20 | Turning Content into Revenue: Luke Shalom’s B2B Marketing Playbook

In this episode of The AI Marketers Playbook, Audrey Chia chats with Luke Shalom, founder of Atticus, about his transformation from running raves to building a $500K marketing agency. Luke shares how he grew his LinkedIn following to 64K and helped over 45 B2B founders generate $2M in revenue. He dives into overcoming early failures, leveraging LinkedIn for lead generation, and the power of persistence. Tune in for insights on sustainable growth, handling setbacks, and actionable strategies for founder-led marketing.

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Transcript

Audrey: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the AI market display book where we cover actionable frameworks to help you leverage AI and marketing strategies in your business. I am Audrey Chia, your host, and today I have with me Luke Shalom, the founder of Atticus. Now in just two years, Luke has grown his LinkedIn audience to an impressive 64k followers, but his impact extends far beyond just building his personal brand. He has also helped to build the brands of more than 45. B2B founders driving over 2 million in revenue for them over the past 12 months. Now, Luke has also been named one of the top creators in the UK, making the FAVICON top three creators a couple of times. So Luke, we are excited to have you with us.

Liam: 0:40

Wow. What an introduction. Thank you so much. Really happy to be here. That's

Audrey: 0:43

amazing, right?

Liam: 0:44

Exactly. Exactly. I been loving your podcast. I saw, I saw, I think I saw you had Guillaume on like a couple of weeks back. Yeah. I know Guillaume is an acquaintance of mine and I just felt compelled to, to see if we could get the show set up and, yeah, buzzing to be here.

Audrey: 1:02

And I'm so excited to have you as my first official guest of 2025. So

Liam: 1:07

fantastic. Awesome.

Audrey: 1:09

Awesome. So for people who haven't seen your content, could you tell us more about yourself, like how did you get started and stumble in the world of LinkedIn?

Liam: 1:19

Goodness me, how did I get started on LinkedIn? So, before I was ever on LinkedIn, I used to run, nightlife events companies. I ran, like, raves in the northeast of England for, Over 10 years and like we were doing really big events, we were doing big events from anywhere from like 500 to like a thousand people plus. And not a lot of people know this about me. I used to be a semi-professional dj. I had like records released, I had a Bport, number one world hit. I played all over, Europe, like, Berlin, London, Bulgaria, Poland. But I just got a little bit tired of it. And at the time I was, working for a software as a service company and I'd always, I'd been in sales for like the best part of two years and as our parties were getting less popular, I sort of realized that the brand that we have was dying and I'd always been infatuated with building things. So I decided to strike out and I started a YouTube channel. And it was a flop. Every single video I created, my, I think my nan and my mum watched them, and a couple of my friends. It was a self development YouTube channel called Luke Who's Talking. My work colleagues all used to, rip me about it when I was doing it. But I wasn't doing it for them. I was just doing it for the, for the fact that I, I really wanted to help people with maybe their personal development, maybe like their anxiety, like any, anything like against, Improving their mental health because those were things that in my life had been like quite impactful and I was on my own like self development healing journey at that point as well. It was around that point in time. I gave up alcohol and etc. And so from that point. Because that, that was literally not going anywhere, I was spending a lot of money getting these YouTube videos created, I was pushing them really hard, like I was writing scripts every day, and I think I gained like, maybe 300 followers in like, 6 months, and I was like, I just don't think this is working out. And randomly, as I was on LinkedIn, actually, no, it was Twitter. I saw a post from Justin Welsh, basically saying LinkedIn is popping right now. And he was telling me that like, Oh, I've made X amount of money on LinkedIn, huge amounts of organic reach, and everybody on this platform are decision makers, and there's never been a better place to build an audience. This was back in, God, was this 2022? Yeah. 2022. 2022. So I had a LinkedIn account, a dusty LinkedIn account that I hadn't updated since the last time that I moved my job. The only other time that I've ever been on LinkedIn was to find a job and I just sort of logged in, bought the, I bought the, I think that's called the content OS. It was cool. That was like the first thing he ever did. And I wrote my first post. And it flopped. I think I got like one like and for the rest of like that month, I was just posting continually. I was, I was learning the ropes of LinkedIn and it was back in those earlier days when it was a lot easy to get at organic reach. Now, maybe some slightly flimsy writing skills that I had at the time where it was a little bit easier to stand out. and yeah. I started to get some engagement because at that point in time, the only one I had, I think at the time I had 500, like followers, like, and connections, maybe, I don't know, like a hundred connections. So I was really starting from the ground up. I had a lot of people reach out to me from work being like, Oh, Luke, like what sort of the LinkedIn post, like, why are you posting self development content on LinkedIn? This is before, you know, like people are now like people like Ben Mear, et cetera, or Eric Partick. Huge self development brands or leadership brands. It wasn't that popular on LinkedIn at that point. So I think it was a bit confusing with some people. And my friends started to tease me. They were like, Oh, like you went from YouTube, you went to LinkedIn, like what's all that about, and I remember clear as day talking to a friend of mine, Alex, and I said to him, I said, Listen, like, tease me all you want, but one day, like, this will work out. Like, they're like, I, I know that I can do something with this. And they sort of were like, yeah, yeah, cool. Like, whatever, mate. Like, cause I used to live in, like, Newcastle. So a lot of my mates were Geordies. That's, that's somebody from Newcastle. And, I think along the line, they said something along the lines of like, Yeah, I, they're like, yeah, they're just saying like, yeah, like, it's not, it's not going to work out, Luke, whatever, or like, do you, but like, we'll see what happens. Focus on your day job. That was the consensus. And it was the consensus of people at work as well, because I used to work for a company called Urk, and all of the sales team were like, oh, yeah, have you seen Luke's posts on LinkedIn?

