Produced By - Failing Agency to Thriving Nomad: The LinkedIn Content Revolution | #87: Nick Broekema

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Nick Broekema is an entrepreneur and content creator who transformed his approach to business after six challenging years running a design agency. Frustrated by inconsistent leads and the feast-or-famine cycle, he pivoted in 2022 to focus on building a steady stream of clients through Content Design for LinkedIn. By creating strategic content, he not only grew his own reputation but also helped freelancers, founders, and CEOs establish powerful LinkedIn presences that consistently generate leads. In this episode, Nick shares how he built an audience of over 50k LinkedIn followers and turned content creation into a reliable growth engine. He opens up about his journey to balancing work, family life, and personal passions as a digital nomad. Tune in for valuable insights on crafting content that attracts your ideal audience, building genuine connections, and standing out on LinkedIn to create a thriving community around your brand. Connect with Nick: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/nbroekema/⁠ ⁠https://linktr.ee/nickbroekema⁠ Connect with Tommen: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠  Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠  X: ⁠⁠https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠  Podcast: Links: ⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠  Support: ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ProducedByPodcast⁠⁠  Produced (email newsletter): ⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/ More: Trailblazed (marketing agency): ⁠⁠https://trailblazed.digital/⁠⁠  EpiXtory (podcasting agency): ⁠⁠https://www.epixtory.digital/⁠ Produced (LinkedIn newsletter): ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7092551882589528065⁠⁠⁠  Produced By with Tommen is your weekly dose of inspiration where ambition meets creativity. Join us as we dive into the journeys of content creators, entrepreneurs, and other remarkable individuals who break barriers and redefine success. Each episode shares unique stories, challenges, and triumphs. From heartfelt struggles to incredible successes, these conversations will motivate you to push beyond your limits and chase your own dreams. Whether you're on a creative path or just love great stories, tune in and become part of a community that constantly strives to push the boundaries. Sit back, relax and enjoy. Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I think it was in July 22, 22 that I did my first thing thing post, which was paired with a lot of anxiety. Before that, I built and sold an agency in 2018. We had for about six years along with a small team. I've done consulting in design. I've done freelancing in design. And when it was 2022, I thought I am ready for business mentoring because I had all of this experience under my belt. I just had one problem because I didn't know anything about business mentoring other than

sharing my experiences. So sharing my experiences was exactly what I was doing. And for the first four months, I didn't do sales. I was struggling a lot with content. And that was a huge problem for me. It took me another few months to really figure out how I could create content that X leads. And that's basically how I turned my problem into a solution and that I was still providing

today. Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you. Hello, Nick. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I can imagine Nick that probably the majority of people are well familiar with you,

but in case there is someone who doesn't know it, can you please introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. I'm Nick. I'm 36 years old. I live in Amsterdam with my family. I've got a girlfriend and a two-year-old daughter. And I think it was in July 22, 22, that I did my first thing thing post, which was very, was paired with a lot of anxiety.

Before that, I built and sold an agency in 2018. We had it for about six years along with a small team. I've done consulting in design. I've done freelancing in design. And when it was 22, I thought I am ready for business mentoring because I had all of this experience under my wing, under my belt, I should say. And it was time to do something else with it other than just selling my time to clients. I just had one problem because I didn't know anything about business mentoring other than sharing

my experiences. So sharing my experiences was exactly what I was doing. And for the first three, four months, I didn't do like sales. I was struggling a lot with content. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to write. And that was a huge problem for me. And I had to solve that problem because I had to get a kid out of way.

And I really wanted to make this creator thing work. So it took me another few months to really figure out how I could create content that X leads. And that's basically how I turned my problem into a solution. that I are still providing today to my clients. Given the fact that I've still had a design background, I also utilized this in my content. And yeah, I tend to say that joining LinkedIn this way was at, let's say, the age of 34 back then,

like two years ago was probably the best business decision that I've made, but also the worst one in terms of how late I started. Yeah, it's a funny coincidence that I think I read actually posts a day, just as we are recorded, you posted that you started when you are 34 years old. So I think it's a great example for people who think that they start late because you often see the posts that people talk about it. So they can see that it's never late, right? They were too late. I've seen older people, let's say, like 50 or 60 years old, joining the content game. I think it's amazing because anybody with a little bit of a little bit of.

experience or with a skill set or expertise, they can join this. And I think there's always an audience that are just a few steps behind them. And they want to learn from them. Yeah. And actually, in the first place, why have you chosen LinkedIn as your main platform? So I considered Instagram, but it seemed very saturated. I also thought about TikTok, but I felt too old for it. And I was really comfortable for in front of the camera back then still not really to be honest but i was already pretty active as a lurker on lincoln and then i thought you know this is a business platform i kind of like the five i kind of like what i'm seeing from other people like back then was like just in welsh and met barker and jasmine allege um all those people were like doing the

creator thing and then i thought okay this kind of resonates with me i'm going to do to try to do the same thing. So were there actually the people that you learn from in the beginning? Because for my experience, I haven't started back then. I think I knew what was LinkedIn, but for me, it was maybe just just CV to update once in a year. So I don't really know what the scene was like. So for you, where are actually people to, you know, to follow to learn from? So the LinkedIn that I remember when I was a bit younger was very corporate.

