Jasmin Alic:

You could have the most viral posts, you could have the best posts possible, 10K likes, million impressions per post, but if all of those people are landing on your profile and they have zero clue what to do, you will not be converting.

Chris Do:

We are chatting today because you've been very effective and prominent and just a rising star within LinkedIn as a content creator, so much so that your content's been featured. Of course I know you and then I see your post and I was thinking this person has a very unique and different approach on how to grow on LinkedIn. Of course you've expanded to add more things to it, but maybe we can start there.

For the record, Jay, I'll just go with Jay from this point forward, even though that's not your official name. For people who don't know who you are, can you just give us a quick introduction and tell us a little bit of your background and then I'll get into the content?

Jasmin Alic:

Awesome. Well, thank you for the introduction. For the people listening. Hey, my name is Jasmin, but everyone knows me as Jay from Hey Jay. Officially, I'm a copywriter, a brand strategist, and as of the last two years, a full-time, I'd say, LinkedIn creator and a LinkedIn coach. I work with Fortune 500 companies and personal brands, trying to help them grow their following, grow their sales specifically through LinkedIn, but also beyond.

Chris Do:

Love it. When you say you help Fortune 500 brands on LinkedIn, is there an army of people working with you or are you the person doing this work?

Jasmin Alic:

No, I genuinely am. It's funny enough, this week I'm supposed to make an announcement of the first Hey Jay employee, so it's literally just me. I'm a solopreneur through and through and I do everything by myself, literally no help, not even a VA to handle my emails and my DMs, which gets kind of tricky because the engagement on my post is just super high.

I get a lot of DMs, I get a lot of emails, but the good thing about my life is I hate sleeping and I don't sleep a lot at all. I never have. Since high school, I've only been averaging like four hours a day. If I do three, I'm fine. If I do four, it's perfect. If I do five, I'm flying.

Genuinely, you can ask anybody who knows me. I don't sleep a lot, and it's kind of beneficial in business just because I'm able to do more things both in life and in business. I'm able to be fully dedicated as a dad to my son. I'm able to be fully dedicated to my clients. I'm able to maybe take on a bit more workload than the average person. The good thing is I enjoy what I do, so it's only a bonus that I don't sleep and I get to do more of what I enjoy to do.

When it comes to the Fortune 500s and all the amazing people I work with all over the years, I feel like the highest client count I had was 13 at one point, and that was my absolute limit. It was killing me. Right now I've toned it down completely, zoned in on my role as a dad, and business is genuinely second. It gets busy.

Chris Do:

Lots of things to talk to you about. I do want to get to the business end, why I think people want to really listen to this episode, especially because I believe LinkedIn is one of the last few places, a social media place where you can actually make a dent. The algorithm and the reach is still fantastic. Of course it's getting tougher every single day and it will be.

And so I think if there's frontier for anyone to explore, if you want to grow your reach, your authority to build real relationships with people and also potentially onboard new clients, this is the place. So hang in there for that everybody.

But I do want to talk about a couple of different things. You don't need a lot of sleep is what you're saying.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah.

Chris Do:

You could deal with five hours of sleep and you feel fresh and you feel energized. Or is that just because you've tuned yourself to just survive on that amount?

Jasmin Alic:

No, I genuinely don't need that amount of sleep. There was a research by some university out there. They were talking about chromosome this, chromosome that. I have that one particular chromosome that allows me to not have to sleep at all. My body doesn't need as much sleep. My recuperation, regeneration, whatever it's called, process during the night is much faster than the average person's. I make it sound more complicated than it is, Chris. I also hate sleeping, so it's kind of a perfect thing.

Chris Do:

You're saying very humbly, I'm genetically superior to all you people who need to sleep. I get it. It's very cool. I love it.

Jasmin Alic:

Pretty much, but no, yeah. No, yeah. Yeah, no, right? That's how they say it. Yeah, no.

Chris Do:

When you go to sleep, do you fall into deep sleep immediately and go to REM and just get that kind of really restful regenerative sleep?

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, pretty much. What I used to do at this period, we touched upon the 13 clients at a time thing, I used to do two blocks of two hours. It was the craziest thing ever, but I functioned very normally.

Chris Do:

Wow.

Jasmin Alic:

There was one very weird thing though, Chris. Like clockwork, every three months I would have one day where I would just crash. My body would just crash and I would sleep for like 12, 13 hours. But that was all it took, one day, super long sleep, and then I was just right back into it, the very low sleep frequency. It was crazy.

Chris Do:

Okay. Quick question here is how old are you right now?

Jasmin Alic:

31. I say 31 with hesitation just because I'm about to be 32 in February.

Chris Do:

Okay. Officially you're still 31, man.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, officially still 31.

Chris Do:

Still 31.

Jasmin Alic:

I agree.

Chris Do:

Okay. What that means to me is you're still in your prime in your ability to recover quickly because I remember those days, especially when I was 19 years old up until about I think 30, I could operate in very little sleep. Just like you, after 3, 4, 5 days of very little sleep per night, I just need a quick recovery thing. But I realize long-term, it's probably not great for me. Unlike you, I do like to sleep. It's just I willed myself to sleep less. So there's the difference there.

But you mentioned something I want to touch on, which is recently you switched your focus, you're a dad first and a business person second. Anything besides the birth of your son that triggered this? Was there anything, an awakening, an event, something happened?

Jasmin Alic:

Just personal nature, I don't want to get into it, but every now and then on LinkedIn, I'll mention that I'm a single dad, divorcee, but I spend every day with my son. He also spends time with his mom. But this is all to say that I'm very involved in his life and he's very involved in my life.

He comes first, everything else comes second, and that is how my days and my schedule and my business is literally structured. It's structured around my time with my son. If I have to spend from 10:00 AM up to 7:00 PM today with him, I will do zero work during the day and every other part of my day is just going to be based on priority.

Chris Do:

How old is the little man?

Jasmin Alic:

He's almost four. We share almost-

Chris Do:

Beautiful.

Jasmin Alic:

... the same birthday in February. I was, I think at least, 28 when I had him. So really good age for the both of us.

Chris Do:

This is good to know because I think there are a lot more people out there that might be a single parent to have a little one and trying to manage both their personal life and their professional life. It seems like you've figured it out where you can have that kind of flexibility with your schedule, with your work such that you don't have to onboard so many clients and you get to create content when you want.

Also, it's aligned with what gives you joy. That's the whole mission behind The Futur is to help people make a living doing what they love. Find what you love and then let's find a way to turn that into something that can sustain you long-term. It's really beautiful and I think that's going to add a lot of context to what we're going to talk about today.

Jasmin Alic:

Thank you, Chris. I can't stress that enough. It's really about finding joy in every day. I feel like one thing for single parents out there and for the people who aren't even parents or who don't understand it, being a single parent doesn't mean that the other parent doesn't exist, they're not alive. No, it just means that both of you are solo in your role as a parent.

His mom is still the greatest mom alive. I will always say that. She's amazing with him. But I get to spend every day with him. She gets to spend every day with him. He's just the most loved creature in the world. So to me that just brings me joy. He will never miss the love and I will never miss the time with him, which a lot of parents I feel like regret in the late years.

Chris Do:

Yeah. In case you're listening to this, you might not get a visual. So I want to describe Jay's face to you. He has really dark eyebrows and most of the times he looks like a very gentle spirit. He's always smiling, and now he's combing his luscious beard.

Jasmin Alic:

Do we have an ASMR right here?

Chris Do:

Can't hear it. Even with that boosted audio, we still can't hear.

Jasmin Alic:

Okay.

Chris Do:

Yeah, it's a sweet spot on that thing. It's very narrow. All right. He's a genuinely happy guy, and every time I see his post with his profile picture, he's smiling, he's looking around at the camera, he's smiling, these big round eyes.

And so there's a genuineness to this that the person aligns with the content. It very much I think speaks to you finding your gift in this world, even though in a past life you were a teacher and an artist, right? There's something really cool about that.

Okay, let's dive into it. There are a lot of people who are going to be listening and say, "Okay, this is about personal development. I want to grow on LinkedIn." We can use these strategies that you've developed actually and other platforms too, but I just want to keep a focus on LinkedIn. Okay?

Now, you have a couple of things I pulled up from some of your recent carousel posts, so I'm just going to throw you what you said and then you explain the concept. Okay? What we know this-

Jasmin Alic:

Works for me.

Chris Do:

Okay. There are probably less than 1% of people who use LinkedIn to actively write content. That means it's wide open for all of us, unlike these other supersaturated platforms. You mentioned let's learn how to write better. The first thing you said is the hook method. In order for us to read the copy, read the post, whatever it is that you're talking about, you got to bring the audience in first. What do I need to have an effective hook?

Jasmin Alic:

Thank you. I always say your hook is 90% of your good post. If it's a bad post, your hook won't matter. A hook is 90% of a good post on LinkedIn, but a hook is only a tool to get you to read the rest of the post. So if the rest of the post doesn't follow the same energy or the same promise from the hook, it's going to fall apart pretty quickly.

Whenever I explain and coach people how to write, the one lesson I give them about hooks is that the hook is a promise. Every single time people are scrolling through LinkedIn, you have to understand that no one is there to read your content. No one is there to find that particular post of yours. You will be interrupting someone's usage of the platform. They'll be scrolling and then they'll see something. What they're going to see is that first line, which we call the hook.

As the name entails, you have to hook them into reading the rest of the post. Now, with LinkedIn, the trick is in about 90% of the cases, LinkedIn is only going to show you three lines of that post, including spaces, meaning if you write a one-liner as your hook, which you should, I actually have data on this, your hook as a one-liner, then one empty space, and then another line, which I call the rehook, and I can explain what the rehook is.

