Master LinkedIn with Human Touch AI! With Charlie Hills

Episode Summary

Charlie Hills Podcast Interview

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day, and I am your host Kris Ward.

And today in the house we have Charlie Hills. And oh, my gosh, we’re gonna dive into it. Charlie is all about AI personal branding, and he’s got quite the presence on LinkedIn, so he’s got an opinion on it all. So let’s just get to it because, oh, my gosh, Charlie, I feel like if you sleep in an extra 30 minutes any given morning, you are behind on the controversies of AI and you don’t know what’s up. Oh, yeah. So welcome to the show, Charlie. 

[00:00:30] Charlie Hills: Thank you so much for having me, Kris. I’m so excited, and I totally relate. Literally, like I keep up with AI as a full-time job, and it still tires me. Yeah. It’s so tough. 

[00:00:39] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah. So where do we start? What is it? And then you’re tying it into personal branding, which kind of is rubs up against the whole everyone’s pushing back AI’s over here, and your personal branding’s over there, and nary should the two meet.

But you’re coming at it a different way, so what’s your perspective on it? 

[00:00:57] Charlie Hills: So for me personally, I believe, yeah, AI [00:01:00] can increase your outputs incredibly, as we all know that. We’re all very aware- Yeah … of that. But to actually do it effectively and to build a standout personal brand which really differentiat- differentiate you from the sea of AI slop we’re seeing now that’s where I really stand with using AI for personal branding because I wouldn’t be here today without AI.

I started out just writing about AI, and then I eventually found a way to effectively use it to scale my presence without losing my voice. So AI can, it just all comes down to the user of the tool at the end of the day ultimately. 

[00:01:31] Kris Ward: Yeah. I love the term, which we’re hearing more and more, AI slop.

But I do know, my accountant always says to me, “Garbage in, garbage out,” right? I’ve had a lot of growth with AI myself, as we all have, and I am really seeing the difference of it’s what you ask and where you keep asking and what you push for. And the conversation really, frankly like anything else in this world, whether you hire an expert, what- where- whatever, you take a course, it’s really just not taking first glance of it, [00:02:00] but saying, “Okay this doesn’t fit.

That does fit. Where are we going with that?” So where d- how- w- where do we get rid of the slop, and how does it become something that’s a branding tool? 

[00:02:10] Charlie Hills: For me personally, we’ve seen AI completely change from 2023 and 20- early- late 2022 When it was all about prompt engineering, people would devise these mega prompts and say, “Use this one prompt and you’ll make a million dollars.”

[00:02:24] Kris Ward: Oh, yeah.

[00:02:24] Charlie Hills: Which was obviously- Yeah … a load of BS at the end of the day. But you- 

[00:02:28] Kris Ward: As you, as the British would say, rubbish. 

[00:02:31] Charlie Hills: Yeah. Total rubbish. Yeah. But yeah, we’ve seen the evolution of, from prompt engineering to ultimately context engineering. As you said, garbage in, garbage out. But- 

[00:02:40] Kris Ward: Yeah … 

[00:02:40] Charlie Hills: that’s what good I- AI outputs now come down to.

And it’s become easier than ever, because before we were using custom GPTs, but the context that a custom GPT could hold was very limited. Okay. Every time you started a new conversation, it’d start from scratch. 

[00:02:54] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:02:55] Charlie Hills: And you’d compound over time. Whereas like now with tools like Claude Cowork- Yeah … you can [00:03:00] create a compounding system because- Yeah

it’s ultimately saving all of these local MD files on your machine. So then every time that you create a new piece of content, it’s being saved and then referenced at a later date. So I believe that is the way to ultimately build a, almost like an AI second brain that’s consistently compounding rather than, oh, I’m just gonna go to AI and say, “Write a LinkedIn post.”

It’s actually, I’m gonna go to AI and, oh, it’s gonna recall all of my history, my memory, my story bank, et cetera. So it’s actually authentic and uni- uniquely my content, not just scraped from some random person’s thoughts online. 