a lot of people sharing like company and job milestones saying stuff like thrill to announce my new job at company XYZ CEOs sharing block articles and recruiters and salespeople and stuff. So that's how I initially thought LinkedIn was. But when I saw people like Justin Welsh, I thought this is actually content that resonates with me a lot better because they basically try to tell people that, They explained how to write online on LinkedIn and how you can basically use it to build your business. So I would just devour every newsletter that Justin Welsh had because it was just so informative, a lot of course on building a content creation matrix, I think. And yeah, I paid attention to you guys like Matt Barker and Jasmine Alec and a few others.

Those are the first people that come to mind. and it was amazing because they just shared everything for free and it was very insightful and it honestly helped me to create my first post and get the confidence that I needed but also the structure and text formatting and the writing so it was really helpful yeah and back then did you have an idea or a vision that one day you will be one of the people who are on such a level you know that you will have such a audience such a great post and so many people will be learning from you? Yes, I know.

So I had pretty big goals. I thought when I saw Justin Wells, I thought, okay, I don't care how long it's going to take, but my goal is to be among those guys, which I'm not sure if I'm going to be one of those guys, but I see myself end up at an inner circle or a group of people who are like me, and I've done this thing for the same amount of time that I've done doing. So I was really ambitious about it. And I also thought, I'm just going to do this. I'm never going to stop regardless.

So I was pretty like my expectations in the beginning were very low. My long term expectations are very high. And it's been two years. Like I'm not the fastest grower in terms of following. But I am happy where it is. And I tend to think that every quarter, so let's say every three months, you kind of unlock a new kind of reward, then the rewards they just get better.

Like, it's reward is basically just the opportunity. Like in the beginning, it's mostly coffee dates. And there's people like saying, hey, I like what you do here on LinkedIn. And then you get your first client. And then you get like new offers. And then you get podcasts, show invitations. And then you get invited by big companies to do like a talk or something.

And yeah, it's like they just keep, keeps compounding. It's like, basically like investment, like investing in stocks, for instance, or in the SOP 500. The longer you do like small contributions, the more the compound effect kicks in. And you just mentioned conferences or speaking. So if I'm not mistaken, you did recently one in Berlin. Am I correct? Yeah. Google invited me to talk about getting customers through your LinkedIn presence, which is a really amazing milestone for me.

because in the beginning I was struggling with this myself, obviously, and I tried to turn that into a solution for me, but also for others. And it was a really cool event. It was really really kind that the people were excited about the talk and asked me really good questions. And that was a great experience. What kind of person are you when it comes to public speaking? Comfortable and excited or nervous?

No, nervous, definitely. When I was in college, I was in front of like 200 college kids and they were bored and I didn't want anything to hear about it. But I was saying and then I choked. So I blacked out. I couldn't say anything. And then you saw all these hats like turning towards me because they were bored in the beginning. But now they noticed the silence and they're like, hey, what's going on? So that's what that was the point that I said like, hey, guys, sorry.

I am a little bit nervous. I was able to recoup or to recover and do my thing, but it was pretty traumatizing, I would say. Like, it's, is that something that you want to do, like, in being in front of people? And it's just, like, can't say anything else or can't say anything anymore. So that kind of, like, damaged the confidence. And I think there's this statistic that people rather die than just standing in front of people. and it's really insane. But now, I actually work with a really great public speaking coach.

His name is Vincent Pieri. And I did another in real life event like a year and a half ago. And then I also worked with Pascal Bergman's. So, yeah, I couldn't do this by myself. Like, I have to hire experts to prep me and to help me on this, get me confident and to build a good deck. So I took it really seriously. And I feel like, yeah, one,

Once I stood there, it was just fine. It's always the anxiety until you actually stand on stage. So, yeah, I think it's got to be a goal of mine to do this more often, even though I still get nervous by it. Not going to life when you were saying your experience back at school or back at college, I'm cool to relate and I'm pretty sure that the listeners can find such examples as well. Yeah, because contact creation is one thing. It took me ages to take that plunge, but speaking and sitting in front of multiple people, I think that's even next level.

And out of Christ's since it was in Berlin, was it in English or in German language? It was in English, and everybody could understand it, except for one older gentleman, and they actually gave him a laptop with life subtly. So, but it was, it was, it was in English. My German is pretty rusty. Oh, yeah. But it's still impressive that you speak German. Because if I'm not mistaken, you speak Dutch as well since you heard from there. Yeah, that's just my native tongue.