You'll hear all sorts of advice as to how to write the perfect LinkedIn hook. You'll hear it has to have this many words, it has to have this many characters, it has to include numbers, it has to include a powerful word, and then you're going to get an infographic of powerful words you can use. But that's too complicated for most people, especially people who don't have a background in marketing, content creation in general, writing in general.

So I, as my headline suggests on LinkedIn, for those of you who are listening and watching this, my headline on LinkedIn forever has been, "I make writing and LinkedIn easy for everyone," and that is genuinely what I try to do. When I see advice in the wild that complicates the matter for people, I try to simplify it to a point where everyone can do it.

The way I've simplified hook writing is with one question. The question you should ask when you're writing the start of your post is, what is the one thing that I want my reader to learn from this post? And I'll repeat, what is the one thing that I want my reader to learn from this post? If they could skip the entire rest of the post and they could just read that one line, what do you want to tell them in that one line?

A lot of the times the answer to that question can be your hook directly. For example, if I'm writing a post about a specific commenting strategy that I implement to gain new followers, to gain inbound leads and new clients, what is the one thing that I want you to know about that particular commenting strategy? I might tell you something like, "This is the easiest commenting strategy you can apply today."

And that is a perfect hook, Chris. That is literally a perfect hook. If you're scrolling and you see, "This is the easiest commenting strategy you can implement," or "This is the best LinkedIn strategy if you want to attract new clients," any variation of those, but what I'm giving you in that first line is the rest of the post immediately.

No clickbait, no bait switching, no fake promises where I tell you something in the first line and then as you read through the post, it's something entirely different. No, my whole philosophy of writing hooks is the first line has to give me the post, or at least it has to give me the gist of the post, which is what a lot of advice tries to complicate up to a point where it's this huge science.

Writing is psychology. This is how I explain it to my students. I teach copywriting at the university, so teaching writing is something that I genuinely do and something that I enjoy doing. Whenever I talk about writing, I say that writing is 90% psychology and 10% formatting and just basically catering it to the medium, like to the platform. It might be LinkedIn, it might be a video script for YouTube, whatever it is.

Once you understand that you're interrupting somebody's scroll and you don't want to complicate their life today, you're just supposed to make it easy for them to see your post, to gain interest in your post, and to read till the end of your post. That is when that statement, a hook is 90% of your post, makes sense. That is when it starts to make sense, when you actually make it easy for your reader, for that traveler in the feed, in the LinkedIn feed, to stop the scroll, to see your hook, and be like, "This is something for me and this sounds promising. Let me read till the end."

Then and only then does the rest of the post matter, not until then. The hook, if it does the job right, it makes a promise and by the end of the post it delivers on that promise. One question is all you need, what is the one thing I want my reader to learn from this post? Trust me, every single time, guys, if you're listening to this, if you're writing your LinkedIn post, simply answer that question. As soon as you answer it, write it down, that's your hook.

Sometimes you may be required to just shorten it, like just to fit a one-liner structure. You might be getting rid of certain words or just rephrasing it, but the gist of it is going to stay the same. What is the one thing you want to teach in this post? That's your hook every time.

Chris Do:

Okay. I want to ask you about the rehook then because you mentioned it.

Jasmin Alic:

I wasn't getting ready for a masterclass today in writing [inaudible 00:17:07]. I'm always ready for that, just joking. The rehook is something that I sort of devised last year. I genuinely don't know if someone used that word rehook.

Chris Do:

You may be the first person to coin it.

Jasmin Alic:

I have no clue, but I'm happy to take credit for that. Last year when I was figuring out how I actually write posts and the best structure that I've tested, I figured that every single time I write my second line, it is immediately connected to that hook.

So I write my rehooks in two different ways. The first way is I add what I call heft to the first line. If I make a promise, especially if it's a very good sounding bold promise in the first line, Chris, like, "This is the easiest way." Let me actually pull up the post that I did today, Chris, because it was a really huge promise that I made in the post, and it was about commenting and inbound leads. Let me just pull up the post really quickly. Give me three seconds, please.

Chris Do:

Take your time.

Jasmin Alic:

I said, "This is the easiest way to find clients on LinkedIn. This is the easiest way to find clients on LinkedIn." As a rehook, what you can say to add heft to that is attack a client objection. What is a typical objection you might hear from people when you tell them this is the easiest way to gain clients on LinkedIn? It may be about time, it may be about effort, it may be about money investment, monetary investment.

And then what you can say in the second line as a rehook to add heft to your first line is without dollar sign zero investment. This adds heft to your first line where you make a promise, but then you immediately crush the main objection that a reader might have.

The analogy that I like to make between the hook and the rehook is the hook gets you in the room, it makes it interesting, but the rehook slams the door behind you and it keeps you reading till the very end. From what I know about hooks and rehook, at least my analysis, is whenever people read the rehook, they actually stay till the end.

You could easily use heat mapping software and just check who reads the first line, who reads the second line? I guarantee you if they're reading that second line, and if you did write it really well, they're going to stay till the very end. The vast majority of people, they're going to stay till the very end.

The rehook, that's one way to write it, add have to it, basically add something that crushes a reader's objection. But the second way is purely psychological. Say something totally opposite of what you just said. I like to give this example, Chris, because it's a perfect example. I give this example a lot in my workshops.

The hook is, "LinkedIn is the number one business platform in the world." That's my hook. Pretty agreeable, right? Pretty interesting for people to find in their feed. But then the second line that I'll write is, "But it is the worst platform to sell your products." Those two things are completely opposite. How can a platform be the best, the number one, but also the worst?

Then I will immediately jump into explaining what that means. LinkedIn is the best business platform, but it is the worst because you can't just jump on the platform and sell immediately. And then I would give you seven steps on how to build trust. You have to start posting content, devise a really good content strategy for your ideal ICP, ideal customer profile.

You have to do this consistently. You have to do this for months. You have to dive and double down into commenting. You have to build relationships. You have to build familiarity. You have to build FOMO. You have to have a minimum one-month launch period. And then you sell. Now, I made you a promise, I gave you something to think about with the opposite statement, and I've actually delivered on it.

But it's a really cool psychological trick, Chris, when you tell people something that they believe in and then immediately say something completely opposite because it just, for the lack of a better term, it catches them dead in their tracks, meaning attention, step number one, that's the hook. But retention is the rehook. I always say attention means nothing without retention, especially in online content. Everyone can read that first line, but how do you get them to read till the end?

These two methods of writing a rehook, first one where you add heft, where you address a common objection, and the other one where you say something completely opposite. They both work really well. I'll just use them 50/50 depending on how I feel that day. But they really work, they genuinely work.

Chris Do:

It sounds like they would work. I think the thing that you're doing is the promise can be sometimes broad in general. Without either addressing a common objection or refining the statement by putting something that on the surface seems to be opposing it, you're going to then say, "This ain't your regular post."

Jasmin Alic:

Exactly.

Chris Do:

Right? It's like you could make a lot of money on LinkedIn and then you're like, the tested method has worked for 10,000 people, like, oh, okay, because everybody makes the same generic promise, and that's okay. We understand that. I like the way you write because you write very simply. You're not using big words, you're not making it complicated, but then you have to add something to it. Otherwise, it just seems like a lot of fluff, and there are a lot of fluffy posts out there-

Jasmin Alic:

Oh yeah.

Chris Do:

... that are true but useless, like I know, I know, but now what? I love this opposing strategy because you're basically building two walls around the subject in which you're going to talk about. So yes, it can do this, but don't do it for these reasons.

Jasmin Alic:

Exactly.

Chris Do:

And I'll show you how, and then you dive into it.

Jasmin Alic:

The bigger reason, Chris, for this is I feel like you are speaking about a topic from an angle that they haven't heard before, because the first line, they may have heard it in a different format before, but when you connect these two opposing ideas from your own point of view, it's like you can't Google this stuff. You can't make this stuff up. So they have to stick till the end.

Again, the retention is really the bigger part of the game here. It's not attention in the hook, it's actually the retention. The retention is a huge craving for a lot of content creators, especially with long form content. As you know on YouTube, it's not the views, it's actually the average view time, the dwelling time on a video.

On LinkedIn, it's very much the same in the algorithm. 30 seconds dwell time is somewhat ideal as a bare minimum, and especially if like 70, 80% of your audience who are reading that post spend 30 seconds minimum, that's when the algorithm is like, hmm, this is actually a quite interesting post.

But if a very low percentage of your readers see the post and they don't spend much time on it for whatever reason, by the way, they could be spending time reading it or they could be spending time commenting on it, or they could be spending time engaging with other people in replies. Either way, you have done your job at retaining people's attention, so the rehook really does its job well when you execute it well, when you connect to opposing ideas, or when you simply just address an objection upfront.

Chris Do:

Since you brought up YouTube, it is quite literally the same thing. The two things you need to look at on YouTube if your video has any chance of working is your click-through rate of 100 or 1,000 people who will see this, how many of them will actually click on it? It's a combination of the title and the thumbnail, which I want to talk to you about, and retention.

Of that video, what percentage did you retain the audience? And we see that they take a nosedive the first 30 seconds. And so if you're wasting time talking about things that aren't appealing to your audience, they're going to bounce and the video's going to not perform as well as it should.

Chris Do:

And the video's going to not perform as well as it should. You mentioned the hook, space, rehook. We haven't talked about the image. Does the image matter?

