Lessons - The LinkedIn Strategy That Attracts High-Value Opportunities | Lara Acosta - Social Selling Authority

In this lessons episode, discover how to stand out on LinkedIn by leveraging creative storytelling and innovative frameworks. Learn why mastering pattern interrupts and fostering genuine connections is key to captivating your audience and understand how maintaining relentless momentum can elevate your digital presence. Is there a way that you communicate or write on LinkedIn so that people do remember? Do you have a style or writing style, content delivery, teacher pass self? I love that. But how do they make sure that how do you stand out? I guess it's the best way to put it. Stories. So I have this amazing framework that me and my friends developed when I was like just clapping to them. I was like, yes, at least this framework. I'm going to like Laura, that's a slay. You know, slay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. I've got 40-year-old men saying slay on the night of all the girls. And it starts with a story, lesson, action or piece of advice, and then you turn into a you. The thing that makes this work specifically is that when you tell a story naturally and by science people remember stories better. Then you educate them on the back end of that. Then he makes them feel like they understand your point of view and why you done it. And the results you got and then how they can achieve the same goal by applying that same framework. So if I say here's exactly how to write a good hook. This is what I used for my clients over the last 20 years. And I made over 10 million doing this. I indicate how to write a good hook. And then you're like, how do you find this? Are you having problems writing a hook? You're giving them different entry points to understanding your thought process. And if they can't relate to the framework itself, maybe they can relate to the story or maybe they can relate to the question. So giving people different animals to end their own. Because I don't understand every market to understand the different top of our middle funnel, bottom of funnel. Every post acts exactly the same in itself. So how can I get people's interest? And how can I funnel them onto me and who I am in their interest? So that's what we do with a slay framework. If I look at, I guess the other big, the only other big creator I know on LinkedIn be Justin Welch. Nothing. I love Justin. I mean, he comes from a very similar background to me. So he was the hero of I think patient pop. And that was like a medical software company. And then he just like burnt out and left. And now I think he runs a, I think his business is doing over three million in just selling courses about LinkedIn. So if people are very in the weeds and they know Justin and they know you as well. What? Yeah. What are the differences and similarities between his strategy versus how you grow and how you write? I think I'm a little bit more personal than Justin. Justin is very factual and very logical. And he appeals to like that systematic brain that I don't do not have. When I was creating my own digital products, I was like looking at Justin. I don't have them. But I've had the entire system. He delivers the process. I am not logical whatsoever. I am a creative like night for my brain. Like a lot of brain by brain thing. Yeah. So I had to figure out a way to make it work for me without the systems, without the template, all of these things. So what I do is the storytelling emotion based. But logically. And how can we use psychology to create interest for a customer or audience? So more story based. A lot of frameworks involved. But it's all about how can you say something from your point of view that Chad GPD can't say itself. And to do that, I want to talk about psychology in a second. But to do that, I'm assuming you have to bring in lived experience. Yes. No. And that's where you get in the trouble if you're talking about things you haven't done before. Because you can't bring an experience into that. And I think that's the most beautiful thing about building a parcel ride, especially for someone that's young, ambitious, or doesn't even know what they want to do is you are forced to go ahead and have to live those experiences. So then you can talk about them. I personally think that I wouldn't be where I am if I wasn't driven by a chipmunk shoulder of jealousy, of all the people seeing all the people doing the thing that I wanted to do. First, talking about social media second, and then getting praised for it. Like I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, me. So I went ahead and got all that experience so that I could talk about it online. And then be like, no, I actually know what I'm doing. I have a master's degree and they just told marketing. And then all the time I saw I was talking on those experiences to talk about social media. And now obviously I put myself every single month. I forced myself out of my comfort zone in my house. And I'm like, I go to three events so I can then talk about those experiences. I do work for free for clients as well. Even though I don't need to, I get more experiences with different types of people. So then I can talk about things, I go to conferences, so 100%. I can talk about architect environments that you're going to do something that's going to turn into content. Everything is content. And that is the creator mindset. Like every single thing we do in our lives can be turning into content as long as it's in alignment and is relevant to your audience. So this right here for me is piece of content right now. Taking my mom to Miami right now. It's