Audrey: 5:34

So

Liam: 5:36

there's a lot of initial resistance there. And I started like posting like every single day and I just had this like, at that point in time, I, I, I was, I was broke. I was in my overdraft a lot. I had no money. My career wasn't going in the right direction. I really had earned that point. It only just got into a sales job that I was managing to hit quota. Finally, because I got a good manager and I just was like, I need to change my life. Like, I need to level up, or like, in whatever way I can. I saw that this, this ability to convey one's interest online and their passions and expertise, and learn that expertise and share it to people, could potentially be a vehicle of transformation and be fun. Ultimately, and I just hit it and then it was very slow to start with. I think six months in, there were people out there like Augusto Pozzo. I don't, I think I've seen it, right. Augusto, do you know Augusto? Yeah. So he was really big on LinkedIn at that time. There was a couple of other people. I started writing with a friend of mine, like Doug Kennedy as well. This guy in, this guy in America, we had little group on LinkedIn where we would just talk, like send each other our posts and be like, Hey, like, do you have any thoughts on how we can improve this, et cetera. And very slowly I started to get more engagement on the posts. And then finally I wrote a post like eight months in that went viral. Like it was some, it was a bit of a clickbait post. it was something like all. nobody knows how the LinkedIn algorithm works, but like, I'll teach you how it works in like 60 seconds or something and candidly, I literally just distilled, an article that I found on the internet, like, just put my own spin on it and like, actually created that. Like, there's no, no news there. No new news there. And, That one post just like exploded it went to like, I think it got like maybe like 200, 400, 000 views. I can't remember the exact number of views, but I gained overnight, like literally 5, 000 followers. And I was like, Whoa, yeah. Wild, wild. And I was like, right. A mentor of mine, Justin Michael, my sales training said, when you're winning, or when you're crushing, that's the time that you've got to go like 10 X as hard. So I was like, right, I've got this traction. I might not get this again. I literally just started. I was putting hours into LinkedIn a day. Like if my day job was, you know, like seven till 3 PM, I was from 3 PM. And then all the way up to like, maybe eight in the evening, I was engaging on LinkedIn for four hours. I know sad, building my network. Creating and writing content every single day. And when I mean every day, I mean like, if I'm, I was with my ex at the time, if I'm at my ex's house and it's a Sunday morning and I haven't written a pose, she wakes up, turns over to me and I'm on my like, notes pad, like writing down like a pose. He's rolling her eyes, going back to sleep. It was that level of

Audrey: 8:19

a note pad.

Liam: 8:20

It was that level of obsession because I was just like, I just had this immediacy and urgency that it was onto something that could really like snowball. And I think maybe you'd felt that in your journey when you're Whoa, like I'm writing stuff about my interests. People are, engaging with that and, and you're seeing this community ball. And that was, it was never about the money to start with. It was literally about building something. And through this medium of internet writing. just just just share like one's thoughts. There's nothing for me more compelling than that. Like that, that, that has still kept me posting to this day from that point. That's how I got into LinkedIn. and then when I really started to see the potential of LinkedIn as a B2B lead generation tool, because it had been a tool I've been using for I used to run recruitment process, and a company called opencast software. So I was building tech teams and I'd use sales navigator to get, I guess, interviews with candidates or I helped, book meetings over LinkedIn when I was working at a Zoic and also at Oak Engage at that period of time. So I knew that you could get leads from it, but it hadn't been something that I'd ever tried with content or with a considered effort for Outbound. So. At that period in time from the engages, like I connected with a CEO that was out of Las Vegas. It was very successful guy, run multiple companies. I thought, you know what? There's no way that this guy's going to respond to me. If I send him a message, the guy's name was Devin cuts. Like, and I sent a message and I said. I connected them and I was like, really inspired by what you're posting, what you've built. one day I'm going to have, I'm going to be an entrepreneur and look like I would, would you connect? Like, would you be open to connecting me? I'd love to just eat, just, just to connect with you. Like, and it was, it was the shittest message. Like it wasn't, it was just really, it was probably too keen. They say never be too hungry, but it was really key. I didn't hear back for maybe like a couple of like days and then I see like the notification came through on my screen when I was at work and I was like no way like this guy has accepted that request there for mentoring and I was craving at the time for this mentor because I didn't know what business I wanted to build. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just read the book, The Millionaire Fast Lane by MJ DeMarco. And I had this building frustration, around the fact that like, I hated being an employee. Like I hated working for somebody. I hated having capped earnings. I hated having to answer to somebody. I hated the fact that like somebody else could impact my agency. And I just was like, I need to get out. I need to quote unquote, escape the matrix. I've heard you've heard that, that you've heard that quote a lot in social media, but it was more from that case. When I got this mental, I was like, whoa, like, I can't blow this. I need to come up this and like, really. really improve what I'm doing. So I started connecting with Devon like over a couple of, a couple of, a couple of sessions. I was even thinking about going to work with him as like a potential, head of sales. Like he had a head of sales role on and I was like, God, this guy's considering me for a head of sales role. And I'd really just started to But this made me realize that perception Online and having a brand has a layer of authority to it. And then I was like, this is crazy. Like, where could this go? And we had a couple of opportunity conversations about this role, role didn't pan out in the end, and we just agreed that we would connect on LinkedIn strategy because he was posting and I was posting now, couple of weeks past. Click to his profile, Devin stop posting. I'm like, Devin, what's happened? Why did you stop posting? He's like, he's from South Africa. I can't do a South African accent. And he was like, I've got no time for it, mate. That's a terrible South African accent. I was like, well,

Audrey: 12:04

I don't know about the accent.