Jasmin Alic:

It absolutely does, especially recently on LinkedIn. I kid you not, Chris, I just sent a screenshot of my analytics to my buddy Luke Matthews. Best ghostwriter I know on LinkedIn. So I sent him a screenshot of my analytics and I explained how text only, because I am a writer primarily and I'm still hell-bent on using text only. Everyone's abandoned it on LinkedIn, Chris, everyone. I maybe know five creators in total who are only text only. They don't post images, they don't post videos, text only, maybe carousels, but from the majority of LinkedIn creators, image, images or image posts have become the standard and then some text. Text only is like, no, it's going to get less engagement, it's less noticeable. And I'm like, yes, but you got to learn how to write better. So images really matter on LinkedIn.

My strategy on images is you don't want to use a random image because that's when it starts to look like fluff. So I like to find a concept in my image, and this is purely psychological, Chris. I like to play this game with my content where I will find one thing in my image that I'm doing. It might be something in the image, like an animal, like a sunset. I have a post maybe dropping tomorrow. I just had an interview at Bloomberg TV, and I was in the makeup room and I took a photo. So my hook for that post is going to be before you publish your next LinkedIn post, apply makeup. And I'm going to give you seven stages of writing a post, and I'm going to connect it to the foundation, the shading, the contour. So I'm connecting the image to the post itself.

The other day I posted myself on a stage speaking, and the post was literally treat every LinkedIn post as if you're on stage. Basically, you are not reading your posts out loud, you're presenting them, and then it becomes a huge difference in what sort of words you use, what sort of length, lines and sentences in general. So what I try to do with imagery is I don't just use random images, selfies, like photos that look good. I will try to connect my textual part to the image and it is so subtle, Chris, but it makes the reader feel like the image is there for a reason.

So I once posted a selfie with a baby goat. I kid you not, if you guys are listening, you can go to my LinkedIn and there's an actual selfie when an animal and it's a baby goat. I also made a reference there to the goat as well. There's all sorts of things you can do when you post an image, but the one thing you should never do is just post it completely out of context just because you heard or you know, oh, image plus text performs better for the algo so I will just keep cranking out images just because it performs better. At a certain point people are going to see through it and it's going to look like fluff, and your engagement is going to start to go down inadvertently. It will for sure.

Chris Do:

Because you're a writer first and I'm a designer first. We have slightly different approaches to things, but it's interesting to hear the crossover here. It's clear to me that you're a person who's thought about this a lot, who's taught it to other people and presumably have created some other amazing content creators out there other than yourself because we see the proof in what you do. If a person were sitting there thinking, well, I was in the Bloomberg studio and I didn't apply makeup so I don't have that photo, but I want to talk about this thing and I don't have that image to go with it, is it better off that a post no image, just leave it as text space or go and try and find an image that's a metaphor for the story I'm about to tell.

Jasmin Alic:

So in my experience, if you don't use your face in the image, like your particular face, that particular post is going to take a nose dive. I'm not saying this is generally across the board, you'll see posts without people's faces go viral all the time. But on average, in my experience with the people that I worked with, with the companies that I work with, with the brands that I work with, if you don't include your face in the image of your posts, it's not going to work that well. So my advice to people, if you don't have a lot of photos, genuinely try to take some photos of yourself because I run into that issue with my clients that I coach a lot. They really want to post photos of themselves, but they don't have any images. There is tools out there. I don't know if we should plug any tools, but AI right now.

Chris Do:

Right.

Jasmin Alic:

I recently used Secta Labs, I think it's sectalabs.ai, and what you do is you upload 20, 30 images of yourself, of your headshot, of your face, different expressions, different outfits, whatever you have. It could be selfies, and what it'll do is it'll create really realistic, really professional headshots and totally different scenarios, totally different outfits, different facial expressions. My current profile image on LinkedIn is an AI generated photo, a lot of people don't know because-

Chris Do:

I'm going on LinkedIn right now, let me double check this.

Jasmin Alic:

Check it out. But it is generated by Secta Labs AI, and I've even posted AI generated images of my own headshots and people didn't notice just because it was so realistic. So to those people, I say I'm normally when it comes to writing, I'm usually an anti AI guy just because I'm still not impressed. But when it comes to all the other stuff, design, Midjourney, what it can do, my goodness, it's so good. It's eons ahead of writing AI. So for the graphic part, if you don't have a lot of photos of yourself, guys, just ask AI to create you some. It's the easiest thing in the world.

Chris Do:

I swear looking at this photo, it looks like every other photo that you posted of yourself, how's this AI? What are you talking about?

Jasmin Alic:

So now you're wondering which one of the other ones are real, right?

Chris Do:

Are the eyebrows a little bit different? I mean, it looks just like you. What are you talking about?

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, it's that good. It's that good, Chris. Visual AI to me, it's years and years and years ahead of writing AI, at least in 2023 right now.

Chris Do:

Yeah, it's interesting how it can learn from images faster than it can learn from writing. That's wild. Okay, so let me just quickly recap. We all know this from basic copywriting, that if you don't have them in your hook or the headline, you have no chance of them reading anything else. And you have a couple of strategies. You gave us two examples already how you have the hook and then you could challenge that by adding an objection that you answer. Or by stating the opposite, seemingly opposite things so that it becomes like, "Oh, this is very intriguing. This is unlike the other fluffy posts that I'll read." And you need to have an image, preferably of your face relevant to what you're writing about and be very intentional in that. So I have a broader question for you. Clearly, you're dominating on LinkedIn, and you're taking a very intentional approach built around the foundation of you as a copywriter and your skillset. I have to ask you this, I don't put that much thought into it and you're probably like, "Yeah, bro, I checked out your posts. I know." I just write.

Jasmin Alic:

I'm now wondering about the question.

Chris Do:

I just write, and I figured out something about myself. When I write in a conversational tone, when I just want to tell a story, it flows pretty naturally and generally people like to read it. Now I could have some kind of confirmation bias because I already have a decent sized audience, people will show up so they could be skewing my data. So am I just lucking my way through this because I don't put that same kind of thought? I'm going to tell you something. I'm just going to confess to our audience right now.

In one of your posts you write about formatting and cadence. 1, 2, 1, 2, 1 or 1, 3, 1. I went back and changed one of my posts just to see, and I'm putting artificial line breaks just so that visually it looks like one line, three lines, one line, three lines. And I'll tell you later if it actually boosts engage upon an older post, we'll see. Just put it out there. So I'm trying.

Jasmin Alic:

Did it?

Chris Do:

I took a bunch of notes, that's what I did, and I'm going to apply moving forward and I'll report back to you. All right, you're right, I did it like this and then now it's significantly improved. Of course I'm sure because you spent way more time thinking about it. I think about Instagram and YouTube, I don't think about LinkedIn as much.

Jasmin Alic:

Oh yeah, I'm fairly confident it will work. I'm like a mad scientist when it comes to LinkedIn, Chris, I genuinely am.

Chris Do:

I believe you.

Jasmin Alic:

You'd be surprised what sort of things I test that I don't even talk about in the content. How many pixels will it take up if my line is just one letter, one character too long, will it fall into a second line and then I will have this weird dangling word in a second line. I analyze those sorts of things, and then I know exactly where to cut off my first line and things like that. I analyze image resolutions. Four by five, by the way, for everybody listening, four by five is the best image resolution if you're posting it. Three by four works as well, but it's slightly more elongated. Four by five is much better on LinkedIn, at least in my experience. And one by one just it's not the same. It works, but it's vastly, vastly weaker.

Chris Do:

Yeah, you're taking up more screen real estate when you use that aspect ratio four by five.

Jasmin Alic:

Exactly.

Chris Do:

And that's key in the scroll.

Jasmin Alic:

I always tie it back to psychology, Chris, honestly, because when you just think about it, the way we use our phones, and especially as you're scrolling content through LinkedIn, if your post is slightly shorter, so if we're talking height for the listeners, if it's slightly shorter, the previews post and the post right after yours will also show up so your screen will actually be showing three posts. So your audience never actually have their full attention on your posts. You see the things that I'm actually analyzing, Chris?

Chris Do:

Yes.

Jasmin Alic:

So if you're actually using a slightly taller aspect ratio like a four by five, which is perfect, it's not too long.

Chris Do:

Yes.

Jasmin Alic:

Then what you get is you don't get the post before you or the post after you. You're actually the front and center. You're the star of the show, you're the star of the screen. So things like that, it's just super weird, the things that I actually analyze, but it works. It actually allows me to coach people much better, Chris, honestly, just because I do pay attention to the little things like the rhythm, like the cadences that you were just talking about.

Chris Do:

Right.

Jasmin Alic:

It genuinely helps me keep things interesting and I know I don't sound generic in my tips and strategy, so I love it for that.

Chris Do:

Yeah, clearly you're a nerd when it comes to this stuff, or a geek.

Jasmin Alic:

Oh, yeah.

Chris Do:

You're looking at every little aspect. And so when you're saying when you use a four by five aspect ratio, they can see your hook, the space, the rehook and that and nothing else. So there's no distractions. This is going to give your posts the best chance, optimal chance of being seen by people and increasing your retention, right?

Jasmin Alic:

Exactly right. So you are leaving nothing to chance. There's this really good book about website design, UX, UI, Don't Make Them Think. It's one of my favorite books. It's technically a marketing book, so it's one of my favorite books because the psychological principle of don't make them think is the founding principle of good copywriting. Everything has to be super clear. And if your hook is not clear, people are going to have questions, people might not be reading, or people might have their own interpretation of it. This is why the rehook when it comes into play and you ditch all of those objections, you're not making them think.

