it's more like how, how often can you commit to posting?

Speaker 2:

okay more like if it's three times a week, then just commit to three times a week for a year. If it's two, two times a week, committed two times two times a week for a year. The problem here is people get lost in that technicality of like, oh, I need to post five times a week and they start and then just like going to the gym, they'll go to the gym five days, five days a week, and then they'll quit the next week and that is a problem. I'm just like commit to two a week, then keep on pushing for more.

Speaker 2:

I think quality over quantity is better usually, especially if you're building long term, you're building short term, it doesn't really matter. Like, post as many times as you want, it doesn't matter, you just want to grow. But I think there's a again lost art in the writing and how, um, you know you write a hook and you write the body of the of the post. And how, how many keywords can you get in the post to actually educate someone instead of just posting to post? I try and refrain from telling people post five times a week, post seven times a week, because then they just go for volume and they forget the quality and then they're like watering down their own brands for the sake of posting, and I absolutely hate that because it's really sad. Your brand should not be diluted to the amount of posts you're creating should be actually, you know, complemented by the posts. So how much value do you have to give? Is the post good? Yes, if it's not, don't post it. Simple don't like, don't post, just to post.

Speaker 1:

That's my main thing and then, when you're writing the post, the hook on linkedin, as on most platforms, is crucial, isn't it? Yes, you've only got like what? Two lines. Pretty much that will show, unless someone clicks read more. Yeah, so what's the art of the hook? What's some ways that people can write great hooks?

Speaker 2:

so the main thing for linkedin is optimizing for mobile. Always, the about 60 to 70 percent of linkedin users scroll linkedin on mobile so usually the lines strip down to another line. It kind of looks annoying. So this is called visual symmetry and I optimize for that so much because it makes my content snackable, which makes the audience a lot more engaged with my content, because it looks easy to read. If we compare two types of posts, one that has line breaks, different bullet points, different types of lengths in the post, versus just one big paragraph with a bunch of share, which one would you prefer to read? The fast one because it just seems easier to read, even though if it's the same information it just makes a lot more digestible. So fast is optimizing that so around. Keep your lines around eight to 10 words long just to maximize that you know line and then again and again and again every single line you create.

Speaker 2:

But the hook should always have the result of what you're talking about. Don't actually lead with curiosity, like people want to like oh, I found this one crazy hack that is going to blow you up in 20 days, and then they never actually go and deliver the result because they're like oh no, sign up to my newsletter to find more. That is the worst thing that anyone could do, because you're actually you're misleading your user. And then that's like taking away credit from you, because now they're not going to want to read again, because you're actually lying to them. So it's more like here's my exact eight step framework to write the story, step number one, and then you actually give them the framework. That's essentially what you should be doing in every hook.

Speaker 1:

And then how much detail will you tend to go into on those eight steps? Because you mentioned snackable there, so I guess you're just going to give like the top line these are the steps, rather than explaining in detail. You're not going to write like a 2000 word post on LinkedIn explaining each of those eight steps.

Speaker 2:

I think that's where, again, writing is such an amazing skill, because when you write so much, then you learn how to cut the fluff out of everything and actually go straight into the very actionable things that that framework would include. Most of my frameworks I go and explain them step by step and I also go in and actually add actionable things that people can use. So today I was like my actually add actionable things that people can use. So today I was like my A-step storytelling framework that you can use today and it starts like step number one transformation, and then I gave them an example Like here's exactly where the transformation is. Step number two write three different pain points. And then I gave them the pain points. It's not about going into depth, as in how many words you can use, but going into depth as in how many words you can use, but how much can you tell them without using many words?

Speaker 2:

and hence why LinkedIn can be a little bit hard to nail, because you need practice, and but the more practice you get, the better you actually become at writing and then communicating, and then communication is everything, as you know. So yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

So if it's an education piece, we're looking at starting with the result in the hook so that someone's like right, I want that eight-step process to achieve the next result, yeah, every single person won't say what's in it.

Speaker 2:

For me, like, you are not going to hop on a sales call for 30 minutes if you don't know the outcome of it. It's the same thing. It's about treating your audience with respect and making them know that you're about to give them the solution that they're seeking cool.

Speaker 1:

And then we've got the framework, those eight steps, and we're trying to make it as succinct as possible so that it is snackable while also being practical and they can actually use it to go do the thing. Yeah, so they make their like you mentioned earlier their first thousand dollars or five thousand dollars, and then are like great, you know what you're talking about. Now I'm gonna buy something from you as well. Yeah, okay, what about the end of the post? Is there like, do you have a specific thing that you're looking for with the outro? And sometimes you say, repost this and I'm gonna send you certain thing. Like how do you think about the call to action?