[00:03:36] Kris Ward: Yeah, that’s a really good point. And if… As I talk to you, like with AI, I don’t know if this conversation three weeks later is gonna be relevant, but I do think the fundamentals are here.

And I know for the longest time I heard that Claude was better than ChatGPT and I was like, “Oh, I can’t start over.” It’s like I can’t start a new marriage at this point in my life. That’s what I felt like, right? But first of all, there is a tool, there is a way to trans- if you’ve been using [00:04:00] ChatGPT to trans- transport that over into Claude.

And what I did find, you’re right, is instead of using prompts, having a history, what I found with those MD files, and we won’t get too techy here, you can look that up online, it’s very doable. But what happens is not only does it build a history of conversation and I feel like I’m becoming a better and better version of myself because it will bring up something that I’ve said previously or something I wrote earlier and say this rubs up against that point.”

I’m like, “Oh, even I didn’t see that from that angle.” I’m like, “Oh, the… You made a really good point when you were having a conversation, which, you know, Charlie, and that, that transcript could be in there and you said this. Why don’t we take it from that angle?” So I… You’re right, a second brain or a version of yourself with more clarity and better memory, 

[00:04:48] Charlie Hills: yeah, exactly that. Yeah Exactly that. It’s just about getting that data- 

[00:04:51] Kris Ward: Yeah … 

[00:04:52] Charlie Hills: into your AI, whether that’s through MCP and connectors or, transferring that data into something readable a- Yeah … end file. [00:05:00] ‘Cause ultimately, you don’t want to overstuff the context. Yeah … but the more you provide typically the better the output.

So exactly that. 

[00:05:08] Kris Ward: Like any relationship, the more it gets to know you, the more it knows you. I am certain, ’cause I had a little disagreement yesterday with me and Claude, and we got into a- … a little bit of an argument ’cause it was doing something I clearly told it not to. And I thought, I don’t see it unreasonable that five years down the road that you’re gonna be in therapy working on a relationship with some sort of AI version of yourself.

This is all very doable. Okay. So then bring it back to, let’s bring it back to personal branding. So w- how does this improve? ‘Cause you did talk about AI slop in the beginning, and as y- you know, many know, we find, hire, and onboard virtual assistants and put them in our leadership program for entrepreneurs.

And the work primarily comes with the entrepreneurs. But it was really interesting for a period of time I was starting to get cover letters when we do a hiring session, and I’d look and I’d be like, oh my gosh, these are the exact same cover letters from random people, right? [00:06:00] And it, the whole point of the cover letter is for me to get an idea of your personality.

That’s what I’m looking for. I always hire personality over skill set. You can train a per- skill set. You can’t train a personality. And then I was getting- … these generic AI stuff, to the point I even had some show up for interview trying to rehearse and memorize a AI response so that it sounded so polished, but it w- they didn’t understand it was so watered down.

So that rubs up against their personal branding. Obviously they weren’t using it well. How, when there’s so much pushback, how do you tie that into personal branding? 

[00:06:30] Charlie Hills: So I follow a certain framework which I developed which will he- help anybody scale on social media with AI. And essentially the first step is C, which stands for curate.

And ultimately, like we’ve mentioned, it’s to create context. It’s to gather all of those unique pieces of information and to put that into your AI second brain, whether that’s a Claude CoWork project- 

[00:06:54] Kris Ward: Okay … 

[00:06:54] Charlie Hills: or whether that’s, any way to essentially just store a ton of files. That could be NotebookLM, it could be [00:07:00] ChatGPT projects.

‘Cause then you ultimately have the content engine. Okay. You have the foundations to get started. ‘Cause once you have that, then you can actually start to think about heating with AI. Literally like a chef would. They would gather the ingredients and then start to cook up the dish. 