Or if we're talking about optimizing a LinkedIn profile, I worked with some creators much bigger than myself as far as following goes, Chris, and you'd be surprised at how little money people are making on LinkedIn just because their profile doesn't have a specific or clear action, a clear click as I like to call it. And then when they come to me for assistance, for guidance, for coaching, it's like, "Hey Jay, I have all this following, 400, 500 K, but I'm not making any money." And then I take one look at the profile and I ask them, "Well, what do you want your audience to do? Your profile visitor when they're on your profile, what do you want them to do?" And it's like, "Oh, I have this mastermind, the cohort." And I'm like, "Well, where is it?" "Oh, it's on my website, it's on my email list." I'm like, "You got to communicate that front and center clearly in your banner, in your profile link, in your featured section in all the right places just because then your profile becomes a landing page."

And I'll always say this, and I'll die on this hill. You could have the most viral posts, you could have the best posts possible, 10 K likes million impressions per post. But if all of those people are landing on your profile and they have zero clue what to do, you will not be converting. You'll have to do some sort of outbound and convince people and give them additional information and persuasion, but you shouldn't. Outbound is good, outbound is effective, but you should not do it if you have a very well optimized LinkedIn profile at your disposal, which we all can do, it's quite simple to optimize a profile. That's at least my approach. There's other approaches. You just had your guest, Richard Moore, a really good buddy of mine, and he and I also had a LinkedIn audio live event some months ago, and both of us have a different approach to LinkedIn.

Chris Do:

Right.

Jasmin Alic:

His is a bit more sales, I don't want to say salesy. He's not that salesy.

Chris Do:

No, it's sales driven.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, it's sales driven and it's outbound. But for me, it's the complete opposite. I never do any outbound. It's completely inbound because for me, the equation is number one. I need to have a perfectly optimized profile for my target audience, and step number two is I write posts that do really well so that then all the traffic that I get on my profile, people know exactly what to do. I don't have to do any outbound, I really don't. So it's two different approaches, but they both work. My question is just in regards to your time and your investment, which one can you afford? And a lot of folks that I know that I work with, they don't have the time to do outbound.

Chris Do:

Right.

Jasmin Alic:

So it makes sense for me to teach them how to write better. My mantra, Chris, for the last 13 years, this is my 14th year now in marketing, my mantra has always been write better, sell better. And I genuinely mean that. If you can write better content on LinkedIn, doesn't matter what it is, even if it's visual content like YouTube, you're still going to write the script. I'm still holding my beard comb in my hand. Even if you're writing a script.

Chris Do:

Safety blanket.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, even if you're writing a script for your YouTube video, it's still writing. You're still writing words, even if you're preparing a speech for a conference, a presentation, it's still writing. And ultimately, it doesn't have to mean sell as in get money, it could also mean get people to buy into an idea to buy into an opinion.

Chris Do:

Right.

Jasmin Alic:

A thought, school of thought, whatever. So yeah, write better, sell better. That's been my mantra since day one and I'm sticking to it till day one hundred thousand million gazillion.

Chris Do:

That started stronger than you finished it, but I know what you mean.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, I know. I didn't know how to finish it.

Chris Do:

That's your story and you're sticking to it, that's it.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Do:

Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.

Welcome back to our conversation.

We're talking about hooks, and so I have respect for both of you guys, and maybe I have a third approach too. So there could be a million different approaches, and I think a lot of it will be based on the person's intention. So if you're more sales driven, okay, the analogy I would make is I think Richard's approach is more like spear diving. They go in the ocean, and it's a lot of work and it can be bountiful, but you have to learn how to hold your breath and it can get dangerous. Your approach is I'm going to put a bunch of crab traps in the water or something like that, and every once in a while I'm going to come back and pull it in and there something's in it or something's not. You have a full pot and if you write better, you'll sell better. I have a selfish question for you, since I'm not as intentional as either of you. Take a look at my profile, will you? On LinkedIn, tell me how I'm screwing up on my bio because I am terrible.

Jasmin Alic:

Are we doing roast the post or roast the profile?

Chris Do:

Roast the post. Just the truth is all that matters.

Jasmin Alic:

Wait, look-

Chris Do:

I think our audience always enjoys when an expert comes on and rips me apart.

Jasmin Alic:

Give me one second. I'm actually not even kidding. I'm going through my DMs. It gets crazy in the DMs, Chris.

Chris Do:

I bet you.

Jasmin Alic:

Recently while I'm opening up your profile, I'll tell you something. Recently, I had this very weird bug on my LinkedIn where after 48 hours, messages will just stop appearing and I will get messages from 2020. So messages from 48 hours of age up until 2020, they don't exist. So only the last two days is what I can see, but it has calmed down right now. But I had this super weird bug, and now a lot of people are just coming back and following up so loads of DMs. So anyhow, I'm a new profile, Chris. Helping left brainers think right, trademarked. That's the headline, that's the founding intro of the headline. And then it says, I help creatives build businesses and businesses build brands. Top 20 ranked marketing podcasts. Okay, so from a clarity standpoint, the first part is super creative, not that clear. So helping left brains, you wanted a roast session. So here we go.

Chris Do:

No, I just want the truth. You don't have to roast me.

Jasmin Alic:

There you go.

Chris Do:

But I hear you. Creative but not clear, I get it.

Jasmin Alic:

Helping left brainers think right. I get it, it sounds smart, but I would have to ask a bunch of questions to understand what it really means. Or I would have to watch a bunch of content, whether on YouTube, or on read your carousels and your posts on LinkedIn to understand what it actually means. Because right now, just based on the statement itself, I don't know what it means. It sounds cool. It sounds cool, but it's like no one knows what it means, but it's provocative. That's what it is at the moment. So what I would do if I were in your shoes, just if you were, but there's also an approach here. I assume you're not an individual who's looking to rapidly onboard new clients. You're not in a desperate need to gain new clients. Exactly. But if you were, which a lot of people are, they're looking to expand their business, they're looking to build their business.

Chris Do:

Let's pretend, hey, I need some business. I got to keep the doors open.

Jasmin Alic:

Exactly. You're working with a lot of people in the Futur groups and the Futur Pro and the Accelerators.

Chris Do:

Yes.

Jasmin Alic:

So for a lot of those individuals, sales would be a much bigger metric versus growing a following and growing thought leadership, brand authority. I assume that's the goal for you right now, brand authority and thought leadership versus sales. So in your case, it makes sense even though it's like Chris is relying on his popularity because a lot of people already follow him, and a lot of people already know what helping left brains think right means so he's sticking to it.

But for a lot of the new visitors who don't know you, who might not have ever seen you or heard your name, 99%, I'm never going to say 100%, but they will for sure not know what it means exactly until they listen to or they watch or they read your content. So in your case, I would actually put, "I help creatives build businesses and businesses build brands." This is much clearer and this is much more purpose driven, much more sales driven. I would put that first, and right now it's clear. But then if you want to use the trademark phrase, I will put that at the end of your headline. I'll put that for the people who are already clicking on the profile.

Here's why. There's actually a fairly algorithmic background to this, Chris. Your headline is actually the most visible, the most frequently shown part of your LinkedIn profile. A lot of people don't know this. Your headline appears everywhere. Parting the DMs, everywhere. It appears when you're in the feed and you post something, there will be your avatar, your name, and your headline when you're commenting whether on your post, whether you're replying on other people's comments. It will also show your avatar, your headline, and your name. Even in the little recommendations in the right side of the screen on LinkedIn. You get those recommendations and the ads on the right side all the time. The headline will also be shown.

Your headline is crucial prime piece of real estate of your profile, but LinkedIn cuts it off at 45 characters in most cases. In other places, where the screen is a tad bit longer like a tablet screen or a, let's say I'm using a 13-inch MacBook, let's say 17 or a 16-inch, LinkedIn might show 55 characters, but 45 characters is the sweet spot. Just because you are allowing people to understand what you do and how you can help them without even clicking on your profile, one less click. Don't make them think, that's the whole philosophy. But if I read a phrase that's sort of catchy and then I have to click on your profile and then I still have to do work, Chris, you're making me work for it.

And for a lot of new followers and new clients, they don't have that kind of time, or they just don't care because they feel like you didn't convince them enough, you didn't persuade them with your clarity and your super cool messaging. Because right now, the way it's structured, I feel like the copy is good. It's just that it's in the wrong places. So if you were a bit more sales driven, if you were to say tomorrow, I want to onboard some new clients for blind, or I want to onboard some new members for Futur Pro, I would put, I help creatives build businesses and businesses build brands in the first place, in the first place of the headline. And then the helping left brainers think right, I would move it somewhere else in the headline.

Chris Do:

Okay.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, just high level feedback for the headline specifically. But then we also have the banner, Chris, which is the visual part.

Chris Do:

Let's do it.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah. So here's the thing. You're missing actually something in your headline when compared to your banner, Chris. So your banner is all about your Futur Pro community. You have three groups based on, there's business stages. I know I follow you, I follow the groups, I follow the sessions, and you have the Accelerator group, you have the Pro group, and then you have the Brand Lab for the, it's a mastermind for really good business owners already.

Chris Do:

Right.

Jasmin Alic:

The thing is, you're not mentioning your cohorts, your coaching, your groups anywhere in the headline. You're just saying I help creatives build businesses and businesses build brands, but you're not mentioning any of the Futur Pros, the groups, the masterminds, anywhere. I would include that in the headline right after that statement. So you're instead mentioning top 20 ranked marketing podcast, which again is nowhere to be found.

When we're just looking at the combination of the banner and the headline, they need to work in unison. This is a landing page essentially. So if I'm looking at your banner and there's one promise, and then I look at your headline and it's a totally different promise, they're not aligned. I'm getting mixed messaging. But if your headline is about the community and the groups or join the cohort, join the group. Or you could just have a line that says, applications close December 7th, whatever. It immediately is tied to the banner. Right now, these groups are nowhere to be found, and I have to then again, do the thinking or do the research somewhere else on your profile in order to find out what exactly is the Futur Pro, what exactly is the Futur Accelerator, so on and so forth. So clarity is truly the number one thing on your profile. You'd be surprised how much in tune we are with our own brands.