Liam: 12:08

It's like, brother, I've got no time for LinkedIn. Like that, that's like Australian South, South African. And I went, would you be open? Like cause listen, in life, I'm a huge believer in big, bold asks. Everything you want is on the other side of a big, bold ask. And then anything you could ever achieve. So I thought, right, I've got an idea. I'd seen a couple of people running, like ghostwriting wasn't really much of a term. Like, this was like over like three years ago. It was being done, but it wasn't as red ocean as it is at the moment. I just said, Hey, Matt, look, would you be open? I'll write your LinkedIn posts for you and you could pay me 500. What do you think? Should we get on a call a month? And he was like, you went, sounds great, mate. We got on a call. And I didn't have a company. I had no registered company. I had no delivery method. I'd never ghostwritten for anybody before. And then Grow Solo Media was born. So I literally got a demo, like a, a contract from one of like a contract that I had from somebody else for, from, for a client, literally replicated that, sent it across to him on a DocuSign, which I didn't even know how to use at that point, he signed it, still didn't have a company. So I'm making up as I go along at this point, I then register on company's house for my company. Grosso Loo Media comes through and I'm like, God, I've got a company, right? Still got no banking set up or anything. And he's sending any of the, the funds to my personal PayPal to start with. But I had a company. That is literally how the agency was born. And I remember my mum at the time was like, Like, but like, what's your plan? Like, how are you going to do this? Like, do you know anything about tax? And I was like, no, got no idea. I'm sure I'm just going to work it out. So I struck out and then we got that first client. We kept, we worked with Devon for four months. We doubled his following. Like we got him multiple leads. And then at that point in time, like he gave us a really great review. And then unfortunately at that point in time that we did go to raise rates and then It just didn't make sense for us to work together anymore, but we're, he's still in my life. Like, every, every, every, month, basically, or every two months we have a, like, we have a sync, like he's still a mentor to me and a good friend. But from that point, it just went up 500 client. And then I realized that maybe it was the way in which I was selling my offer. So I then improved. My like proposal on my sales process. The next client I got was a guy called Paolo Lapari. shout out to Paolo. He was running a lead generation agency at point. And then I increased the rates and I charged 800 pounds a month. And I was like, Whoa, like 800 pounds. Like at that period in time, it just, cause it was. Because I was in my permanent job, I was literally making like 30 grand a year, so to get an extra 800, it felt so much at the time, and you know what it's like, when you make one pound for yourself on the internet, or when I saw that 500 bucks drop on my account, I was like, holy fuck, like I could do this, like some stranger on the internet, Has just imparted money for services. That's entrepreneurship. You're providing value in the market and the value is awarded with, with money. That's that, that's, it couldn't get much simpler than that. So once it had happened, it completely destroyed the ceiling that I had in my head, that. Maybe you can't do it. And I just had this burning belief that if I could make 500, if I could make 1, 000, if I could make 1, 000, I could make 10, 000. If I could make 10, 000, maybe I could make 100, 000. And if you could make 100, 000, maybe just maybe you could make 1, 000, 000. And like, and, That belief, I think, from that point, it just kept stacking like I had, I left, I left the job I was in. I went to work for a podcasting company. I was still posting on the side and I had this side hustle running as that moment in time, my ex boss found out about it. And he was like, Luke, like, if you still run that service while you're at our company, like, you won't be able to work here anymore. So I'm like, Oh, shit. What am I going to do? It's like, but you can come and build it for us. And I was like, maybe. So I actually sat down and made this plan. I was like, look, if I build this, build this service for you, like this LinkedIn like executive founder and marketing service, what are you going to pay me? So I think I asked for like, maybe like 40 grand or something. If you think about like in the vast expanse of time that isn't a huge lift if I was already making like, you know, like I think at that point in time, like, 800 pound a client or something. So it only had been a couple of clients to beat that. And. He came back with a counter offer of like 35 grand. And I was like, look, mate, like, I really appreciate your offer, but candidly, like on one client, if I got one client this entire year, I'm going to beat your offer. And I'm working for myself. And, and any, and then I just said, look, like, politely speaking, I can't move forward with that. So he was like, okay, well, we, he said, well, you know where I stand on this. And they were thinking of launching the service. So there I was at another crossroads. I was at a crossroads where like a, like a guy that had been looking at my posts. a guy called Rob Hoffman, who's my, like, who's my last ex boss. He was running a company called context studios and, they were right. It was a multi seven figure media agency, had an awesome product, awesome team. And he reached out to me on LinkedIn. He was like, Hey, Luke, like, would you be open? Like I'd been talking to him back and forwards about LinkedIn strategy. He'd been like in my posts, I'd liked his, it's like, bro, We're, we're interviewing Luke for a head of sales role. Do you want to interview this for this? And I'm like, and he's like, and you can continue to build your own thing on the side. And I was like, well, fucking perfect. This is great. So I went through this interview process and there was just like, there was weeks between me getting finished in this job, this podcast agency, and me trying to get this other opportunity lined up and having this side hustle at the same time. Very chaotic. It managed to come through in the end. So I started the job as director of partnerships for, for contact. And it was, it was awesome. Like I loved working for that company. Great team, super, super, super empowered to do it. Well, they really believed in the power of content and LinkedIn. And I was able to continue building. But then there was just, I think it just got quite challenging. Like, so that quarter, like, I managed to do, I think was about 160 percent of quota. So it was just, it was about 220 care closed like for contact at that point, which was amazing. Amazing news. And they were really happy. But I think they sort of realized that, They wanted they wanted somebody who was going to really be all in on contact and I didn't want to, like, give up on my, like, entrepreneurship dream. So we just, we just came to a, I guess, an agreement where we were like, okay, like, when is the best time to leave? And I still remember it clear as day. My ex boss says to me, like, Luke, do not take this offensively, but you are fundamentally unemployable. And I mean, that in the word. Best possible way. He's like, you're like me, you, you're, you, you were born to be an entrepreneur. He was like, you can't have a master. Like you're like, you're your own person. You need to go and run something. And, and if it doesn't work out, then you know where you stand until that point, you're always going to have the itch. So I set out, I left that company and, At that period of time, Audrey, I didn't have much of awareness for like some of the finer points of business. Like, you know, like what are your profit margins? What are your fixed costs? And in my head, I thought it was doing so much better than I was doing. So at Contact, I was, I was making a, making a good salary and I had my first ever five figure month working for them, which absolutely blew my mind when that happened. Like seeing that amount of money in like one month. But on my agency, I was making, I think maybe like About the equivalent of my salary, like my perm salary, which is maybe like Like 4, 000 a month or something like super, I'm trying to do the, the dollar conversion to pounds. And, but what I didn't realize was after fixed costs, I was really only taking home about like a thousand pounds or something. So I had this like fake layer of confidence. I was like, yeah, it would be fine. Like, you know what I mean? Like I've got enough money to live. And then it later transpired that like, I wasn't making anywhere near as much money as I thought I was, but.