Speaker 2:

so I usually end with a platitude style and so it's like I feel good, quote, I call them twitter. Uh, cookie cutter phrase. Like, oh, just do it, try this for six months and then let me know how it goes, because then it like summarizes the entire post in a way that kind of makes them remember like the, you know, like the end of a movie, like the blooper. So that's the last bit, and then the call to action depends. I don't like calling people to action as to buy, buy from me three spots left. All of that like that's absolutely not my style because I don't have three spots left. Like if I had them, you know, I would actually say, but that's usually bad because people lie about that a lot. It was I call them more. Like call to engage. So you use a ps. So how are you guys today? Um, what which step did you like the most out of this framework? Have you used this today? How can I help you?

Speaker 2:

Stuff like that that actually prompts the user to engage with you even further, because you're giving them two chances. You're giving them a chance to engage with you in the actual content. So like, oh, I really like this eight same framework. I'm going to use it today. But if they didn't, or if they don't know what to comment, then you're giving them a ps at the end like how are you today, yes or no? Like, did you like step number one, yes or no? Then they'll be like yes, I really like it. Uh, tell us, tell us more. So it's like a double shot at you at increasing your engagement, which is obviously like linkedin, is like a numbers game, so it's also optimizing for that. So it's not called to action, it's called to engage gotcha all right, cool.

Speaker 1:

So someone's nailing this right. They've chosen how frequently they're going to post. They're writing their great hooks, they're putting together the frameworks that they're teaching. They've got their call to action. At the end, people know what to post afterwards. What other steps are there that are involved with linkedin? Someone's mentioned to me about these uh engagement groups where people are like commenting on each other's posts. Is this black hat? Is this good, bad, funny?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think that's black hat yeah yeah yeah, I learned that quote. Like recently, seo stuff right yeah uh, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So engagement groups are something that is technically not allowed in the platform because it's cheating, and I know so many people that have joined engagement pods uh, even paid for them as well, and what happens here is that people are you're inflating your numbers and you're buying authority and what. What are you going to do after you leave these engagement pods? They're your, your engagement is going to drop. We handle so many clients that have gone through this. They go and join an engagement pod, their likes increase, everything increases, but then they leave and then they're back at zero and then it gives you a fake impression that your content is good and you're not actually improving.

Speaker 2:

I call it sterile it's once, but it's actually not even like steroids, because at least with steroids you actually have to do the work, but with the engagement pods, you're like dropping your link. Then people are going to like your post regardless if they like it or not. So it's like a fake positive for you, right? Imagine if clients were telling you that oh yeah, we love your work and you're actually sucking for them. They're going to go and tell their friends, and then it's just like I wish you told me. But you don't know. You're living in the lot. So I don't agree with engagement pods. I agree with actually trying to make meaningful connections and build leverage leverage with authority figures in your space. And that takes time because you can't you can't buy your way onto networking. You actually have to do the work. Simple as that.

Speaker 1:

What was that you mentioned there? Leverage with authority figures in your space.

Speaker 2:

Are you talking about?

Speaker 1:

doing partnerships with people.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, it's like you and me we're here right now. I will engage with your content now because we've met and I know you personally. That is a relationship, organic relationship that you're building. People are forgetting that networking is actually a thing because we're so lost in this era of the internet. We're forgetting about the art of community and how you're building a natural, organic connection of people that actually want to engage with you and see you win and understand you and, you know, be friends with you, even in the long term, or do business. That is authority, like now.

Speaker 2:

I'm seen as an authorities figure on LinkedIn because I have this following. So ideally you'd be making connections with people that are at the same level, where, like, okay, he's got a hundred followers, a hundred followers, he's got 20,000 followers. If they like my content simultaneously all the time, then I'm going to be able to show up in more people's feeds. But you don't have to buy that. You can actually just create it by writing good content, by being an outstanding person and by, you know, showing up into their comment sections and actually start starting an honest conversation or even like a dm you know how, how people actually did it in the old days like. I find that linkedin is the biggest networking networking event in the world. It's 24 7, everyone's there. You're like two connections away from your dream ceo, found the client and then all you have to do is show up. You know, dress, nice, um, the dress is your content. Be able to network networking is the dms and then eventually, over time, if you're good, you actually get there.

Speaker 1:

So is there anything else, or is it just about continually creating that great content? Is there anything else that you need to be doing on linkedin?

Speaker 2:

there's no secrets, no hacks, just good content and engaging all right, great.

Speaker 1:

So now you've got your own course that's going to be coming out. Talk us through, like you've been doing. You mentioned this uh launches for a while and then you're going to be creating the course. So talk us through how the the group coaching's gone and how you kind of launched that well, that's yeah.

Speaker 2:

I love launches. I am addicted to the marketing of things I don't want to start when did you do your first group coaching?

Speaker 1:

okay?

Speaker 2:

so it was a cohort, like a week cohort base, and I launched it in october last year, literally nearly a year ago and I firstly wanted to do a course. I've always I love courses, I am a courseaholic, I will take anything, I will buy them all. And so I was like, okay, I want to build my own. It's always been a dream. So then I realized I want to validate the idea. It's very important for me to understand that if what I'm teaching is even relevant, reasonable and people actually want to know. So then I was like, okay, I've heard about these cohorts. Maven has this platform. They reached out and I was like, okay, I'm going to try and do something similar.