I feel like this is the common everlasting thing in copywriting and marketing, especially product owners, software developers. They know their products all too well, and then when they are presenting that product, they're presenting it from their own point of view. You know your product, sure you understand it, you know how it works. You know what the first step is, the second step is, but your audience doesn't. So you have to approach it from their point of view, because right now, the point of view, if I'm your visitor on your profile, I see two different messages in the banner and in the headline, and they need to be connected a little bit better. So just a hint, a width, a.

Jasmin Alic:

... Sort of need to be connected a little bit better. So just a hint, a with a mention, a reference to the future pros in the community would be a much better addition to your profile when compared to the top 20 ranked marketing podcasts. I ditched that completely from the headline.

Chris Do:

Got it.

Jasmin Alic:

Makes sense?

Chris Do:

Thank you, yes. Look at that, hit refresh and you'll see.

Jasmin Alic:

Did you already make the changes?

Chris Do:

I already changed it.

Jasmin Alic:

Man, you're quick. Let me see.

Chris Do:

Just tell me if it's terrible or not.

Jasmin Alic:

Wait a second, I don't see anything, actually. It's not refreshing for me. Maybe LinkedIn is just buggy.

Chris Do:

Mine's already changed on my page.

Jasmin Alic:

Ah, there we go. See, much better, Chris. Much better.

Chris Do:

It even breaks better. It's kind of weird.

Jasmin Alic:

I'll invoice you later.

Chris Do:

Thank you. Well, I wanted to use a real case scenario because a lot of times when we talk about concepts, people are like, "Yeah, I get it," and then they go back to their thing and it's like, "I don't get it. What am I doing?" And I have to tell you, for 2024, I really want to focus on the marketing aspect. I do a lot of brand building, goodwill stuff, and then it's like, "Well, why aren't we catching up to this company in terms of the revenue?" And it's because we're missing fundamental things and all my friends who are consultants in different spaces, they're hitting their head on the wall. It's like, "If I had your audience, Chris, if I had your engagement, you know what I could do?" I'm like, "I don't know. I'm just bumbling my way through it." So, it's really neat to hear you talk about these things and to be able to apply it specifically.

So, obviously if you're just listening to the podcast, you now have a mini masterclass in terms of what you need to do, and the key to all of this is if you just sit on it, nothing will change because you do need to change something. And I also wanted to be a guy who's like Jasmin said... Hey, Jay said, "Change this and I'm going to change it. I'm not going to resist." Even though I love my own copywriting, I'm like, "I don't love it as much as I like winning in business," so I'm going to let one go.

Jasmin Alic:

Exactly.

Chris Do:

There's something that you wrote in that same carousel post, and I'm going to tell everybody right now, if you're not already doing so, you need to follow Jay immediately and start consuming his content because it's really practical, pragmatic, written simply so that you can understand and have a win immediately. I saw this one writing hack that was in that same post, and I love this, and I want you to explain it. It says, "Here's a great writing frame." It start it with sear son, love dad, and write your post... I mean, start with your son and with love dad, and then delete those two things because why? Why do you say to do that and why is that effective?

Jasmin Alic:

So, the Dear Son framework, the Dear Son approach in writing is one of my favorite things that I've ever thought of, and people have kindled it, they've connected it to Warren Buffett's letters that he wrote to his sister, I think, back in the day, I had no clue about those, by the way, when I came up with Dear Son, I was just so inspired by the fact that I became a father and what I always struggled myself, I struggled with having this consistent tonality in my content, and I feel like a lot of people can resonate with this. When you're talking about a serious topic, your tone of voice changes. When you're talking about something that's a bit more fun, your tone of voice changes, but then as you're going from post to post, from week to week, there's this inconsistency.

Every post seemingly sounds different. What I wanted to achieve, both for myself and for the people I work with, for the people I coach, is consistency in the tone of voice, which is huge. 10 years down the line, I want to have the same brand voice. I want people to know what a Jasmin Alic post sounds like because I always give people this challenge, if you were to cover your avatar, your profile image, your name, and your headline, just use your thumb and just cover it, guys, just cover it. Whose post is it? Just ask yourself, "Whose post is that. That copy, that text you're currently reading, whose is it?" So, what I wanted to do is I wanted to crush that challenge completely and win every single time. So I was like, "Who can I write to consistently?" It wasn't about what can I write about.

My approach was, who can I write to so that every single time I'm writing, it is super clear, the tonality is almost exactly the same, and you can genuinely see that it's me, even if you cover the profile image and the name? So, I was about to become a father. This was late 2019 when I came up with this and just randomly, Chris, I don't even know how it came about. I just started to write an email to my future son, and I wrote, "Dear son," and then I wrote something and I was like, "Wait a second, this is actually so approachable, so clear, so humanized." And I was like, "Wait, let me actually do this with a post for a client." I think it was an email that I was writing at that point. So, I wrote an email and it was just so cool, so clear, so endearing, and I was like, "Can I apply this to everything that I write, especially on LinkedIn?"

Because early 2020, that's when I first wanted to write on LinkedIn. I failed miserably, but I was doing the same approach. So I start, this is the Dear Son approach to everyone listening, start every post with addressing a person who's near and dear to your heart. For me, it's my son. I start with, "Dear son," you could pick your best friend, your neighbor, your boss, your manager, whoever is the person that you just feel at ease when you speak to them. Any person in your life, pick that one person and have a conversation with them. How would you explain a copywriting framework, writing hooks, writing re-hooks to your 4-year-old son? How would you explain it to them? For me, the answer is simple. I use very simple language, I use super short sentences, I want to make sure that I'm not using jargon, super industrial verbs or words and phrases anywhere, and I want to make sure that every single post is actionable because kids need action, in my case, at least they need action.

They need to have specific steps that they can apply immediately. Again, the approach is also don't make them think, just say what you mean, but say it clearly, and at the very end you need to do two things as well. You need to inspire and you need to invite a response from them. A lot of people miss these two crucial parts in the end. And then what I do at the very end, I end with, "Love, Dad." I want every post to feel like this, Chris. And as soon as I'm done with my post, when I have all these things down and I genuinely feel like I'm having a conversation with my son, I will delete those two parts. I will delete, "Dear, son" and I will delete, "Love, dad."

Don't ask me if I've ever missed deleting one part and sent an email to a client. I did, and it was so fun. I missed the signature. It said, "Love, dad," Chris, and it was the most awkward conversation I've ever had. I really did. This was like four years ago now, but it was fun, but I always say it's when you're trying to talk to millions, especially if you have an audience that's in the millions or in the tens of thousands, it's very hard to speak to everybody. But when you're talking to one person and you can clearly convince them, especially if it's a person who's completely out of touch with the topic, then you know can 100% convince the person who is completely in touch with the topic, like a seasoned expert or your ideal customer profile. You know the phrase, if you can explain what you do to your grandma or to your parents, you can convince anybody.

That's essentially the approach. It's not about writing to millions, it's writing to one as if they're worth 1 million people to you. So for me, the Dear Son approach works, and I've had hundreds if not thousands of people, Chris, up until this day try that approach, and I've received so much good feedback. The feedback always is, "I feel so at ease when I'm writing." And to me, that's the most beautiful thing ever. A lot of people have writing anxiety and they have posting anxiety, sharing anxiety. They are experts in their field for sure, but when they have to place their content in front of potentially millions of people out there on LinkedIn, they get cold feet.

They don't know how to express themselves or they feel like it's not the right way of expressing themselves, but when you simply talk to a person you know is going to listen to you, you know is going to understand you, everything becomes much simpler, everything. So, the Dear Son approach is really about that. It's not this crazy scientific method that's going to boost your writing skill. It's really about making it easy for you to start writing, continue writing, and finish writing. It puts you at complete ease of writing. So, Dear Son, it works.

Chris Do:

It's an excellent reflection of who you are as a teacher and as a writer, and I'll tell people what I mean. I want to unpack this for everybody. You basically say, if you just start with "Dear, son," and end with "Love, dad," it encapsulates so many different complex concepts that everybody can understand intuitively without you explaining it to them. First of all, you're forcing the writer to identify an audience. You're then going to help them establish a consistent tone of voice across time, which is important. You ask them to think positively and to highlight the biggest learning outcomes and keep it simple so that the person can follow directions. And then you just want to make sure as you end it that it ends on a very positive note in case you have to give some hard news. And it just is kind of loving, friendly tone of voice that I think works so well for you and your personality.

Like you said, it doesn't have to be a son, it could be "Dear, daughter," "Dear, Jane," "Dear, Bob," "Dear, mom," "Dear, dad," somebody that you say that you care a lot about because I think in this kind of very polarizing political climate that we live in, it's so easy for us to get vitriolic with our writing and to cast stones. And in this way, even when you have a hard piece of information to give, use kindness, use generosity, use grace when you communicate it to people, and it's going to go a long way in making the internet a friendlier place, a more loving place, and we're all trying to build community anyways. So, it's a much stronger approach, and I love that about it.

Jasmin Alic:

That's a great way to frame it, so thank you.

Chris Do:

Thank you. Now, I could sit here and talk to you about all the different writing tips that you have, and I'm sure at any point in this episode you all, if you're interested, we'll include in the show notes social media links and anything else. I think there's a masterclass that is theoretically being worked on. I saw that in your profile, so I know that, and we'll make sure that the links are in the description, but the thing that you're most known for, I think, and the thing that really caught my eye and I've shared it with other people, is this idea that posting isn't enough, commenting is actually a really valid strategy, and one that takes a lot of pressure off of you, so let's get in there. You say more comments equals more profile views, which we established that you're actually inviting people to check out your profile. Previously, mine sucked. Today, it's a little bit better than it was yesterday, so this is good. Now, let's get into the theory and the practical tips.