Audrey: 19:45

The cost, what was the, like 3, 000, where did the 3, 000 go? Cool.

Liam: 19:49

Yeah. So the 3, 000 was going on the fact that I stopped writing the content myself. I had contractors. Not many people know this, but I've only ever written for a couple of ghostwriting clients. I've done strategy for 50 plus clients now, but I knew that if I was going to scale the company, I And do it next to a job. I would have to leverage like more of like a contracting model where I would win the work. I would train a writer on all of my frameworks and then I would act as account manager point of contact. So we had a scalable business model to start with. So that actually allowed us to stack up multiple clients. Like, I think at the time that I left, I had four retainer clients and I was able to have a full time job as well. So. That happened. And then, from that point in time, I was like, I remember saying to my ex girlfriend at the time, like, because I was, I was a little bit scared. I was like, you know what, like, I, I, it, like, I saw it, I wasn't pushed, but at the same time, I wanted a bit more time. And I just remember saying to her, I was like, literally, I swear, I think, oh, what did I say along the lines of this? I said, so help me God. And I will build the biggest personal branding company in the UK in the next like two to three years or they will have to prize this for my cold bed calloused hands or something. Like it was some outrageously hyperbolic, outrageously hyperbolic statement. And I was, I remember it clear as day because I was in London at the time, in Shoreditch and, and it was like, Like I'd been exited out of the company and I was just at this crossroads and I was like, right, got to get to work, got to, got to get hustling. And I just, I hired Justin Michael and he is a sales trainer who has driven over a billion in pipeline for clients. He is also a sales coach who I think himself, he's made about two million this year. He was, I guess, the ultimate sales coach. He, he, to this day is my definition of, of a successful person and at this podcasting company that I've been working at. I sort of became more in touch with him because Justin Michael had written the entire playbook at my old tech company. I've worked up a year prior to that. He'd written all of the outbound. He'd written everything. I'd read about this guy. In this playbook that the sales team had spoke about, they were like, Justin Michaels, the guy, he's the, he's the outbound genius that runs our like systems. So I connected with him on LinkedIn, but never spoke to him. And then I had this podcast that was meant to do with him. And then I actually started chatting with him now around about the time that I'd left that job, Audrey, I just said, no, Justin, like I need help with these sales. Like I like. And he, I remember this clear as day, he said, there is nothing your ex boss can do that you can't do. The only difference is, is he's literally further ahead than you like, and he believes he can do it and he was like, and I know that sounds really fucking matter. Like, if I say it like that, but. And he said like, look, like you have it in you. Like, I think by the end of next year, you will be making 20, 000 a month. And when he said that to me, I was like, I just like it. Cause it was so out of whack of whatever I'd been doing at the time. And that would have been like 10, 30 X more money than I'd ever seen in my entire life. I sort of was just like, yeah, right. Whatever. And he's just said, Well, you like work with me and at the time I was like, he's expensive, like he's expensive. He's literally five grand a month. Like he is a really expensive coach. And he said, look, it will be a round error for what impact you'll get from it. Like, well, like if the person you want to become wouldn't investing in themselves this level, like they would do that. Be that person that would need to do that. So I, I had about 5k in savings ordering. That was my money. That was all the money I had at that point. that was like all the money I'd had because I'd managed to dig myself out of like being my overdraft, et cetera, had multiple sales jobs and. And that was everything. And I literally bet my life savings to work with him. And I just had this like burning, like drive and desire was like, I'm going to look like a, like an effing idiot if I don't get a return on this, my mom was like, what are you doing? Like, why are you investing in this random guy off the internet? This is going to end in tears. And I just was like, no, I'm going to do this. And we started to work together for that month. And. It was. It was it was mega.