I lived in Berlin for about six months and I did an internship there. It was 10 years ago. So I like never really learned proper German, but I know my way through a conversation. bit. It's a little deviation from the topic, but do you also speak Spanish? Not yet. I know where this is coming from because I'm like I'm intense move there with my family, but I'm actually looking into getting a language teacher.

I found one like a Spanish teacher. And yeah, also serious about that. I was actually expecting that before in the beginning that you'll introduce yourself as someone who lives in Spain. So how come you don't live there? I thought that you moved there. So here's the thing. So I was born and raised in the Netherlands and I grew up in a small 45,000 people town.

And then when I was 21, I moved to Amsterdam and I lived there until today. But we like remote working. So my girlfriend and I, we went to Cape Town. We actually took our kid to Bali. We spent six months there. we went to Spain and Portugal and now we just spent two months in Spain but with a different vision because we thought we might as well live in another country since we're traveling so much and stay there for the majority of the year versus the other way around and the goal is to go back to Spain in March and then we're going to do some house viewing and then the goal is to find a home, a new home there and then we're going to live there. Were always this type of person who wants to explore the world or wanted to become like a digital

nomad? I would say yes because, yeah, I had a German internship in Berlin. I actually met my girlfriend in Madrid, where I lived for six months as part of the Erasmus program. She happened to live in Amsterdam too, so we're both Dutch and we met each other in Madrid. I traveled through Southeast Asia. I went through Eastern Europe, went, no, six months of Bali, and Cape Town, I went there twice, Mexico.

So yeah, I love, I actually prefer remote working than vacations because then you get the best of both worlds. But once you have a kid, you also need to settle down a little bit. So that's why we thought Bali is not the place to go to because we also want to be close to our relatives and friends. And that's why you thought Spain has a really good climate. And it's pretty close to the Netherlands. So we can easily go there and also get visitors over.

Yeah. And what was the place that you enjoyed the most and why? I would say that I really love Bali. But I also really love Cape Town. So Cape Town for a number of reasons. It's a beautiful place. obviously there's a big gap between the wealthy people and like the people who live there. So it's kind of like, yeah, I would say Cape Town is like, it looks like paradise,

but there's also a bunch of poverty going on. But as a visitor, it is a beautiful place. There's amazing food. People are friendly, beautiful nature. Like you can do sports everywhere. There's like wineries, winery estates in stuff. Delibush and Franschuk. And Bali was just, Bali is like no place else.

It's filled with digital nomads and a lot of people who have online businesses. They're in crypto. They're in real estate. They're like they don't know any, like the people that I met there. And they don't really have limitations to what they want to achieve. Like they really. Different mindset. Different mindset.

Yeah. That's also one of the. reasons why I like to talk to other digital, so digital nomads. Because, yeah, they do what I do. And obviously, like, it's kind of like the law of attraction. It's fun to talk to similar to people, like minor people. And in Bali, it was just, it's very hot. It's very humid.

But, like, everything happens on a scooter. It can be pretty hectic and busy. But there's, there's so much convenience. There's great food everywhere. You can get, like, you can go everywhere by scooter. You can have everything delivered. There's, like, the hospitality everywhere with pools and co-working spaces. Like, in Amsterdam, for instance, you can sit somewhere, and then they tell you, like, yeah, you can sit here with a laptop.

And in Bali, they have, like, power plugs everywhere. And they're like, yeah, just you can sit here the entire day and do some work. And then you can also like go to the pool and have great food. It's affordable. It's also a beautiful place. So I really enjoy it there. But it's like I said, both Cape Town and Bali are kind of too far from the Netherlands. And we want to be accessible.

And also, you know, be able to travel back to the Netherlands quite fast. And I think that's why Spain is on the top of the list, at the top of the list because great climate, the region that we went to was as 330 days of sun, which is insane if you think about it, if you're from Western Europe or Eastern Europe. So, yeah, those are valid points because I spoke before with a few people actually from Cape Tamas, with Sheldon and Matt, and both kind of sold it to me, that it's a beautiful city, so definitely on my list. And also spoke with some people from Bali as well. And of course, no, Bali is a digital nomad paradise.

So the more I hear about it, the more I want to visit or try as well. Definitely recommend that both of them. And for the future, although you've got lots of experience from different places, but have you still got any other places online that you would like to try to live in? I think Spain for now is what we want to do. We want to buy a house there. so it's for like long term and potentially citizenship as well. A long-term goal of mine is to go to the United States and like rent a Mustang and go from

New York City to L.A. or something and just take like four months and just don't only have one suitcase and just like go to motels, visit national parks, like all of them if possible. talk to the people there and I think that's that's why that's on my bucket list I'm not sure whether that's going to be like with kids I only have one but there might be another one

in the upcoming years so I'm not sure I'm not going to pan out but yeah that's definitely on the top list but not for living there or maybe we'll see sounds like a great plan I wish I did the same

so whenever I was in the future and coming back to your LinkedIn presence and LinkedIn journey. I'm pretty sure that people would love to hear something, let's say, about your strategy or about the way that you post on the LinkedIn, you show up or any tips and tricks. So can you tell us maybe more about your strategy on LinkedIn? Yeah, my strategy is pretty basic. So it is actually a lot of lack of strategy because I do content creation on the fly.