Jasmin Alic:

I always say that comments are the greatest growth hack on LinkedIn, period. And whenever I tell that to people, they want me to dive into it and explain it to them like, "Why? If everyone's so focused on posting and especially doing it daily, why are comments all of a sudden more important?" So, how I explain this to people is I explain this perfect paradox on LinkedIn, and it is just something that not a whole lot of us think about, Chris. Ideally speaking, so you and I, this is a coaching session between you and me, Chris, tomorrow you want to amp up and ramp up your content creation on LinkedIn, what's the first thing you want to do? You want to increase the frequency of your posts. You want to be like, "I want to create more posts. Ideally, one post every single day, seven days a week, one post every day, and I want every post to be a banger. Every post needs to hit the nail in the coffin."

But here's the paradox, if you post daily, daily, ideally speaking daily, this is a dream for a lot of people, your audience will only see you once today, once. If you post at the same exact time. Let's say I post at 12:30 Central Standard European Time, 12:30 every day, Chris, my audience will see me once at 12:30 today, and they will have to wait until tomorrow 12:30 again to hear from me. We just went from maximum level of content creation down to minimum visibility, that's the paradox. So, commenting is there to put you in more places and put you in front of your readers and new audiences more times during the day. So ideally speaking, your readers will see you once per day if you post every single day. That's only seven times per week.

That's not enough, that's simply not enough, so that's the paradox. But if you are out there in the feed constantly supporting others, let's say you're following 20, 30... I follow up to 100+ people every single day. I try to engage, I fail most of the time, but I'm there. I'm always in the mix, but here's the difference. If you're posting every day, just posting, that's once every day that a person will see you, but if you're commenting on top of that 20, 30, 50 times per day, people will see you 20, 30, 50 times per day, which is a huge difference. And the time commitment for commenting versus writing a post, it takes an hour sometimes to write one piece of content. Chris, you know this. My carousels take me 10+ hours. I kid you not, 10+ hours for each carousel post. So, the commenting is actually a much wiser time investment, and the good thing about it is you don't even have to post every single day, and you're still going to get that same visibility.

So the beautiful thing then, as we dive deeper, I came up with this concept that I called my LinkedIn Commenting Matrix. Essentially, it's a psychological breakdown. I think it was 12 steps. I posted this six months ago. I should probably repurpose that and repost it. So any of you listening, that repurposed post is coming. So, I devised my own LinkedIn commenting matrix where I covered 12 steps of psychology and psychological triggers that happen in our minds from writing a comment, all the way until the action of a potential client. So, here's the way it works. So, the first one is you're just out there writing an opinion, you're just responding to a post. Now, if you ask me, there's a better way. A lot of folks, when they write comments on LinkedIn, the natural reaction is you read a post and you want to react to it.

So, I read something by Chris Do, and it's amazing, and Chris Do listed these seven amazing techniques, and I'll write, "Oh, Chris, my favorite was six. That was amazing, thank you." At face value. There's nothing wrong with that comment. You're talking to Chris, very uplifting, very positive, gratitude, all that, cool. Now, the problem is that comment is only for Chris, and Chris has how many impressions per day, per post, 100,000, 200,000, right? So, what you're doing is you're not allowing yourself to be seen by 100,000 more people. So, my approach to LinkedIn commenting was different. The concept I teach and I coach all my clients is never comment for the author, only comment for everyone reading the post. If the post is a movie, your comment should be the post credit scene. Your comment should be in unison, talking to the audience with the main post.

So if Chris had shared his seven strategies, you know what I would do? I would share an eighth one, but I would actually share it in a style of Chris Do, so one-liner introducing it, and then three, four lines breaking it down, and then I would only then would I thank Chris and tell him, "Great post. Thank you, this was amazing," but what I've just done psychologically speaking, what I've done is I have now allowed myself to be in front of more people, more eyeballs, because I'm no longer just having this one dimensional conversation with Chris. I am talking to everyone reading the post, but as we move further down the commenting matrix, what we're doing is we're staying on brand. And this is another thing that we sort of miss out. We'll sometimes say something that's completely not aligned with our personality, with our job, with ourselves, basically with our name.

But what if all those 20, 30, 50 times during the day that you're commenting, every single time people hear from you, they're hearing something valuable. It's like 20, 30, 50 mini posts by Chris Do every single day. And then as we move further down the line, every single time people see you in their feeds, your brand authority increases. And as we move further, people will be intrigued to click on your profile. So out of one comment, especially if you're super early on a post, this is a key thing that I suggest people to do as a bonus, if you can be early on a post, super good, especially on a post by a creator that gets a ton of engagement, a ton of views. If you can be early, that's a huge bonus because then you get to leverage the post's impressions during the whole lifespan, even if it's just 24 or 48 hours.

If that post gets 100,000 impressions, 100,000 views, that's 100,000 potential viewers of your comment because you were there early and you didn't just talk to Chris, you spoke to all of those 100,000 people. So, what that's going to result in is a lot of profile clicks, and then we come back to the first part of the LinkedIn equation, which is profile clarity, Chris, the thing we covered today. If your profile is super clear and you get thousands and tens of thousands of views every single day, inbound, baby. People are clear on what you do. People are clear on if it's for them, and if it is, people are clear on where to click and what to buy. So, this is how the inbound strategy on LinkedIn works for me. I do a lot of very smart, very strategic commenting that allows me to maximize my exposure, maximize my brand authority.

Every single time people see me, I'm teaching something, I'm actually coaching for free. And then when you're on the profile, you're like, "Oh, this is perfect for me. Where do I click? Right here." And as you click there, it takes you to a Calendly booking page, and it's just so easy. So easy to a point where I have to give you this stat, Chris. 90% of the people that book with me, I have never exchanged one message with them, not one. They book with me strictly off of the things that they've read in my content, whether it's posts or the comments, and because the profile was so clear and so targeted towards them. I never exchange a single message, and yet the money keeps rolling in, the book keeps coming in. So to me, that's how I do inbound on LinkedIn. It's really about maximizing your visibility everywhere, but through high quality content. And the other part of the equation, which is the first part of the equation, is a super clear, super targeted profile.

Chris Do:

I love this strategy because I've commented, and again, I do things less intentionally as you do, and I think this particular approach or strategy or hack, if you will, is great because it doesn't matter if you already have a big following. This is key because, "Yeah, well, it's easy for Jay to stay or for Chris. They already have a following. People show up and they're going to engage with your content." So, you could have two followers literally drop some valuable comments as a strategy, and it has multiple benefits for you. One, you're putting yourself in front of a really big audience, which is what Jay was saying, but you're also building a relationship with that content creator. You stand out, you stand apart, and this is kind of interesting because I notice from a creator point of view, when people consistently show up and they're adding to the conversation, I know it's good for me because other people are not going to engage even more with it, so it's helping me out a lot.

But if you do it two, three, four or five times, I'm starting to recognize your face, I see your name, and then oftentimes what I'll do is I'll request the connection, which is really different. You're flipping the whole equation because it's often difficult for you to connect with big creators because they have an inbox. I'm sure it's very full, and they don't know you from Adam, so they're not going to accept it, but if you do it this way, it's more likely they're going to connect with you, which raises your whole profile. Just think about that alone, because LinkedIn works with networks, right? My friends' friends are my friends, and that's how that works, and that's an awesome thing, but it also takes the pressure from you to writing really great content. You say it takes you about an hour. It takes me about two hours to write-

Jasmin Alic:

Oh, it takes me less nowadays, Chris. It takes me way less.

Chris Do:

Because you're a writer, that's why. It's much easier for you.

Jasmin Alic:

My big buddies on LinkedIn are Mr. Luke Matthews and Mrs. Laura Acosta. What we do is we roast each other's posts daily. We'll send each other posts, if they're ready, and then I'll give them feedback, they'll give me feedback. And most of the time, the challenge is sometimes who can write it quicker, but better, and I'm sorry to say for them, I always write the fastest because I used to challenge myself over the years when I was writing copy for clients, especially billboard ads, you're just talking about concepts at that point, because it's super short copy, like two to three words. So, I used to give myself a challenge, how quickly can I write these brand messaging concepts for the next campaign? And it really helps me when I'm writing LinkedIn posts. Up to a point, Chris, where, and this is going to sound so strange, I have zero posts ready for LinkedIn at any point, zero.

I don't have a post for tomorrow, Chris. I don't have any posts ready for this week, next week. I don't have anything ready. I write fresh every single night, and at the soonest I will write my posts the night before and then I'll just schedule them for the morning for 12:30. Very frequently, it just so happens that I have work to do, I have coaching sessions, and I have daddy/son duties in the night. So, I will have to write super early in the morning, but then when I post at 12:30 and at 12:10, I have no posts ready. It kind of gives me this huge pressure, but also this huge boost to want to write. So, sometimes we'll challenge each other, "Who's going to write the fastest?" And I can just whip up a really good, and as Luke says, a super viral post in 10 minutes, and it really takes time.

I always tell people, "Write daily equals write better daily," so it's really not about publishing the content that you write, it's really about practicing daily, daily practice. I hate the phrase, "Practice makes perfect." You can never be perfect. Practice makes better. So, really practicing your writing daily is the key to everything, and by the way, just I wanted to tell you something, the approach you shared regarding making yourself familiar in the comments and then making a connection with a creator regardless of the following size, that's what I call my warm outreach approach. So, I don't do cold outreach at all. We've established that, but what I used to do back in early, early 2022, so when I first started actively posting on LinkedIn, what I would do is I would show up on the same creator's posts every single day. I actually tracked this in a Google Sheet, after 10 interactions, minimum, minimum 10, that was my base, only then would I either reach out via a DMM or-

Jasmin Alic:

... only then would I either reach out via a DM or send them a connection request, not sooner. Because I knew my chances of getting a response were much higher. And I also teach this to people, if you're trying to do cold outreach on LinkedIn, it's risky because everyone's selling something.