[00:07:14] Kris Ward: Okay. ‘

[00:07:15] Charlie Hills: Cause then when you’re cooking the dish with the right ingredients, then- 

[00:07:18] Kris Ward: Yes

[00:07:19] Charlie Hills: it’s actually gonna be tasty. It’s actually gonna be- … following the right recipe. And that’s very simple. That’s as simple as going to any LLM and typing in, I want to write a LinkedIn post about X, Y, Z. Because once you’ve generated it, then it’s time to start to think about- enhancing with flavor.

That’s the E in the CHEF framework. Okay. Which is like we know at this point, it’s to always season. It’s to always add your unique take, your spices, the thing that happened yesterday on the way to work or in that meeting yesterday, because ultimately you can’t update all of your AI context every single moment of every single day.

[00:07:54] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:07:54] Charlie Hills: So that’s your opportunity to talk about something that actually happened in your real life when it comes to- [00:08:00] You’re writing a LinkedIn post, because those in the moment real life stuff that happens to you is, yeah, the best way to build in public, to actually share your story with your audience.

Because then once you’ve done that, then you should have a good LinkedIn post. But the thing that most people miss when posting to LinkedIn specifically is the feed the community stage of the CHEF framework. So we have curate context, heat with AI, enhance with flavor, but then feed the community. And this is something I was neglecting for a long time on LinkedIn, is that people will simply just post and hope for the best.

They’re like, “Oh, okay, that’s done. Now it should go viral, right?” No, it doesn’t because you haven’t built any relationships with anybody on the platform. So there’s a thing you have to do. You essentially have to comment for, an hour or so per day on LinkedIn, and the thing a lot of people do badly here is that they’ll outsource all of that to AI, and people can tell.

People don’t- Yeah … that doesn’t build trust- Yeah … with anybody if you’re seeing an AI comment [00:09:00] from Kris or Charlie. 

[00:09:01] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:09:02] Charlie Hills: Ultimately, every single comment is a touch point with your personal brand. So that’s why, cooking a dish with AI is easy, but actually serving the dish and feeding it to your community is the hard bit, which AI ultimately can’t replace in that process.

[00:09:15] Kris Ward: Right. 

[00:09:16] Charlie Hills: And if you follow that framework, the CHEF framework, then ultimately I believe anybody can build a killer personal brand with AI. 

[00:09:23] Kris Ward: Okay. You bring up a lot of really important things I wanna unpack, because I know a tool that I also use is Granola and I don’t know- … where they come up with these names, but Granola just so y- if- and these things are gonna change all the time, but the concept is this.

So Granola can be hooked up so that whenever I’m doing anything, it can record it and then feed it to Claude, right? So what happens is I have a better and better version of my voice. Also, I think what happens to most of us is when you stand there and you do have to write a post, you look at the ceiling or if you’re smart you may have some questions that clients ask you or whatever.

You’re trying to pull something together to help you create content. Whereas [00:10:00] Granola feeds all my conversations with my clients, with my team, with you, whatever, into Claude, and so I’m getting the real version of me where sometimes we say things and we don’t even realize we’re repeating this all the time, or that, “Hey, that’s really well said.”

Because I think that when you sit down to write, more and more I realize even though I went to college, I went to university, really I was reading textbooks. They teach you how to write like textbooks, how to sound professional, not humorous, not your own personality. It’s to sound academic or smart. And so I think then even to your point about tying your personal brand into AI, if you can be feeding the machine so it sounds more and more like you and it has more and more history, it’s going to be more of you than if you sat down and wrote it yourself.

Because when you write yourself, I still think we have been trained how I talk and how I write are often two different things, and you do lack personality in that whole me trying to sound professional part or, n- we can’t end [00:11:00] a sentence like that, or this isn’t grammatically correct, but that’s…

But it’s how I would say it, right? So I think that’s a really good point, is it’s not that we’re just gonna succumb to AI. And to your point, you can’t be using AI to replace you. That just doesn’t work, right? But it could be a more realistic version of yourself 

[00:11:22] Charlie Hills: Yeah, 100%. AI recalls, things that have happened in my career better than I do, to be honest.