Audrey: 24:03

It's such a huge bet. Oh my gosh. I thought I had seen the highs and lows of your story, but this is probably the climax. Please tell us. Yeah,

Liam: 24:10

well, well, one of, one of, one of, one of them. So I bet my life savings. I remember, I remember I sent it across on Wise. I was like, I just remember my thumb hovering over the send button going like, what am I about to do? And I hit the send and I just said, Paid, let's go. And he was just like, this will be the best like investment you've ever had. And he just said, your, your, your ROI is going to be a minimum of 10, at least 10 X, potentially 20 to four. And it sounded so outrageous that I sort of, I didn't believe it, but it was around this time that he taught me something that. Literally exploded my LinkedIn pipeline at that period of time. And it was a technique that formed the basis of the playbook that we run today for content outbound. And it was a technique called the fourth frame. Now the fourth frame. was an advanced social selling technique that would allow you to have a conversation with any like body that you wanted to speak to and actually get that person interested in your offer, driving them effectively through a conversation to a booked sales goal. Now, at the time I had no model that could do that. And when I learned this from him, I started booking, like I was booking multiple calls a day. There was one day where I booked like 10 discovery calls. now, albeit now, if I look back at my current, if I look at my current ideal client persona, they wouldn't all be qualified, but it was more just reps to see if I could get clients. I was just savagely getting after it. So, and I, it just exploded my pipeline and I went from not having enough business to having loads of business. Got another client, which was then 2, 500 pounds a month. And I was like, Oh my God, this is, this is almost the amount of money of like my last salary. And then at that point, I was like, this can be done. Like if you, if you've got so many to pay you 2. 5 K on the internet and you'll provide them a service and you're getting the results, like you can build a company out of that. And what if you could get 10 more people? That's, that's, that's, that's 200 and, well, it's like 250k or something, a bit more than that, in a year. So I was like, oh, like we're getting near to that goal, like 20, 20, 20k revenue a month. so from that point in time. I also, unfortunately the relationship I had broke down. we just like, we weren't aligned anymore. unfortunately, like, you know, when you meet a partner and they love you when you're like more of an employee, when you don't have as much on your plate, where work isn't like, I guess the main thing in your life, then you move into entrepreneurship and you're like, It's like your business is a baby and I, that's so trite, but it couldn't be more true. And I was spending like 10, 12 hours a day, like literally full framing, like a madman on LinkedIn, just like sitting there for like eight hours a day. This is like, Justin was like, listen, if you were going to die, like two weeks from now, how would you make, like, how, how would you actually like make the sales calls to close a deal? That's how you've got to treat this. So I was just going at it. And with like the improvements I made to the sales process, with him, the outbound prospecting piece, I was clocking up and I was growing like, and at the point of time where I think I had, I had, I think I'd hit like, five, five figures in monthly revenue. Like I'd hit, hit 10 K and I hit that like two months into it. I had this flight to go to Medellin in Colombia. So there's a twist in the story. when I've been working at contact, I was meant to be going over there to meet my bo Rob, boss Rob. But it didn't feel right to me that I was leaving and they paid for this flight. So I just paid for the flight and I was like, I'm just gonna, I'm, my mom was like, why are you gonna go to Columbia? Like, what's there? Like, I've heard some bad things about that country and place, and she had that. I guess there's a whole legacy there of stuff from the eighties and all that sort of stuff. I won't go into that on this podcast, but I was like, no, I'm going to go. Why not? I've got this business. I can work remotely. I'm getting on this flight and I'm like, fuck. Yeah. Come on. Like, I'm like literally working for myself. I'm about to go to the other side of the planet. I'm doing what I want, when I want, with who I want, wherever I want. That is the statement. I think of the mantra I've lived my life for, for the last like three years. And I get there in Medellin. And I meet some really awesome people, like other entrepreneurs, and I'm like, This is what it's about. Like, this is literally living. Like, you know, that feeling I'm bored. You might know this, like being an entrepreneur yourself. Like, it's like, you just feel like when you leave that job and you finally got something where you can do whatever you want all day. It's like, it's the ultimate freedom. It's the ultimate freedom. And you just feel like there's no, like, when I'm in a job, I still feel like there's like a roof. Or like a, like something above me, like sort of stopping me. And that feeling of the, on the flight over, I was getting goosebumps. I was like, this is what you wrote down like all those months ago. Like, like literally like two, two years prior, like a year prior to that, I'd written on this piece of paper. After I finished reading the four hour work week by Tim first again, trite books to read. But like, that's, that is, that is what I read

Audrey: 28:53

somewhere. And

Liam: 28:54

I just, I remember writing down. I was like, I, like I, I finally have a business where I can work anywhere in the world. I'm getting paid like really great money for this and making five figures a month. Cause that for me at the time was like a lot of money. and it still is for like other people watching this. And I now have a job where I have complete location freedom and I'm doing what I love every day. And I was just like, it happened. It happened. And I messaged Justin. And I was like, Yeah. Like it was just, it was just crazy. And in those early days of building that company. So after it gone to Medellin, unfortunately the relationship sort of, I think was, was different because we, we just wanted different things. So that ended and I was just like, it was at this point in time where we were at a critical stage in Attica, well in Grow Solar Media, which became Attica in its growth. And we just hit 20k a month and I remember that happened. And I remember as soon as I saw that come through, we landed our biggest client. I think they were going to pay us 3, 500 pounds and it was for a six month contract. So it was a like, 20, yeah, like 22. 5 K GBP online. So I was just like, this is crazy. Like that for me at the time was like, that was half of my yearly salary, like less than six months before. And I was like. This can happen. And I remember sending just the message. I was like, what happened? I sent him. I went 20k a month, baby. And then I sent him the screenshot on the stripe. And he was like, yeah, mate, like, get in there and all this. Look, see, I told you and all this. And I've been seeing this every single, every single day in the shower. and maybe I need to get back into that, like obsessive, like invisible, because I, I don't do that as much anymore. I think I had much more, I was so hungry, like, like when I started, I'm still hungry now, but maybe a bit more measured, which is probably hard to believe if you're hearing me on this podcast at the moment. But when that had happened, I was like, Audrey, where did I last feel happy? And I was, I didn't have, I, I, I'd sort of in the last year that I'd been in, like, been working on this company, sorry, like eight months, I lost a lot of friends. Like I didn't see people and it was my own fault. Like I, I, and I spent, like, I literally spent my entire time working from my parents spare room, like building this company and just grinding. Like I had no social life. I was just working out, running every day, but I just didn't want one. Like, I just wanted to change my life. Like. Irreversibly. and I just was like, where did I last feel happy? And it was Medellin in Columbia. I had this awesome time. I met amazing friends. I met other entrepreneurs like Caleb from Social Bloom, like Anand, who's now on like an AE, like really big companies. And they were on, they were like these peer group that they wanted something better for their lives. They didn't believe in the limitations that society had put on them about, you know, get a part time, get a full time job. Play it safe, get a mortgage and all this. And I just didn't even think those people existed until I went on LinkedIn and through this wild journey. And after that had happened, I, I flew out and it was controversial because. I flew out on the day of my, my, my, my, my great auntie's funeral and I missed it. So I already had the flight booked. She died. She died. I had the flight book and my mom just said to me, she went, you know, she's, she's from, she's from the north of England. She went, your auntie Judy would have wanted you to get on that plane. She was like, go a hundred percent. Go to Columbia. She was like, don't go to the funeral. Go to