Chris Do:

Right.

Jasmin Alic:

And especially if you're doing the InMail thing, you look salesy, you sound salesy. But if you make yourself familiar over a slightly, I say slightly, because two weeks is generally not a long period of time. If you make yourself familiar first and you establish hopefully a relationship with the creator, then when you reach out, it's much higher that you're going to get a response. And they're going to want to be open to listening to your pitch if you have a pitch. They're going to want to work with you, or they might just say, "Hey, you reached out first, I actually wanted to reach out to you." But they never did.

Chris Do:

Right.

Jasmin Alic:

That happens a lot. So I call that my warm outreach approach. So minimum 10 interactions in the comments first. Just make yourself familiar first, and then reach out. Not before 10. Actually track those interactions.

Chris Do:

I made a note here. I wanted to ask you this question.

Jasmin Alic:

Okay.

Chris Do:

What is your most viral post? What was it about? And what are the numbers? How much likes or comments did you get from it? Do you know?

Jasmin Alic:

So I will open up my AuthoredUp analytics. Also, shout out to AuthoredUp, authoredup.com, the best tool for LinkedIn on the market. And their analytics are the best. So Chris, I can give you three different analytics because when you ask me that question for me being a mad scientist on LinkedIn, for me the answer it has to be quite specific.

Chris Do:

Yes.

Jasmin Alic:

Are you asking me about my most liked post, my most commented post or my most reshared post? Because for me, those are all different.

Chris Do:

Let's go with first your most liked post or the most reactions. I don't want to say liked because there's different reactions, the one that has the highest reactions.

Jasmin Alic:

So you'd be surprised, but I've never crossed 10K on a post. The most I have is my LinkedIn formatting guide, and it had 2 million views and it had 9.5, so 9,500 likes.

Chris Do:

That's a lot.

Jasmin Alic:

That's a lot.

Chris Do:

That's a lot. A million views you said?

Jasmin Alic:

2 million.

Chris Do:

2 million views?

Jasmin Alic:

2 million views on that, yeah.

Chris Do:

Dang.

Jasmin Alic:

On a freaking carousel, Chris, imagine that.

Chris Do:

That's very good. It's a very good carousel though.

Jasmin Alic:

Thank you.

Chris Do:

It makes a lot of sense. And then how many shares did that get or repost?

Jasmin Alic:

That got 602 shares.

Chris Do:

That's a lot. That explains.

Jasmin Alic:

My most reshared post is actually something I shared just five months ago, and it was about accessibility and inclusion on LinkedIn. I don't know if you read that post. I repurposed it just a couple of weeks ago. What I was talking about, Chris, was I came across this research by WHO, World Health Organization. And it was referenced in this HootSuite. So HootSuite, HubSpot, all the social media tools. Hootsuite had this marketing report and it said that over third of the world's population has some either hearing or site impairment. I don't want to say disability because it's a tough word. So people have trouble reading your posts. A third of the world's population.

And I was looking at what I have experience in terms of psychology and reading psychology. I was looking at other research online. So I shared my, I think either seven or 10 tips of how you can make your posts accessible. How to use emojis. Do you use them at all? Or if you do, where to use them. The reason for this is Chris, for the people who can't see your posts, they rely on these either software or tools like physical tools called screen readers. So the tool has to read the text out loud, but the problem is, as soon as you format your posts, for example, you bold certain things, you make it italic or you use weird symbols, the screen reader can't verbalize it. If you've bolded a line, a one-liner on LinkedIn, it wouldn't recognize it as bold. Just because LinkedIn doesn't have that bold as a text, it actually turns it into what we call Unicode, Unicode format. And Unicode isn't text, Unicode is symbols.

So when you turn it bold, it becomes Unicode. And when screen readers read it... Nowadays, they're getting better with AI. They can recognize Unicode and verbalize it into actual words. But for the most part they can't. And for a lot of people, it's a huge problem. It's just going to sound like gibberish. It's not even going to sound like language. So I've shared this entire post about how to format your posts. So no bolding, no italics. When you use emojis, use them at the end of a line, not at the beginning. So at the end of a line. Because then it's going to verbalize an emoji like raising hands. You know the emoji.

Chris Do:

Yeah.

Jasmin Alic:

So then it's going to verbalize it like that. Different things like using acronyms. LOL is good because it's so universal and familiar. But if you capitalize an entire word like T-H-I-S. Like, this is the biggest... That's how it's actually going to read it out loud. It's going to tell that person is going to be reading, "Yeah, Chris, but T-H-I-S is the biggest...

Chris Do:

Oh I know.

Jasmin Alic:

It just sounds weird. So I posted this and it got a super huge response, Chris. It was shared 1,200 times.

Chris Do:

Wow.

Jasmin Alic:

Yes, that's 1,191 re-shares. It had 1,354 comments, and it had seven K likes on a post, and it had 700,000 views, almost a milli. So it's amazing what we think you do you know. And my most commented, while we're on the topic, I actually want to see this. Holy moly. I actually did not know this, Chris. This is new for me.

Chris Do:

Okay.

Jasmin Alic:

My most commented post has 2,359 comments. And it is a post about, it's called, the commenting rule I teach all my clients, re-hook, it takes less than two minutes. You see how the psychology of the re-hook works now?

Chris Do:

I see where you go with this, yes.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah, exactly. So the post had, let me open it up actually. I can actually read the post out loud, Chris, if you don't mind. It's actually quite-

Chris Do:

Read it.

Jasmin Alic:

... the lesson, quite the approach. It had 1.8K reactions, 2.4K comments, and 50 repost only. So it says, the commenting rule I teach all my clients, it takes less than two minutes. The rule is never comment on one post just once. Instead, number one, leave one main comment and make it good. This is the stuff we've already covered earlier on the show. And number two is leave three more replies to others' comments and get up to four X profile views every single day. More views means more leads, more followers, more conversations, and more potential clients. One plus three. That's the strategy. Happy commenting, LinkedIn. PS, try it out here. And then people were just doing the one plus three underneath that post.

Chris Do:

Oh, you are a snake. You're a snake because you taught them something and then you told them what to do, and then of course they did it. So that blows up your post too.

Jasmin Alic:

Of course it does.

Chris Do:

I've seen you do this many times.

Jasmin Alic:

What do you think we're doing here?

Chris Do:

Very clever. I saw you do this on your LinkedIn live, which you said, "I'm going to answer 100 questions today."

Jasmin Alic:

And we did.

Chris Do:

And you said, "What's your question?" I saw that. And then you're commenting on your LinkedIn live event, which usually doesn't get that reach. Had a ridiculous amount of comments on it because, I said, "Well, what's Jay doing? I don't understand." Of course-

Jasmin Alic:

It's funny that you mention it. Every post that we write, at least in the last, I would say in the last seven months, every post has gotten 1,000 comments minimum. And I actually tested this out, Chris. I say this as objectively as I possibly can because to me it's just infathomable, like it's crazy. It's insane to even say it out loud. It genuinely is. I look at my profile and my brand completely objectively, Chris. I just look at some of these things and I can say that they're crazy. It's nuts that these numbers are here. So I actually tested this out. I wanted to hire a VA and they had a test run, and it took them anywhere from eight to nine hours on average per day to respond to all my comments on every single post. And the average comment count when they responded was 1.8 to 1,900 every single day.

Now, the problem with that, Chris is, that was only because they managed to respond to all the comments that were already there. So that was like at the end of the day. If they had done it every single day consistently, the more you respond, the more LinkedIn boosts your posts. So the overall numbers would've been even higher, which to me is just, it blows my mind to this day. Imagine getting 2,000 comments on every single post every single day. It's just humanly impossible to catch up with that. So I'm very proud of the culture that I've built and the comments on my LinkedIn on the brand, just because I feel like... And I've spoken to people about this. I'm very in touch with my community, which makes me proud to launch this master class finally. I've built this community on LinkedIn where people feel welcome to chat without me. I know you were one person in the past, Chris. You were talking about I don't know how many stages of brand building, and the last one was delight. Remember that conversation you had with someone?

Chris Do:

Yeah.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah. I feel like for me, that's what the commenting on my profile on LinkedIn is. I don't have to be there for people to still leave 1,000 comments. I've built this culture on my brand where people support each other, they talk to each other, they essentially carry every post even without me there. But the fact that I am there in their words, "big creator," responding every single day, showing up, still sharing 100% of what he knows. That's a delight on top of what we've built. And it just makes me so happy and so proud, Chris. I feel like I've never said this out loud. This is the first time I'm actually saying it to myself and to the audience, like it makes me proud, especially as someone who's coming from where I'm coming from.

I feel like we haven't even touched on that. I'm coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, man. It's a country with less than 4 million people. Most people have not even heard about Bosnia. I need a visa in 99% of countries wherever I travel other than Europe. It's like the funniest thing. And there you go. You have this global presence, people from all around the world, Fortune 500 companies, millionaires and billionaires. You work with all these people and you help them grow? How? Just by sharing what has worked for you? It's crazy. It's the simplest, but also the craziest thing ever. And when I genuinely say anyone can do it, I really mean anyone can do it. And I don't say this just to sound motivational for the listeners. I genuinely feel like if you apply the strategies that have worked already for others and just tweak it a little bit for yourself, and if you go into it with the right intentions, it's not all about monetization.