a piece of content itself because it talks about being an entrepreneur, remote work, productivity, conversations. So when you turn that lens off, how can I use my daily experiences to actually create content that is relevant to someone that either aspires to be me, which is most followers or wants to work with me, then everything becomes simpler. I have to ask, has there been anything that you've learned in your master's degree that you actually apply in your day to day? I'm so curious. I learnt a lot about just doing whatever the fuck I wanted. So I got bored at uni when it came to essay writing. And I was like, I have nothing to lose if I fail. That's fine. Like whatever. So for essays, I turn the essays into self case studies of my current interest. So we had to do this essay for a marketing module was talk about social media in a very boring way. And I was like, no, liver king has been canceled right now. I want to talk about liver king and how it's affecting the socio economic impact of the United States and how this empire is pulling. So I turn the entire essay into a speech, a TikTok. I love that. And I remember my teachers just kept on me like, what? Why? But they passed me because they gave me points for creativity. And then I think that pursuit of winning the game, like hacking it and getting my way around it was so exhilarating because I was like, I could leave a fail read about me and I could win really hot. And I did. So shout out to the teachers that didn't fail me for like my ambitious pursuits on my random rabbit holes. By the way, like finding ways around or hacking the system. I mean, that's how entrepreneurs all win. I was listening to one of your YouTube videos. And I think it was something along the lines of like seven. Once I pulled all the titles of like the videos that I thought were interesting. Yeah, seven LinkedIn hacks that are so good. They feel illegal. Now, I'm not going to lie. I listened to the first one. And then I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to ask her about this live because I think they're so fast. I think the first one was times on hack. Yes. So if you post, then you have to repost it. I don't even know you could repost on LinkedIn. Which is like, I can tell that I'm. No one knows. But my knowledge is a little bit dated. It's a lead knowledge. The lead knowledge. Because you said that you got 20% boost in impressions or views or something. For people that are listening, what are some of these hacks that you've discovered? And you can talk about LinkedIn specifically because this is where you play. But if you have things that's idling, then that's great too. But something like that is so niche and so nuance. Listen, I create more content than probably like 99% of people on this earth. And I did not know that. And I was like, when I heard that, I'll make shit. Yes. Let's chat. Do it. Yeah. Do it. Really good. Come on. No, because there's not many people that study and learn to that degree. And it's hard for a business owner that has to figure out like 50 different marketing channels. That on LinkedIn. But I think that's the most valuable because that's where you can. That's that leverage that little bit that you can really use to sort of stand out amongst everyone else. The best LinkedIn hack anyone could use is master the art of the pattern interrupt. So we have this collaborative articles that came out on LinkedIn last year. And if you collaborate and you write in these articles, you get a little badge, right? Me and my friends couldn't get them. So what we did next and one of my friends look back is discovered this is. You start writing stuff that actually makes no sense to what you're being asked in this collaborative article. So the collaborative article would be like, how do you increase client retention in 2025? And instead of saying like, oh, you increase client retention because like this way, this way, you'll be like, you don't. It sucks. Fire everyone. Live a life that you want. Whatever. And that creates a pattern interrupt because whenever anyone scrolling on LinkedIn, they expect the same boring mundane type of thing. And when you have something as polarizing as don't fight on type team, you get them and get to engaging with you in a different way. LinkedIn people are in the mindset of just learning and thinking, okay, there's going to be a little bit of straw like boring. When you introduce them to something that makes them laugh and makes them react a different way, then they form this connection with you that nothing else could build. And that is why we partner interrupt so they can remember us. And you create, if you're creating a positive reaction or even negative, it's a win for you. Hence why people who are polarizing, let's say, annotate, um, lip balm, uh, whoever these like, uh, round card don't even. Uh, that's why they stand out the most because they stand out by being polarizing and breaking patterns. I remember this ad that grand card on hard with like burning a hundred dollar bill. So why did he do that? To break a pattern of like, you can't burn money. Oh yeah, no, I'm going to do it. So the same on LinkedIn and every social media, if you're able to partner interrupt anywhere, it works. So that's the biggest hack. The second one I would say is mastering the art of connection. People are forgetting that LinkedIn is a networking platform and they think there's just a B2B business platform where people just post themselves. LinkedIn is naturally a networking platform where you get to connect with people. That's exactly what the thing is called connect. You don't follow you connect with someone