Audrey: 32:04

the, she,

Liam: 32:06

she, she would have done it. She would have wanted you to do that. So. I'm there, like, what am I doing in the airport, like a giddy, like, not knowing I have a one way ticket. To Columbia and I'm like, I have no idea when I'm coming back and like, for that quarter, I just remember, I fell in love with the country. I fell in love with Medellin. I fell in love with the people. I fell in love with the climate. It's so, It's, it's, it's people have got such a bad idea about that country. It's, it's, it's probably my favorite country on the planet. Like, it's absolutely awesome. And it's an awesome destination for digital nomads. Like, there's people like Nicholas Cole, Dickie Bush, multiple other entrepreneurs that live there, who, Are building these internet businesses and because they work on a time zone with EST, and Colombian standard times one hour behind. It's so easy for me to work there because all of my clients in the U. S. No, it's

Audrey: 32:57

like, and then we just, and then it just,

Liam: 33:00

yeah, it just went from strength to strength forgy. Like we're 20 K. And then six months later, like, sorry, like six months later, we get 30 grand. And then the rest is history. And I feel like I went on a massive tirade about the journey, but like, that is how I started on LinkedIn. That was what was happening. That was how it was going. And that's where we are now. That

Audrey: 33:21

is so amazing to hear, Luke. I think I just went on like a cinematic journey. I was following your journey as you were describing the different ups and downs, which is amazing. One thing I love is your YouTube name. I think that's something that you should probably revive.

Liam: 33:36

Luke who's talking?

Audrey: 33:39

Yeah,

Liam: 33:40

yeah A hundred percent a hundred percent mate. I will I I am doing more video stuff now on linkedin So I think that is i'm a firm believer in this. I don't know if you've heard this saying it's Eat eat your own dog food. Have you heard this?

Audrey: 33:52

Yes

Liam: 33:53

So anything you're going to try, anything you're going to try, you try it on yourself first. So we are launching a video service for clients, but I've been experimenting with over the last month. We've had a new video editor. I've been getting it down and I'm really liking exploring that side again. So yeah, we'll a hundred percent be doing more, video, a hundred percent.

Audrey: 34:10

And what are your future plans for Attica since, you know, you, you've come such a long way with The highs and the lows and ups and downs and you have also gathered so many different skill sets, right? But I know you've also asked yourself what makes you happy And you've been grinding and hustling really hard. So how do you see yourself on this journey right now? Have you found a balance and what's next for your company?

Liam: 34:31

Great question. What's next for Atticus? So we we We finished the year on, I believe it was 398, 000 of revenue, which was pretty, pretty decent. And we doubled it from the year before. and we now have a team of So that, that's, it's, it's, it's, it's no longer just me and, and, and me messaging like CEOs on LinkedIn to see if I can write for them. so that, that, that's good. I think what I'd like to build is because we got investment into the company, Alex Boyd and Onfolio Nasdaq group are investors now. Alex Boyd, who's the founder of AWARE. I don't know if you've heard of AWARE. Yeah, he built a company called RevenueZen to like multi, multi seven figures in the in and exit. So, He's been advising us on the best way to build and grow the company. So my strategic, focus now is we hired a director of operations. Who's a guy called Mahit and Pasani who's awesome because for the longest amount of time, I, I think my biggest strength is a sales person. Like I'm just a seller, essentially, and a marketer. I'm not an operations person. So he's now running all of our operations and streamlining that. And I think the, the two words that I say for this year, it'd be sustainable growth, which sounds very buzzwordy and like what a typical thing for a founder to say on a podcast. But, what I mean by this is, for us to hit a million in revenue. By the end of this year, which is my goal, we currently have 10 retainer clients, but if we only gained one client a month, we will hit that goal in. Six months time if we keep the clients that we have. So if we focus on retention, we focus on improving my service and we grow sustainably. We don't even have to grow aggressively. We will hit that goal. We will hit the goal because one thing I found is when I was so driven on the sales and just literally closing deals. Yes, we were closing deals, but then we also lost clients because of that period of time. We weren't sitting back and going, right, let's really nail delivery. So now a delivery is so tight now that our retention on clients improved by 50%. Like we would, we went from like six months retention on average to now we've got clients to stay with us for 12, 14 months. So more of that. That's what I mean, sustainable growth, because it's so much easier to sell to somebody that you've already got results for than it is to acquire a new client. And yes, we will acquire new clients, but it's much better to improve it for what the clients you've already got, because It's like marketing spend, right? If I, if you pay me 10 and I make you 100 back, you're going to keep paying me 10. Like, that's, that is the basic fundamental. And I think there's a lot of agencies out there who are happy to just collect a check. They're happy to just show up. They know it's a churn and burn model in an industry where there's that standard bell curve of results where third of companies will get amazing results will be outliers for you and will undoubtedly become your case studies. A third of people will get okay results and a third of people won't get results. Like we imagine like a bell curve, but for me, that's not good enough. I'm a firm believer in like, we have to be iterating and be at the, like the, the leading forefront of whatever we're doing on like LinkedIn demand gen. People won't want to leave if they, if they're getting the, what they're paying for. So it's like, it sounds so meta and simple, but I really think it comes down to. Keeping clients, getting clients. I think anything else is just a distraction. And that is, that's, and to do that sustainably, that's it.