It's truly about changing lives. And over the years, I've learned that. Honestly, we are truly out there. Every post can change a person's life. Heck, I received a message from someone saying, they quit a job for me. I quit my job because of you. And I'm like, "Why?" My my genuine answer was, why would you do it? And they're like, you've taught me so much and I've applied all of your strategies, the commenting, the inbound, and this, and I'm getting my own clients and I can quit my job finally. And I'm like, at that point, Chris, I realized we're not just out here writing posts and trying to get maximum reach. We're actually changing lives out there. And it's the most amazing, but also the craziest, the spookiest thing ever. And I'm not happy. I'm proud and I'm happy, honestly.

Chris Do:

It's very validating. It's heartwarming. And it goes to this thing where somebody told me this because I've mentioned this a couple of times. I'm a comics book guy. So Stanley writes this line, with great power comes great responsibility. And I would say that quite often. And then they say, "No, Chris, it's actually with great responsibility comes great power."

Jasmin Alic:

That's good.

Chris Do:

So here you are taking on this thing, and it is very... I just want to say to our audience, it's very meta because Jasmin is like the commenting guy, the commenting guru, the guy who made it popular on LinkedIn that he's known for. So of course the audience he builds is going to want to comment because that's the strategy in which you lead in. But when you do something good, you track the right kinds of people, especially if you're writing this dear son thing, and you're sending this message of positivity, you're empowering folks to achieve their dreams. The community that forms is really tight and they're positive people because you're a positive person.

So people would say in my post, like, "I'm here for the comments. Chris, it's nice to know you, but I'm really here for the comments because I get to see my friends and we're interacting. We're asking each other questions." And I get to stand back just like you, a little bit of a proud papa like, hey, this is very humbling. It's so cool to see. It's so neat that you guys are going to play with each other and I just made the sandbox big enough for all of us to play in. And you're a guy from Bosnia. I'm a guy originally from Vietnam, and here we are making an impact on the skin which it's unfathomable and it's such a nice feather in our caps. Congratulations to you.

Jasmin Alic:

Hey man, thank you. And coming from you, by the way, I need to give you your flowers. We've spoken in the DMs and in the comments in particular, but I've never told you in person how much of an impact you've had on me directly, Chris. I go way back to when you first started creating content on YouTube. I remember those early videos.

Chris Do:

Oh, wow.

Jasmin Alic:

I remember those. I remember those first workshops, the Melinda Mivzie's of the world. I remember the freaking making a brand, Building a Brand documentary that you did and all that. All of those early future pro workshops that you and Mo would have. You would go at each other's throats and all that. Yeah. I remember all of those. And let me tell you, you have shaped me as a businessman more than any other person I know. And the book that you have the Pocket Full Of Do, the collection of insights and messages you have in there. It has been my favorite thing ever.

Chris Do:

Oh, thank you so much.

Jasmin Alic:

I've told everybody about the book. Pocket Full Of Do it's possibly my favorite book ever. I don't want to say it to your face just so you don't get all Hollywood on me, but...

Chris Do:

Sorry, my cap got a little tighter. I don't know why.

Jasmin Alic:

Yeah. Exactly. But no, seriously, I just wanted to say thank you. And everyone who knows me knows how much I admire you and how much I've followed you over the years and how much I've learned from you. So it's a good things coming full circle moment for me right here, right now. Thank you for that.

Chris Do:

Well, thank you so much, man, for saying that. I've been talking to Jasmin, otherwise known as Hey Jay. And he does incredible things on LinkedIn. You owe yourself a favor. If you've got any value, and I don't know how you would not get value from our conversation today. Go on LinkedIn immediately, give him follow. It's Jasmin Alic, and you can look them up and of course we'll include it in the show notes. And there's things that we didn't even get a chance to talk about. So I'm going to tease all of you here. Not only does he go into the writing tips and very easy bite-sized ways to understand it, he gets into formatting. So now we're just not talking about the words, but how to format it so that people look at it-

Jasmin Alic:

Visually format and mind you, visually.

Chris Do:

Visually. Like here he as a writer, thinking about how it breaks and how it looks on screen so you have maximum opportunity for people to look at it. And here's a really cool part. Once you get into the rhythm, he and I and other people on platforms like this are able to grow our following from 100 to 1,000 people every day. Every single day, even on days that we don't create content. And we didn't get to talk about reasons why he believes building a personal brand is important. He gives 17 spectacular reasons. Read that post and read everything else that he's got out there. He spends a lot of time in theory, because you said only a couple of hours or 15 minutes in writing these powerful, easy to consume, highly actionable things on LinkedIn. Before I let you go, you mentioned a couple of tools. So I want to go over the tools real quick with you. Okay. You mentioned AuthoredUp for analytics.

Jasmin Alic:

AuthoredUp for post formatting, post previewing and analytics. Literally the only LinkedIn tool I use. When people ask me what LinkedIn toolkit I have, I literally just mention AuthoredUp, and that's it.

Chris Do:

That's it.

Jasmin Alic:

That's it.

Chris Do:

Do you use something for scheduling?

Jasmin Alic:

AuthoredUp actually has LinkedIn's native scheduling built in.

Chris Do:

There you go again.

Jasmin Alic:

So you won't get banned, you won't get suspended.

Chris Do:

Beautiful. And if you need to have a couple of more profile images, you can use sectalabs.ai, right?

Jasmin Alic:

Yes. sectalabs.ai. I believe that's the website. It's actually super good for headshots. So if you're someone who can't afford paying 500, $1,000, however much it costs in your area to go to professional photo studio and get your headshots, Secta will actually give you 300 plus headshots and you can just pick and choose. And you can also customize them. You can instruct the AI to change your facial expression, your outfit, your background, whatever.

Chris Do:

Any other tools that you want to mention?

Jasmin Alic:

Well, I used this tool, it's actually a pretty weird Chrome extension called Edit Anything. And when I was on your profile, I was actually editing the text in real time, Chris. So I use this Edit Anything extension a lot with my clients when I'm doing live demos. I use this a lot on my workshops. So if I'm doing a website review session for copywriting clients and I am reviewing their website, I will actually open up the website and it's just this quick toggle on and off in the extensions tab on Chrome. When you turn it on, it recognizes any and all text, literally any text in the browser. And you can just click on it in edit in real time. And it's actually responsive. If you're using a web builder like Squarespace, Webflow, it will actually move the page up and down if your copy gets longer or shorter. It's amazing.

Chris Do:

Wow.

Jasmin Alic:

So I suggest this tool a lot to early stage freelancers, especially folks who don't have a strong portfolio, so they don't have a lot of experience. So what I tell them is, you can go and do mock projects. This is a quick little freelancing tip for a lot of folks who are struggling to build portfolios. So what I tell them is you can do mock projects. Let's say you go to apple.com, you go to their website. And what you can do is turn the extension on, rewrite Apple's website and take a screenshot of the entire website and put it in your portfolio. Just highlight the fact that it's a mock project. But the fact is, the projects in your portfolio don't have to be real. Your skill and your talent has to be real. So you only have to demonstrate to the client that you can do it.

The fact that you still haven't gotten any clients that they're going to be your first, that's completely irrelevant. But the fact that you have shown that you can take a real world piece of product out there and make it your own, that goes a long way into getting and signing a client. So Edit Anything, that's what it's called. It's actually written together, no spaces in between. That's a Chrome extension, and it works like a charm. I use it a lot in my workshops. And every single time I use it, Chris, people are like, "What are you doing? Are you hacking my profile?" And I'm like, "No. I'm not. I'm literally just using an extension." I'm telling you, I'll do this a lot with LinkedIn headlines when I'm rewriting it.

A profile with people live on a call, I'll turn this on, and then I'll just tell them, "Yeah, let me just check how this headline would sound like." And then they're just giving me a look like, "What's going on? What are you doing on my profile? Am I going to get banned? No, it's just an extension." But yeah, it's a cool extension. So AuthoredUp, Secta Labs, Edit Anything. That's literally it. I don't use a lot of tools. I try to keep it simple. I try to keep it clean. Yeah, that's all the tools I use.

Chris Do:

Wonderful. Look, we can't even get a tools list from you without you adding more value to this. Because what you said there for outreach, I get hit up by a lot of writers. People are like, "Oh, I can fix all your stuff." I'm like, "I don't know." So they literally could go in edit anything, and then just send that to me and say, "Look, here's my take on it."

Jasmin Alic:

Exactly.

Chris Do:

If you want to have a conversation, let's have a conversation.

Jasmin Alic:

Show don't tell, right?

Chris Do:

That's right. Lead with value. It's beautiful. Love it. Wow. Okay. I know again talk to you for a whole lot longer. You have to eat. I have to eat. We have to rest up for our next thing. And I'm going to encourage everybody once again to go give you a follow on LinkedIn. Everybody just do that right now. And I want to wish you and your boy an early happy birthday.

Jasmin Alic:

Thank you, man. Really means a lot. And also, thank you for the conversation, Chris. Like I said, it's a things coming full-circle moment for me, so I'm glad to be here. And I hope this isn't the last time you and I talk.

Chris Do:

Absolutely. It's not going to be the last time, for sure.

Jasmin Alic:

My name is Jasmin Alic, and you're listening to The Futur.

Stewart Schuster:

Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week. The Futur podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced by me, Stewart Schuster. Thank you to Anthony Barro for editing and mixing this episode. And thank you to Adam Sanborne for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts. It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. Have a question for Chris or me, head over to thefutur.com/heychris, and ask away. We read every submission and we just might answer yours in a later episode. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefutur.com. You'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and creative business. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.

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