Finding Clients

Be Known on LinkedIn for What You Already Know

August 31, 2026 · Bradley Jacobs

If you do not share what you know on LinkedIn, the only people who actually know it are the people you have worked with directly.

That is the whole problem. You have the experience. You have been coached. You have made mistakes. None of that exists online unless you put it there.

I ran a workshop on this. This is the version I actually teach.

Referrals are not a lever you can pull

Raise your hand if your business has mostly grown through referrals. Almost everyone does.

Usually, the people who are just starting out, or even in the first number of years, grow through word of mouth. That works because trust transfers. One intro at a time.

It is also not a lever you can pull. You cannot decide this week to get three more referrals. You wait.

The question I ask on those calls is: how do you mimic what a referral does, in a repeatable way, without waiting for the next warm intro?

Who this is for

U.S.-based fractional executives running one to five person practices. 80% of clients come from referrals. LinkedIn is inconsistent, or it does not exist.

Independent consultants. Seated fractionals. CFO, CIO, COO, sales, ops. You already have an offer. You can already close.

If you do not have an offer yet, skip this. Job seekers, just-left-corporate, exec-comms, startup GTM. Not your page.

The number that actually matters

People obsess over likes. I look at profile views.

Over a recent 90 days I had about 3,100 people look at my profile. That is the number I care about. Not because a post is magically getting a call. Because the post sent them to Bradley Jacobs' landing page, which is my LinkedIn profile, where I can say what I do, who I help, and how to get in touch.

The flow is simple. They see the content. They go to the profile. Then they book a call or they sign up for something. LinkedIn already has the people. You do not have to drive them to a website first.

The Raleigh post

I keep using the same example because it is the cleanest one I have.

Uber and Lyft launched Raleigh on the same day. I was on that launch team. I wrote a post about how we went to market. Not a resume. Not a pitch. A story from a first-person point of view about a thing I actually did.

That post did 700,000 impressions and 22 inbound conversations. People wanted help with their go-to-market because I had just walked them through one. I basically told you how to think about launching a market by sharing what happened when I did it.

I ask the room: does this post make you feel like I am inauthentic, ego, AI slop?

Then the part that matters. Use that learning to avoid the AI slop. Avoid the ego, cringy, generic BS that is all over LinkedIn. Use the actual first person.

Notice what that post does not say. It does not say, hi, I am Bradley, I am this fractional whatever, please hire me.

Once you are on the phone, you are not a stranger

This is my favorite part. Once you get on the phone with them, you are not a stranger. Almost every person I talk to has either listened to the podcast, read the LinkedIn, or come to a webinar. They know me because I was willing to put myself out there.

In a world of AI, anybody can do outreach that looks custom and automated and fast. The one thing AI cannot help you with is trust.

What I have found that works: introduce yourself like you walked into a coffee shop. Hey, I am Bradley, this is what I do. Then let the content do the work. A month later you can say, do you have this problem, I can support you in it.

Reply rates after a month of content are wildly different from cold outbound that says I promise I am legit, you should buy from me.

The sales conversation changes. They know who you are. They feel seen. They already get the value. You are talking logistics. I almost never introduce myself on those calls anymore.

Get really, really narrow

This is where people get tripped up the most. Who is your customer.

A product manager at Google and a product manager at a 10-person company have very different problems. A 10-person company, a 1,000-person company, and a 10,000-person company look at the same pain completely differently. VC-backed and bootstrapped, even at the same stage, have a different mindset, trajectory, and budget.

If you target all of them, someone reads your page and thinks, I do not really know what you do or who you help, and I am out.

I will push you to go really, really, really narrow so the content is speaking to that buyer and their pain. This is my customer. This is their problem. This is the value. Then you can position yourself.

When they read a story where you have been in that exact situation, they think, oh, they get it. They can learn something. They can see a mistake to avoid. That is the referral feeling, without waiting for the intro.

Great content starts with great positioning

I keep saying this because people keep skipping it.

Great content starts with great positioning.

Positioning first. Then content pillars. Then every post ladders up to a pillar, which ladders up to the positioning. Every paying person I work with, we do proper positioning first. Not a calendar. Not a prompt pack.

Without that, you are filling a feed. You are not getting known for anything.

What to actually post

Five out of six posts, you are giving value. Teaching. Learnings. Experiences. Here is what I learned. You can show you have been there and done that without being cringy or self-promotional.

One out of six, you can say, hey, I am Bradley, this is what I do.

From a genuine first-person point of view. Learnings, wins, mistakes. Quote-unquote losses are beautiful to share. At least three times a week. Your followers are not seeing it three times a week. They are probably seeing it once. That is why three is the floor.

Post on your personal page. If you only post in one place, make it personal. The company page is an afterthought. I repost myself there. That is it.

Every once in a while a personal anecdote, family, the dog, a trip, humanizes you. That is not the strategy. The strategy is the work you already know.

Your profile has to finish the job

The point of the content is to drive people to the profile. So the profile cannot be modest and vague.

Five things:

• A clear, friendly photo
• A headline that says your niche, your value, and who you serve
• Accomplishments in the about section. Not a time to be modest.
• Detailed, outcome-driven results at each role
• An easy next step. How to get value or how to talk to you.

One or two bad posts do not hurt you

Never posting really does. Your competitors are posting, and they are winning work you should be in the room for, because they were willing to put themselves out there.

I have been posting every day for six years. I have been hammering the same core themes the whole time. It does not compound like 1,000 impressions, then 2,000, then 3,000. It compounds as trust. If I burned the company to the ground tomorrow, I would still post. The following still helps.

How I actually make the posts

Sometimes I tell people: take yourself on a walk and talk into a voice transcriber about things you have done.

Or write the newsletter first, then chop it into six LinkedIn posts. I do this with podcast transcripts constantly. Transcript becomes a newsletter. Newsletter becomes posts. That also kills the blank-page thing of what do I actually need to post.

The risk with AI is it makes stuff up. So the draft has to pull from your actual source. Calls. Podcasts. Things you have already said. Then you read it. If it does not sound like you, you do not post it. I go back through almost every draft. When I cut an AI-sounding word, that is the point.

I have been using Mylance for this for 12 months, on purpose, not in an AI-sloppy way. I built it. Weigh that accordingly.

The balance is always the same. I want you to have to do such little work. I also want it to be your voice. Genuine. Not more AI slop on LinkedIn.

FAQ

Do I need to post every day?

I do, because I have been doing it for six years. You do not. Floor is three times a week, posts that ladder to positioning. Daily volume with no point of view is noise.

Can ChatGPT replace positioning?

No. It can draft. It still writes like AI, no matter how much you tell it not to. Positioning is the filter. The draft is not.

What if referrals are still coming in?

Keep them. Word of mouth is great. It is not a lever you can pull. Do not wait for the next warm intro to be visible for work you already know how to do.

Personal page or company page?

Personal. Company page is the afterthought.

Keep reading: A LinkedIn Ghostwriter for Fractional CFOs Who Already Have an Offer and Why Your LinkedIn Posts Sound Like AI