Audrey: 37:52

I love that. And I think people always chase the new shiny object, right? When sometimes what you need to do is to refine and work on what you already have so that you maximize it before you think about

Liam: 38:03

stacking. That is so fucking true. And I've got a story for you before we tie this off. I made a big mistake. I almost killed the agency in Q3 and there was this moment, it was, I, I, I had this idea. I've been doing coaching. I scaled this coaching practice on the side to a six figure run mate. I was doing, I had one month, I had a couple of months where I was doing like about 8k a month and I had a couple of really high profit months where I did 20, 000. I was like, Oh my God, like this is crazy. This is more money I've ever made in my life. And the clients were getting amazing reviews on the coaching side. But you know what happened? Shiny object. I had stopped doing as many sales calls for the agency. I had stopped being super, super involved with day to day operations. I took my eye off the ball for like a period of a month and then I started building out this cohort. I sold the cohort. I made 20, 000 and then I was like, I've now got to build this out. And I was there. In, I was on holiday at the time and I was feeling like super burned out and anxious because I was just doing so much stuff. I was running an agency. I was running a coaching company as well. And I was like, I, how am I going to do both? Like, how am I going to do both? And as I, the day that I got back from holiday, I find out I lost one of our biggest clients and I was like, shit, like, this is, but this we're in trouble because at that point in time, I've not been keeping an eye on the financials for really for the last couple of months. I've been, I had my head up my ass as UK saying the fixed cost, we were just above fixed costs. So if fixed costs at that point in time of 15 grand a month, UK GBP, we were just above that. And I was like, how did this happen? The coaching had been propping it up. And I did like, so it was this shiny object. And I was like, I had a road to Damascus moment where I was like, I had my head in my hands. Like literally I was, I was close to like tears. Cause I was like, how did I, how did I have this oversight? I was exhausted. I was like, and my girlfriend walks up to me and she was like, Luke, what's happened? I'm like, we lost X name. And she was like, fuck. And I was like, yeah. And she was like, well, what are you going to do? I went. There was this moment of silence and I was just literally like looking out of like these fields outside my house And like it was a super beautiful scene for how horrible I felt inside Like and it was and I and like there was and I knew there was like this sounds like really trite I have like this single tear like like a lot of single tear like a couple of tears I like wiped away from it and I just said I just said I, I, I took my eye off the ball. I fucked up. That's what I said. And, I'm gonna, I'm just so I can't do the cohort. I sent back 20, 000 that evening. I went, I said to my dad, who's my, he's a contract account. I went send back all of the money. And he went, what? And I was like, send it back. It's a distraction. And I just had this gut feeling that it was going to murder the agency. Like, I'd lost, like, focus on it. So I literally came back to work and I was like, We are going to double the revenue because our best month that year was 30, 000 GVP. And that was like midway through the year. And then it just stayed like plateaued. I was like, we're going to do that again. We're going to double the revenue in a quarter. So that would have been more growth than we done in the entire year, but I didn't know how I was going to do it. So I just was like, I started writing it down like every day. And like, I guess, Meditating on it, imagining it, working really hard as well, improved our sales process, improved our offer, improved our guarantee, like tweaked everything, stopped getting distracted by shiny objects, like literally cancel any coaching contracts that I had, and I took a big hit financially, like a huge hit. And I was like, but I just had this gut feeling. I was like, Audrey, this will work out like the universe or God will deliver this back to me in five, 10 X the amount. I just had this gut feel like it might be deluded, but I just had this feeling. I was like, the act of letting go of that money is ultimate abundance mindset, because you know, The money flows. It comes and goes. If you can let it go, it's going to come back. Like if, if, if I truly can make whatever I want, I can let that money go. It didn't even matter. So I let it go. And I was like, and it like the first month, nothing happened. And I was like, Oh, crap. Second month signed, signed two clients. And I was like, right, we're back. Third month we signed the biggest retainer client we'd already got. Fourth month. And we then signed and we got two more upsells and two more retainer clients. We more than doubled our client base. Cause we had, we had like five, four, four retainer clients at that, like that. That horrible point and then now it's like back up to 10, 10 or 11, I can't remember, but, and we doubled revenue. So it was like, it happened at a, it happened like in November. And I just remember seeing that contract come through that, like that they signed and I was like, holy shit. Like we did it. I was like, no way. Cause I'd had this talk with the team. Like, I'm really transparent with the guys. I'm like, we're fucked up right now. We're just below our, we're just above our fixed costs. If we can't improve this, like this, this, this is going to be bad, but we're going to fight our way out of this. Like it was, it was one of their moments. I was super honest. And, and then I said that to the guys, I was like, we're back in good shape. Now we absolutely crushed the back doors of Q4 and. Very, very, and it wasn't without impact. It pushed me to my absolute limit. Like, my mental health suffered. I felt very, very bad at some points and I'm now dealing with the fallout of some of that, but I'm, I'm feeling much better from that period of Christmas, but it was. That was a lesson. Don't get distracted by shiny objects and the ever ongoing journey of ups and downs. And that, for me, brings into that theme of sustainable growth where I think it made me realize if what if in one quarter, you can transform your business, you don't always need to be fretting over the day to day or monthly. If you have a client leave or something, because You should measure the game in months and years, not in days or hours, like, you really should keep a track of the bigger picture there. And I think that anybody who's running a business here watching this, who's on the, let's say, a level or wants to start one, like, that is my biggest realization from, like, the journey is. People like there's a really great quote to finish this on. Tony Robbins said, this is like people massively overestimate what they can do in a year, but massively underestimate what they can achieve in a decade. And I've really reflected on that a lot over the last year, because the sheer amount of growth that LinkedIn has enabled both myself and the clients that we've served has been completely unfathomable over macro timescales. that's what I'd say.