Like if I have time in the morning, I'll write something. This morning, I spent two hours on a post that I posted today. And then it also involves like design. So sometimes it takes like a long time to create one post. But what I typically, what I recommend people to do is just write about your stories and experiences in a sense of what you do for who and now it helps them. This is something that I repeat a lot of my content too. Because I think it always attracts the right people. Like there's only a few things that you want on LinkedIn, right?

As a content creator and as a spectator, if you will, that's making money or exploring new opportunities or learning. So if you cover those areas, you're always always golden. So what I tend to do is I always try to keep content design to attract your ideal audience as like my, my compass, if you will, my North Star. And I always try to make it around that. And the best way to be authentic about things is just to write about what you experience

and what you do, what you test, what you experience with, experiment with, regarding that very topic. So I always keep it around that. And it always gives me new followers, people who are happy with the content, new leads, new customers. and I would say it's a very simple framework. I wouldn't even call it a framework. It's just like a simple ideology that anybody could just adopt.

But it's mostly a patient's game, I would say. Like if you do these things right, still it's going to take a few weeks or even a few months to get desirable outcomes. Yeah. I got recently a message from someone asking for some advice or something like that. And when I asked how long he's been like taking LinkedIn more seriously or had some strategy, he said two weeks. So I said, okay, I guess it needs to be a bit longer than just the two weeks. Two weeks, yeah, that's not going to cut it. You need to go through the first three months to make it a habit and not to like to get used to the idea that this is long term.

And like a lot of people will give up before them because they don't have the patience and they feel like, okay, I've been doing this thing for two weeks or two months. Nothing happens, so I probably failed. But good things always take long and this is not an exception. And do you see, let's say, your journey or presence on LinkedIn as a chore or as a fun or a mix of both? Sometimes. I mean, I've written about thousand posts, I would say. like 500 something for myself and I've done some ghost writing. So then I've done a lot of posts for other people.

And then it became really a chore. So even though they had successes and some of them didn't, I'll be honest with that, I was creating like 15, no, it was more like 20 posts a week. And that absolutely trained me. Yeah. I put myself on the back seat. So it was really hard to create contact myself. And yeah, even after two.

years, two plus years. Sometimes it feels like a chore, but then I know that I'm not writing about the right stuff. And the post like today was that gave me lots of energy. You know, I was very happy about the, about the design and creating that design. The copy is like, yeah, it's okay. But that's like sometimes you have a good day. Sometimes you have bad days. So it's very fulfilling, it's very therapeutic. It's like if you share your process and you're

what you're creating, it's also like accountability. So I think in the end, like even if you don't like doing it, sometimes it's still pay out. Like it's still going to be rewarding. And back then when you said that you used to create

so many posts per week, what is it that helped you to start to maybe enjoy that more or to do something different? Did you just decrease the number or did you have any trick or advice how to enjoy it more? So I've always kept the frequency at three to five posts a week. And I think I maybe skipped like three weeks in total. But I didn't really have magic tricks or magic systems or whatever.

So sometimes it's hard in terms of like discipline. and I tried to do like AI posts, didn't really like the outcome. It's very hard to include stories and experiences if you're going to use AI. Not impossible, but I probably just sucked at it. But I think even if you use, like, the most sophisticated systems,

it always comes down to discipline because you actually have to, whatever you use, you always have to give your input. You always have to share what you have in your head. So that's why I think, Writing will always be inevitable and necessary. Are you looking to elevate your online presents? Check out Trailblazed, our digital marketing agency.

Whether it's standing out on social media, crafting a stunning new website or developing impact visuals, Trailblazed has got your back. Visit TrailBased.digital and reach your online potentials a day. And when you spoke about, let's say, the post that you did, Do you also look at the engagement, like, about the comments of the people to see what's the feedback like and then adjust or do other posts accordingly? Yeah, I do, I do a review of posts. Like, you probably know Clio. It's a very, very brilliant tool, and it allows me to analyze my own stuff.

I also use authored up, which is a very sophisticated dashboard, but you can see when a certain post has generated this many, likes or comments or has brought you like this many followers, which is very convenient. I'm not saying that I check that every day, but if I would start out, I would probably do it because now I kind of know what works well, what does it work? I know that if I do an infographic about profile optimization or what to write about, like those were two if graphics that I actually created. And I knew before I hit post, I knew that it would do well. So at some point you know what works well.