Speaker 2:

So then I created like a curriculum and then had a, had a launch, and it was like a five-day launch. I was just copying what everybody else was doing. My friend, kieran Drew, had a launch as well, so I kind of like followed his model and it was a short-term launch five days and then that's it, closed, closing doors, and then he started an eight-week program. Um, yeah, I don't know, what else is this? A lot's, just a lot. What else do I do? Like, what else do you?

Speaker 1:

want yeah. So how did that go? How was your first launch?

Speaker 2:

It went great. The first day I got one sale.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so it was amazing. What were you selling it for? How much?

Speaker 2:

It was 997.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Eight-week program with three calls a week and guest masterclasses by the best in the world. And the first day I got one sale and I thought it was a failure. And I don't know if you've seen that meme of like that girl that has like 1 million followers and she tried to sell a shirt and she couldn't even sell 10, even with her 1 million followers. I was like that's going to be a meme of me and I suck, I'm the worst person in the world. I, I'm the worst person in the world. I'm going to get cancelled. Everybody's going to laugh at me. And then eventually, day two, day three, day four, sales skyrocketed. I think we signed in about 60 to 70 people in that. Wow, yeah, it was exciting. It was very nerve-wracking. I had no idea what I was doing. The entire time it felt like a game and I was on overdrive and I loved every single second of it nice, apart from the bit where you thought you'd be a failure.

Speaker 2:

I mean even that, like that's still a lesson and how often have you done these launches?

Speaker 2:

two, and I think I might do one more, and that's it, because they're very exhaustive. Yeah, um, I think with the launch model, it's only like you can only do one every quarter and then it gets exhausted. You like, exhaust your audience and I, as someone that loves my audience, I hate to sell to them specifically and I hate the idea of like closing and opening and then the cohort is just like a very like it's exhausting. You know, because it's very intensive for everyone and I liked it, I tried it, I nailed it and now we're gonna move on to every products.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's um. So the model that we use is we help people to sell their courses, not group coaching, generally one. If people have got multiple courses, then one email promotion per month. And what's massively different with doing a promotion versus doing a launch is it's really not tiring doing any more promotions. So if you have like three courses, you can do one a month and you cycle back through again and I know almost nobody who's gone from launches to doing smaller promotions and then wanted to go back again yeah because it's just so tiring yeah, launches, it's just so intense.

Speaker 2:

You know it's a lot I like well, I do like the chaos of it. Uh, my second launch was even better and, um, I became addicted to webinars, which I didn't know I could be. I think I am an ad and um, I just I had like two webinars every like, every day for five days and it was it was exhilarating and at one point I was so gone in my head because I was so tired, sleep deprived, and it was the best one, the very last one.

Speaker 2:

We like signed in 10 new clients, I think, from just that one like me, just yapping and saying things, and I think it's because I just love personal branding so much, I get so excited about it that I, even with my last draw, I could talk about it. So, if anything, my biggest tip for a successful launch is webinars. Just full, send them. It's amazing Because it's like a sales school, but live, it's great.

Speaker 1:

Webinars are just fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm doing one with Jodie in two days, are you? Yeah, nice For your audience, no, for hers. For her audience, nice.

Speaker 1:

Okay, cool, great. Yeah, coachvox has got a great LinkedIn AI part built into it. I use that all the time. Nice, okay, cool. So now let's say someone's listening to this and they're like man, I want to build my personal brand on LinkedIn. I want to follow Lara. Where do they need to go? They go linkedincom slash n slash. Laracosta, r, that's it. Just google it. So that's the lara's name will be in the title, obviously, of the podcast, but it's l-a-r-a-a-c-o-s-t-a and then r at the end. Yeah, it's an extra one. Okay, awesome, um, and then you've got a course that's going to be coming out.

Speaker 2:

yeah, probably in september, right, mid-september, so hopefully by the time this episode is out, we will be launched and how would somebody be able to make sure they get notified if that comes?

Speaker 1:

when that comes, you sign up to my newsletter.

Speaker 2:

That's literally it. Uh, no, beehivethat's literally itcom. That's it beehivedot that's literally it, dot com. That's literally it. Yeah, we'll link it perfect.

Speaker 1:

All right, great laura, this has been fantastic. Really appreciate your time today coming on and explaining all about this um, and I'm really excited to see how your course launch goes and I'm going to be getting it as well.

Speaker 2:

I look forward to it amazing. Thank you so much for coming to london yeah, no, I live in london. The first in-person episode I mean.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks so much. This has been brilliant.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Cool, and if you're listening along and you are wanting to get hold of that resource that we mentioned at the beginning, it's datadrivenmarketingco slash roadmap. Thanks so much for listening, as always, and we'll see you next time.