Audrey: 44:25

Yeah, and I think what I love about what you say is sometimes we get distracted by the you know Small milestones, right and you're like I didn't hit it or I hit it and this is the best day of my life But if you look at the next milestone, you kind of feel really bummed but that is the journey of life and entrepreneurship and then being able to Take a step back and look at it from a macro point of view, from a bigger picture point of view, gives you so much more perspective, strength and confidence to continue that journey. Before we wrap up Luke, I would love for you to share three tips for founders who are trying to start their journey on founder led marketing and they don't know how.

Liam: 44:58

Yeah, fantastic. Number one, get a really nailed idea of who your ideal client persona is, and that should be the economic buyer in your deal, i. e the person that is going to cut the check. So if you're selling to HR and you keep getting blocked by, maybe let's say the CFO, your content should really be framed towards HR's value in a financial context. For that CFO, because, or, or for both of those personas, because otherwise, your marketing message won't resonate. Now, a lot of people have outdated depictions of what their ideal client persona looks like. And it has to be an updated 1 of what the, like the needs and demands of the market are. So I would recommend pick your 5 best clients who you feel are the best fit and ask them the following questions. What made you buy? What was what made you almost not buy? What did you think you were buying? What was the biggest benefit of this service? What were the challenges that you were having when you came to us? How were those symptoms showing up in your business all the way through to what was an unexpected benefit? And once you have that, you can really map out the pains, opportunities, the desires, the objections, the metrics they care about. And then that will form the basis of content strategy. So, if we were to look at the apps, if you take top funnel, middle funnel, bottom of funnel out of the equation, the most basic form of Allegiant Post is essentially a pain, an opportunity, a desire. Plus how your expertise can essentially solve that for the buyer and with a call to action to reach out. So if you nail that, you'll be in a really good place to drive and the right sort of engagement conversations and inbound from your content. Number 2 is have a process by which, You can leverage, intent based selling. So the biggest factor that we find clients book meetings for is from likes, comments, views, connections on LinkedIn and from second connections. So you need to have a process by which either you have an agency like us, who ledgers like an AI powered sales development rep as a service person, trade on social selling, or maybe somebody your end as a founder to sit there. and. Really start conversations with those people who are engaging with the content that will be the highest intent people and then bring those people into your funnel and like, get them on sales calls. The 3rd would be, it is no longer enough as at this point in time to for LinkedIn, just to be the channel that you're using specifically. And that is why you need a, a omni channel approach. Now, the modern, like, go to market playbook, that is really crushing for the founders we're working with at the moment is. LinkedIn is the fulcrum right for generating, like, the activity. So you'll have a daily post or your team daily posting, to drive, inbounds, but also the right sort of intent there and likes, comments, views, connections. but then you'll also have an outbound cadence running on LinkedIn. You'll then also be, you'll need a way to then scrape though that those concept details from LinkedIn. Because a lot of decision makers don't even check their inboxes. You can enrich that data with a tool such as with a wizard. So you can check that that date is correct. And then you can leverage a modern, like, go to market tool and like, smartly on email to then prospect those people. And the reason why you would do that nowadays is, It's now requiring even more touch points to get a response from like more sophisticated buyers in the mid market and enterprise level. And if you're not doing that, you're essentially going to get left behind. So if you apply those three tips, you're going to be in a really good place to have a really great stab at a modern go to market playbook moving into 2025 and beyond. And if that sounds too complex to you, maybe it might make sense to have a conversation with our company, Atticus, where we've done that same thing for 50 plus B2B, mid market and enterprise companies.

Audrey: 48:17

Super cool. Plus, if you guys haven't noticed, Luke packed tons of value in this short. Three minute clip. there's so much to gain and so much not. He just power packs like, go, go, go, go, go. But, but I would love for you to, reach out to Luke. So Luke, where can people find you? Find out more about what you do.

Liam: 48:31

They can, they can find me on LinkedIn. And if you type in Atticusagency. com, you can find us online. And you can book a call with us from there and we can do a free LinkedIn brand strategy audit for you where we're going to like do a teardown of your current go to market motion, make suggestions and improvements, and if nothing else, you're going to leave that conversation with the exact strategy and plan that we've enabled us to drive the demand for over 50 plus, B2B brands in the last two years, fantastic Audrey, absolute pleasure to be on the podcast.

Audrey: 49:02

Awesome. Thank you, Liu, for joining us. It was a pleasure having you on the show and of course, sharing your amazing story. And thank you guys for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and hit the bell for more actionable marketing insights. We'll see you next time