It's always the matter of time because creating an infographic like that, it takes me at least four hours. And it also has to also have to create a right to post caption. So it's usually like time. And it's also like the dynamics of being diverse. Like if I would do an infographic every day, it will work. Like I used to do a lot of carousels. Now the carousels, they perform arguably a little bit worse than usual. Sometimes I try to diversify with video.

So, yeah, it's also a process of like trying, analyzing, improving. That's basically what I try to do on repeat. Yeah, I need to try to see what works the best or the most. And just as you spoke about your designs, I can confirm that. I'm one of the fans of your designs because I think I love the colors and the brand in that you always keep. I think it's also quite simplistic design, but always very valuable. So what do you actually use for designer?

I use Figma. I used to create design websites in Figma already. So that was my co-to tool from the beginning. I know that there's Canva. I can't do anything with Canva, to be honest. I pretty sure. I never use it. I provide designs in Canva for clients, for instance, because I have someone who converts

the Figma files to Canva, but I, yeah, I just never use it. And I'm just much quicker in Figma. I'm pretty sure that you can create the same stuff because even though the design stuff that I try to create looks advanced, still mostly color blocks, typography, and arrows. So it's not like complex illustrations or anything. It's always just functional. And I'm pretty sure you can do this anything in Canada too. Yeah.

And I think that when it's simple, it's for me beneficial because I think simplicity is the key. And you don't need to overthink it or at anything too complex to stand out. And we discussed it briefly before or you mentioned like that you don't use as much of AI. and I think I read in one of your posts that sometimes you try a bit of chat GPT. So when it comes to AI tools, what's your take on it? Or besides this, do you use any other tools or do you plan to use any tools? I use Fathom for meetings. So that's like a note taker and creates a transcript of recording, which is really convenient.

I use chat GPT mostly like glorified Google. I use it for proof rating, by the way. I don't always agree with it, but usually when I put out a post and I have some doubts about the text, I just tell like, hey, proofread, and then it just shows me the flaws. Yeah. I've tried a lot for content writing, and it was okay. But the thing is, like I think I addressed this before, you still need to feed it the right information and the right prompts, right? So I know that people don't always agree with this, but if we're talking about stories,

I'm not talking about sob stories or like the typical Humble Brack stuff. I'm talking about real stories that matter for your ideal audience and experiences to show someone how you've done something and that they might want to. So if you have all this information stuck in your head, you're going to need to feed it to chat GPT or Claude or whatever, like whatever, then you might as well just write the damn post yourself, right? There's an exception. Like I've tried EasyGen, the tool from Rubenocit,

and it was pretty good. Like, especially for like Mofu, aka, like educational content, it was good. It was good on text formatting. It was good on the gravity of, let's say, the words and the sentences. So, but I still prefer, like, I actually really enjoy writing. So that's why I also keep writing it myself.

I'm pretty sure that there will be AI tools who will completely, or they probably can already, but completely take over to writing aspect. But I still believe that in order to recognize good quality, good output, you also need to give it good input. And if you don't know, let's say if you don't know how to, let's say if you don't know art and it gives you art then you don't know if it's going to be good or not because you're not like profound or specialized in it and that's just one example if you have to fly

let's say an airplane like a let's say like an airbus a 380 but you're not a pilot like how are you going to fly the thing and how does it get you to this destination that you want it's impossible right So I think the same thing applies to content. You can create content all you want, but if you don't know what's good, then I don't believe it's going to stick. And I don't think it's going to do what you want it to do. That's basically what I'm trying to say. So I believe that if you are capable of doing a certain thing, you're going to use AI for

it, then you're going to be very successful because you know what kind of outcome it should produce. So I mostly think that in terms of services and efficiency, it will make your, life easier if you already good at something but I don't think it will completely take over the experts let's say yeah yeah I agree I spoke with some people from this AI scene before and I can only agree because they also said that you need to feed it the right information and you cannot of course expect that you will do a few clicks and it will generate final result that is perfect.

So still, it's not only AI. It needs to be balance of both AI and human touch. Definitely. And I think this brings us to the question, what we discussed before, that you posted recently about what is the most cringe stick on LinkedIn, which I think was funny, but for me it was also something that I agree with. For the people who haven't seen, you can say later, what was it? But since you post it, do feel like that it changed on your comments or it's still the same?

Because maybe I would expect that people saw that and acted differently. The irony is that, and I think I wrote it under the post, that there is probably going to be AI comments writing something about AI comments, which is the irony at its finest, right? So I don't think it's like I can complain about it all I want. It was an interview question in another podcast, so I answered it this way. I don't really like to complain in content. I tend to do things better rather than bitch about other people. But AI comments like, yeah. To me, it's just lazy.

