How I Made Millions Writing Generic Entrepreneurial Advice on LinkedIn
Here are 5 things every founder needs to do right now.
This week we have a special treat. I asked serial entrepreneur, cryptocurrency enthusiast, and billionaire’s rights advocate Chad Thomas to pen a guest column for The Heated Forest on how to succeed as a startup founder. Here’s what he sent.
Every single morning, I wake up and I pinch myself. How did I get so fortunate? How is it that I get to do what I love, every single day? My whole life, I’ve had a dream, and now that dream is fulfilled. I’m self-employed. I’m a business owner. And I am a professional writer.
Specifically- I write didactic, prescriptive LinkedIn posts about entrepreneurship.
Let’s be clear- I may be fortunate, but I’m not “lucky.” I built my business the old fashioned way; I worked hard, and I followed 5 essential principles. In this post you’ll learn exactly how I did it, and how you can take the same steps to get the same results.
Maybe you’re already knee-deep in your first startup, or your second, or your third. Maybe you got lucky once and are struggling to recreate that success with your latest venture. The good news is- there’s a formula for success. Here are the 5 things every startup founder needs to do to build a successful business.
1.) Write didactic, prescriptive LinkedIn posts about entrepreneurship.
I know, easy for me to say, right? It’s literally my job. But I’m telling you, it works. If you do nothing else but follow this one piece of advice, I guarantee your life will never be the same.
Wealth inequality is at an all time high. The streets are littered with homeless encampments. Inside each one of those dirty little cardboard houses, there’s a person. And all of those sad, dirty people have one single thing in common:
Not one of them wakes up in the morning and chooses to write didactic, prescriptive LinkedIn posts about entrepreneurship.
And it is a choice.
It will be hard. It will take discipline. Do you think Bob Iger likes getting up at 4am and hitting the gym? Do you think Tony Robbins enjoys jumping into a 57-degree cold dip every day? Of course not. But they do it anyway.
I’m challenging you to wake up every morning and do what needs to be done. You might feel unqualified to write about being a better entrepreneur. You might be unqualified. But I didn’t let that stop me. And you shouldn’t either.
2.) Make sure everybody knows you’re an entrepreneur.
Some people act like their profession is a state secret. Their LinkedIn profiles are wastelands. They demur when you ask them their net worth. These people are imbeciles, and they’re missing out on one of the great joys of entrepreneurship: talking incessantly about entrepreneurship.
Think about how many people you speak to on a weekly basis. The guy at the store. The guy at the dentist. The girl who works for the guy at the dentist. ALL OF THEM should know that you're an entrepreneur. If they don’t know, you’re not doing your job. Speak up! Don’t be shy. Business is all about networking.
You need to build relationships, and the first step to leveraging other human beings for your own personal gain networking is making sure that everyone knows you’re a CEO-entrepreneur. So tell them. Then watch in amazement as they trip over themselves trying to serve you. It’s that easy.
3.) Don’t waste time “building” things.
You know the type. They tweak, tinker and toil. They slave away, engineering the “next big thing,” obsessively reworking their designs until they turn their idea into reality, transforming nothing into something. These people are called Builders.
I call them losers.
Look, it’s impressive to “build” things. It really is. You know what else is impressive? Winning a medal in the Special Olympics. But it’s not something I aspire to. And it’s not something you should aspire to either. Steve Jobs famously couldn’t code. And he didn't need to. Because entrepreneurship is not about building.
It’s about doing one thing and one thing only:
4.) Talk the Talk
Anyone with legs can walk the walk. As the face of your company, your job is to talk the talk. Nothing more. End of sentence. Full stop.
It’s not about EBITDA, ROI or P/E Ratios. It's about saying EBITDA, ROI and P/E Ratios with a completely straight face.
Newsflash- if you don’t sound like a CEO, you aren’t one. But don’t worry, it’s easier than it sounds. Let me give you an example:
Has this ever happened to you? Someone asks if you’ve seen a popular film or television show. You haven’t seen it, but you lie and say you have, because, you know, you’re a sociopath. We’ve all been there.
When that person asks follow-up questions, how do you respond? Do you come clean and admit your lie? Do you clam up or change the subject? No! You double down. You keep talking. You say a thousand words without saying a single thing. You talk like a CEO.
It’s that simple. Which brings us to #5. The single most important thing that every entrepreneur and founder needs to do right now in order to succeed…
I’d love to book Chad as a guest on my podcast, “Winners Win and Losers Lose”
It’s not about EBITDA, it’s about saying EBITDA. I have worked with many people who enjoy saying EBITDA, but have zero idea how to make the “E” happen.