and send them a connection request. I see LinkedIn as the biggest event in the world that never sleeps is a 24 hour networking event. And you get a chance to read someone else every single day at any time in the day. So the best thing you can do is be prepared to have an honest and kind conversation with someone, not with the aim to sell but the aim to connect. And then once you master that, you can create true connections that they support you. They may buy from you in the long term, but the idea is to not burn connections down just for the sake of selling your product. Which is something that LinkedIn server was a lot. There's a lot of culpaching. Obviously you probably get so many emails like, do you need this product that you need? No. But then if you approach it like, hey, really like your post about your car, I also have a car. Do you guys do you want to have a car date? Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. That's cool. I'll give you the funny example and then we can move on. But you can get more acts by the way. That one's going to complain. I was so bored a few months ago with LinkedIn and I get bored. Like I want to perform about 10 hours a day. So me and my friends always like me. I have I'm lucky that I'm friends with all nerds and we all like nodding out trying to hack LinkedIn and seeing what's new. And I was like, okay, I'm going to send more DMs to see what's the most optimal way to for my clients to send connection requests and get accepted. Right. And so I saw this guy on the gym because always the connection requests are so boring like, hey, we love to connect. Exchange synergies. Born. Hey, we love to connect boring. Hey, so you think boring like no one cares. Pattern interrupt. I saw this demo and send them a connection request. How much do you bend? That's good. He did. I don't think he was splattered. He was probably a bit confused. However, six months later, he sent me a message. Hey, Laura would love to have you as a keynote speaker for a event. It works. It works. You stood out. You wouldn't have gotten that. He wouldn't have gotten that. Didn't say some ridiculous. Exactly. Exactly. And I think people take themselves way too seriously on LinkedIn. And you showed 100% like your brand is like super important position is important. But if you do this once in a while where you're just like just trying things out, it may actually turn out the best way. I don't. I think there's a big difference between being an asshole on social media and just being. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. Asking how much somebody benches is not in a room. It's not going to ruin your brand. It's like people are going to cancel you for asking how much you bench. I would love if anybody slid into my LinkedIn DMs with anything more than like three paragraphs of text asking me and like a loom video. I can't stand LinkedIn. I love it, but I hate it at the same time because it's just so. It's so like a robotic nerdy. It's just too much. And I like nerdy. Don't get me wrong. I like learning. But there's very few people that I actually like reading their content. I don't think it's not. I think it's Chelsea. Yes, that's it. It's not a better answer. A better way to describe it. It's and the DMs are just horrible. They're absolutely horrible. Nobody puts any effort into it. And I can tell everyone can tell. And I read all of them. But it makes it easy for you and me that know what we're doing to actually stand up. Yes. I get this on Twitter more than LinkedIn, but it's like, hey, name. Are you interested in product for your inside business? Like actually saying getting send the templates of that. This is my competition in your competition. Like if you're able to beat these type of people, you're going to win regardless. Because people are lazy. They think business is easy and hence why people fail. I never thought it was going to be easy. I actually always saw it as the hardest thing in the world. And why I never wanted to do it. So even being able to do this now for a living and like never take it for granted, never really let drop the ball. One of my biggest lessons from one of my mentors, Richard Moore, he said never drop the ball. And that I take so seriously. What do you, what do you think he means by that? It's all about momentum. You don't drop the ball when it feels like it's easy. You don't drop the ball when you made it when you made it. It's exactly when you're about to crash. So you keep on going and you keep on going. You don't stop. I never, ever, ever disrespect momentum. It is the one thing that I value the highest. So today, I just launched this product as a course. I hadn't slept for like three weeks. And people kept on asking me, how are you going to celebrate because you launched it? Work. To some people, I might seem a worker, a worker, and that's fine. I identify myself as one. It's probably the highest compliment someone could give me because I think I look at my dad now in his grow. And I'm just not, I'm not letting the thing go. I once didn't have the opportunity to be here. So why would I drop the ball when it's actually just bouncing at his highest? No way. I absolutely love that. I've never heard it said like that, but I don't disrespect momentum. That hits that really hit. And then from this book, the compound effect, where you like, you compound wins slowly, slowly over time. And then once you get the wind of it, people just drop the ball because it feels like they won. And that's what people found. That's why so many celebrities like kind of like make it and then don't. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one. you