Some people say, like, yeah, you can, like, if people don't speak English that well, then they can use this. And I'm like, well, if they can speak English, English that, well, they can use it as a translator and come up with genuine comments. So I don't think that's an excuse. I don't think that's an excuse. So it's, to me, it's just like you want to, you try to reciprocrate, like you try to get other people to comment on their stuff maybe or I don't know what the reason is.

Like, it's tough. Like, if you really want to do the commenting game, it takes a lot of time. It takes you time to, it takes you time to find a. right people, but also, like, it doesn't always have to be strategic. Like, if you really appreciate someone's stuff because they put a lot of effort into it, then I think they deserve a genuine comment, right? And it can be very simple. And yeah, it should be either funny, it should be complimentary in the sense of that they

compliment the post with more advice or another story or like another angle or an opinion. That's it. And it's very, very easy to. you distinguish to distinguish yourself from others because a lot of these comments, I would say 60% of it, I'm not insulting anybody, but it's just a truth. Sometimes I'm just like commenting, replying on my comments that I get as a zombie because all of them, not all of them, but let's say like half of them are basically summarizing what I said. And I'm like, yeah, what, what can I say? What can I say in return? Thanks. So I think good comments are becoming very,

these days, but it's very easy, I would say. Yeah, it just made me laugh because I can see myself replying to some comments as well. And it's pretty much the same comment. It just rephrased somehow. For example, sometimes it's funny.

Like, let's say, I post something podcast related with the guest and I get a comment that I said something let's say insightful, because insightful is something that is very popular with AI comments.

And then you can see that it's AI comment because I wasn't saying anything. It was the person who was with me in the podcast, you know? So it's just funny and it made me laugh when you are described in because I can realize it.

Yeah, exactly. And actually you as such a creator, do you also engage with posts of others or you do not or what sort of strategy you when it comes to engagement? Not as much as I like.

I used to do it a lot at the beginning for the sake of getting a customer to it, but also part of my strategy. It's still something that I recommend my clients to do to engage with, like, let's call them, rising stars in their industry. Like if you try to do this strategically with, like,

the big influencers, there's a very big chance that they won't reciprocrate with your, your content and then it's kind of like yeah you can still be appreciative of course but from a strategic point of view it's kind of a waste of time so that's why you typically say like you can still look up the post of the influencers but just check who is in their top comments because those are usually people who are in the same niche trying to attract the same ICP and the same followers but they are still like motivated and also strategic about the engagement game so

So usually with the people with the most likes on those influence, let's say. Those are typically people between 5 to 30K followers. And those are people, I would say, that are still like really open to and not overwhelmed. Because that's also a part of that will come eventually to engage with you. It's smart. And I know we spoke about it before when you were starting on LinkedIn. But now, what are some people that you follow, like their content, are inspiration for you, if it has changed from before or it's still the same people?

It's not entirely the same. I would say that I still like Matt Barker's, although he is very condensed about his copy, and I know I understand why, and it's something that I might follow at some point as well. he gave his best stuff for at least two years. I've done the same thing. But I also think there's a moment that you can be more commercial about it or let's say like more business savvy about it. So I think what more creators will do is that they will get people off platform, which is something that LinkedIn doesn't really like, obviously. But you're already giving away your best stuff.

so you might as well attract them to assets or resources for your own benefit, because I believe that this should be a win-win. Other people that I really enjoy their content is Anthony Peary. Yeah, he also gives a lot of stuff away, and I think he's one of my favorite creators at this moment, because he's very tactical, and he's very, like, he's all about simplifying proposition. like websites in his case, but also I would say, like I agree with this also from a content level.

I really enjoy Adam Robinson's content. He's this, like one of the best founder brands at the moment, I would say. I think he's a pioneer. And he has a very recognizable framework for all his content. It's usually like yesterday I talked to a business owner or a client or a contractor or, like a specific person and then he adds a few numbers in terms of like that relates back to his business he does a pretty much to every post which i think is it's kind of quite brilliant because you can actually scale that content really fast and it's always i would say it's always relevant for what

he's doing but he's also building in public he builds like he has built uh r2b2b i don't really know R2D, Star Wars. No, I think it's R2B2. It's a SaaS tool and I also like crewretention.com, I think. And I think it's a beautiful example of how you can generate more revenue and awareness for your brand just by sharing content and like do masterclasses or podcast shows or whatever. Yeah, I think it's a prime example of modern day. CEOs and founders should do their marketing, or at least one part of their marketing. And I think founder branding is going to be huge in 2025.

I think it's already like in our little LinkedIn bubble. I think it's already like a big thing. But still two, I think the stat is still real, like two percent of all one billion LinkedIn users, they do weekly posting. So that means that the very small number of founders are joining this. And yeah, I'm very bullish if it comes to the creator economy or whatever you want to call it. I think it's going to be very interesting what's going to happen over the next couple of years. I agree.

I'm not going to why I will need to do my homework because except Matt, I don't know really the people that you spoke about. But I will check that level. And I agree because you can see like all the time posts on LinkedIn, you know, about the future of personal branding, how important it is and about the potential and 2025 and stuff like that. But have you actually got any plans to branch to any other social media platforms as well or do you want to stay on LinkedIn only? Good question. So I believe that you should be on one platform for a number of years or at least. until you mastered it. And I don't think I'm quite there yet.

I've considered X or Twitter. And what else? I don't think Instagram is very interesting for me, at least. I don't consider TikTok. I think there's a new thing. I just installed it like a couple of weeks ago. It's sky blue, blue sky. Isn't it like a competitor to X?

Yeah, I think it is. It looks exactly the same. I have done one post. And the thing about it is that you either need to get a team who's doing engagement for you or you have to be very disciplined and systemized about doing the engagement because content alone is not enough. You also need to engage and interact with other people just like you or also with your ideal customers to make it work. And there's like the ways that you can cheat or you can game the system. This is not really my cup of tea.

So I think, yeah, expanding, it's kind of the same. Like, if I'm, if I were to start on Linux X today, it's probably going to take me another two years, maybe faster because I know my, my writing a little bit better. But I still think it's going to take two years to get even to 50K followers or beyond. So, I think it's, yeah, you either have to be very efficient and think about scaling. or yeah obviously have to be patient the patience you cannot cheat that

there's no hang game yeah yeah and as you mentioned it before if you don't want to answer this question you don't have to but you spoke about the team

behind engagement does it mean that you still do your LinkedIn only by yourself because also before you said that you don't do engagement but I would assume that personal such a level as you are with such a big community. Of course you cannot handle everything by yourself.

No, I still do it myself and I don't plan on outsourcing it because it just feels very tricky. I know a bunch of people do it. I'm not saying, like never say never, but no, I do it myself, which is also the reason why I probably don't do engagement enough with other counter creators. but I do all my own comments, I do all my own DMs, I don't have any appointment setters. Like I do it myself. And it might be unwise or blocking certain growth. But yeah, I don't, it feels wrong for now. Maybe I'll get business, more business savvy about it.

But yeah, for now it's just me. It's impressive because. I think it's a great example. You know, no excuses about time because with such a community and following in people and you still do it by yourself. It's great that it's not some your VA answering or someone else. Yeah, it's funny. Sometimes you see it. Sometimes there's creators who all of a sudden they come up with AI comments and then you're like, yeah, there's someone else doing that kind of stuff.

And they probably don't even realize it, but it's damaging. their brand. So you either have to train someone who knows your exact content and your voice and what you would say and your opinions and all that kind of stuff to make it believable. But yeah, for the love of your progress, don't do AI comments. Also not like having some VA doing the AI comments in what, let's say, Etapleo or whatever tool you're using. Yeah, I can only agree. Speaking of this and all the stuff that you need to handle, what are you like when it comes to time management? Because as we spoke, you've got a family, you've got a kid, you've got a LinkedIn and work.

How do you juggle all the things that you do? It's pretty tough. I've actually been thinking of getting a performance manager or coach because I don't want to work more than, let's say, 40 hours a week. and it doesn't make me lazy. That makes me a family person because I really care about spending enough time with my family. I've done the 80 to 100 hour weeks

for a long time. And it didn't benefit anybody. Like it didn't benefit me. Sure, added a few dollars or euros to my bank account. But it didn't make me happy. I tended to, I also disappointed a few clients

because I obviously took on too much work. I cannot do the gym anymore. I can't see friends anymore. So I think it's very important that I don't overdo it. And it gives me sane because nobody will be happy when I'm getting a burnout. I've never had a burnout before, but I'm pretty sure that whatever burnout is, like, by definition, I was close to it. So, yeah, like, I would say I'm mildly organized.

But I also try it not to take too seriously. That's why I still do post on the fly. That's why I still do engagement and stuff myself. But I also realize that if I really want to grow this company or just a solo business, I have to be more advanced in terms of outsourcing, systemizing, automation, and scaling. I am just not in a rush. But for next year, like I happen to do a post today about my goals. And one of the goals is to build a content design agency.

And I've had an agency before. And I wasn't the best leader, not the best manager. So that's why I would probably hire someone who would do the operations. And I would train that person to be to provide the level of quality that I want to provide. and to work with other people so I can just like serve as a lead generation window basically and that they will do the execution. Also one of the goals is to create a community to surround myself with more people like me, but also people who want to learn from me and from other people like me.

And this is like a very fun thing for me to do, but also efficient in the sense of that it will be a great group of people to test ideas and to do obviously upselling because it's also a business to basically create this ecosystem or a flywheel, whatever you want to call it, to see where people are. Some probably need coaching and then they can do an upgrade or like an invest in a one-time call for instance. I intend to build a product there, like a digital product or like a course that will be free for people who invest in the community membership obviously and what

else did i have community product yeah content design agency that's a lot so i'm i'm i'm i was going to say yeah i will i will need help for this and i already got help for for a few elements so that's great yeah and i mean it sounds exciting and no doubt that appreciate we'll meet success with your already big community. And speaking of this, what is it actually that you enjoy doing in your free time? If you've got any free time left on top of work and family, what is it that you enjoy doing? That's good. Yeah, I do CrossFit, which I really enjoy doing it for a number of years.

And the great thing about it is that you can basically do it everywhere. I have a dad duty on Tuesdays, which means that I'm alone with my kid. we'll go out there and we'll go to the zoo or we go to the, what was it, like an indoor kids thing. It's like, she's two, so she's like really young, but I took her to this last week. Yeah. I also love going to nice restaurants, go out with, like, have a good drink with friends. Nothing extraordinary or spectacular really. play the guitar

what else do I do like traveling but my girlfriend she says that I should do more stuff for me so I think that's also one for 2025 yeah

do more for more for me yeah and if you've got time and if you do that do you read any books and if so are there any recommendations that you would share

I have very bad focus or concentration. Like I have a toddler's concentration level, I would say. So if I'm reading a book, it's a very difficult process because if I read a word, I'll just read a word and then I'll just be gone. Like I think about that word and I have to reread the page like 10 times. So it's like very tiring sometimes. But I love watching videos on YouTube. I don't think you can call this a hobby, but I watch a lot of marketing or content videos.

I listen to Danko's podcast all the time. Alex Ramose is, I don't, I don't, the last few things that I saw was not really my thing, but most of it is really interesting for me from a sales perspective. Yeah, I think YouTube is my educational platform. versus books yeah i agree youtube is great if you don't score just

shorts or entertainment of course yeah as nick as we will be approaching in the end it's i think it's obvious but do you want to summarize where people can find you follow you or promote any of your services

yeah so it's only linked in it's only my LinkedIn profile i have two links up there one is for my newsletter that is pretty much dead at the moment, but I'm going to revive it. So I got a lot of people, they tell me every day like, yeah, you're a welcome sequence. I don't think it's working.

I was like, yeah, I paused my newsletter like 18 months ago or maybe even earlier. But I'm planning to revive it within a few weeks. And there's another button that leads to the, like an intake form. because I can't really handle all the people. That sounds terrible, by the way. But I honestly can't really handle all the people in the DMs requesting for services. So that's why I've got a Google forum there. It's really simple.

You basically just join the waitlist. And then if it's a good match, I'm going to reach out back to you within 48 hours. And this is, by the way, currently I still have two offers, but I have like one offer, which is like a rebrand. So I'm basically helping you to redesign strategically your profile and your content assets. And I got content coaching for attracting the right audience. But I noticed this problem that rebrand clients often needed content coaching, and content coaching clients needed rebrands.

So that's why I'm merging those two offers into one. And this means that through coaching calls and a notion dashboard, with more acing support, we're going to create those things together alongside of getting content coaching to attract the ideal audience. So I'm already running it. I have a few clients for it already.

Still got some spots left, but it's just probably the final one-to-one coaching offer that I have until the community is going to be built and then it's going to be a different flywheel. Sounds exciting. And I hope that after listening to this, people won't spam with DMs. That's not the message of this call. He's busy already.

Yeah, they can always DM. I still enjoy it, obviously. And then, Nick, the final question, is there anything that you want to share or anything I should have asked you and did not, or anything you want to say now it's your space if not? Yeah, sure, I can do a statement. I think if you look at the feat nowadays, it's very hard to determine what's really working and what is not. And I think there's a lot of content out there that is very motivational-oriented with like the billboards and the educational stuff that it's kind of generic and that everybody seems to regurgitate.

And I know this is coming from like the higher segment. I know it works well, but I also think that people considering copying this should realize that these are huge creators and they have big support systems. And what works for them does it always work for you, especially if you're just starting out. So that's why I'm a big believer and an advocate of being authentic through sharing your own experiences. is that's like building a business, client case studies, building a product, basically just share what you do on a daily basis professionally. And I would truly believe that you will probably grow to, not as fast as other means, but you will grow to and you attract your ideal customers and your ideal audience,

which is who are customers and your industry peers. and to me that's the only two people that you really want to attract. And I think that's authenticity, made easy, and never fails. That's a great message, and it especially makes sense hearing it from someone like you. And I want to say big thank you, Nick. It was a pleasure to meet you, at least virtually. As someone who's been following you, I really appreciated that you joined us, that you shared some wisdom and we learned more about you.

So thank you so much. We'll be happy to catch up any time in the future again and wish you all the best. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Thomas, for having me and great questions. So I really enjoyed it. Thanks for listening to Produce Bye with Tomer. Check out show notes for all the links.

And don't forget to like, subscribe and leave your feedback. Speak soon.