Yeah. And like you said, using a tool like Granola, which I absolutely love. Shout out Granola, please sponsor me on LinkedIn. Is is, yeah it’s absolutely fabulous at capturing all of that context that us humans would otherwise forget. Another tool that I really enjoy for that is NotebookLM. And ultimately even, the Google IO conference happened yesterday, and there was no way that…

I watched it, but there was no way I was gonna be able to extract all of that context. 

[00:11:51] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:11:52] Charlie Hills: So I literally just took the YouTube video, put it into NotebookLM, and then I had that, grounded source material so that I could pull all of the insights that were [00:12:00] said during that conference. And the same thing applies for if you were to post this on YouTube, I could upload that into NotebookLM and then boom, I have literally like all of my LinkedIn frameworks, all of the advice I’ve ever given.

If you asked me to recite everything right now, I would struggle. I dunno where, like where to start. 

[00:12:16] Kris Ward: Yeah. And also, I had a cl- a potential client. I was meeting with someone, she wanted to work with us and, we met twice ’cause that’s our process. That’s fine. And in this conversation then the third time she’s “Okay, we’ve…

Yeah, we did discovery call. I answered all the questions, did all this stuff. Now one thing led to another, we’re meeting three times.” And she said, the third time we’re just gonna lock it down.” We get there and she’s just doing delay tactics and I, and she’s “Oh maybe I’ll read your book first,” or whatever.

I had checked my Claude and my Granola notes before I went into the meeting. ‘Cause the old me would be like, “Okay, maybe I didn’t explain this well.” ‘Cause I find that no matter what I a- answered her, she just threw another grenade somewhere else. What if that doesn’t work?” Or, “What if in two years I have too much business?”

Or, “What if I need a team of five?” And it’s like what? You know what I mean? Like she, she knew she was missing out on [00:13:00] sales. She’s a choke point. She’s hit a plateau and everything I answered clearly. So the old me then would be like, “Okay, I’m not explaining this well.” But I fed it into Claude who had the full calls from Granola and they’re like, “You have answered every question and she said this.

There’s no q- question about your value. Yes, it all makes sense. Yes, she know…” Like she agreed with everything I said. She’s just afraid. She keeps coming up with excuses, call her on it. And I would’ve doubted myself thinking- … I can’t remember everything, every single thing I said in two hours. They laid it all out for me saying, “You said this, she agreed.

You said this, she agreed. So now this way, lock it down.” So I just said to her, she’s “Oh maybe I’ll read your book.” And I said, “You can do whatever you want.” But you’re just kicking the can further down the road, and I have answered all your questions and you agreed with them all. So we sign we move on or we don’t, and I’m cool with that.

But I don’t want to dis- I don’t wanna disvalue your time or be dishonest to you. You’re just making excuses. And- … and I think I said it better than that, but she [00:14:00] totally agreed with me and signed on. And it wasn’t about getting the client, it was I would’ve doubted myself, think, “Okay ’cause I wouldn’t have had in my memory bank the 14 things she, I said that she agreed with. So it gave me a more accurate version of what happened 

[00:14:15] Charlie Hills: 100%, yeah. That is really the testament to Claude, especially how it’s just a very ethical AI as well. Claude has called me out on my own BS sometimes.

[00:14:24] Kris Ward: Yeah 

[00:14:24] Charlie Hills: Things I’m like, “Yeah, we should be doing that.” And Claude’s “Whoa, hang on a minute, Charlie. This is the right thing to do.” Yeah. Which is why I- 

[00:14:30] Kris Ward: It does parent you, “Okay, Kris, you’re not gonna wanna hear this. I’ve got nine. You’re not gonna wanna hear this, but here’s what’s really happening.”

And I’m like, “All right. Thanks.” Yeah, no, that, that makes total sense. And I think, too, to your point too, it still is though the people that are misusing it or drowning in it, just asking it to write a post, but when you start out with your own experience and your own story, I know someone on my team, Evan, I swear to God, it doesn’t matter what happens [00:15:00] to me, it could be horrendous, and he’d be, that would be a really good post.”

Yeah. I’d be like, “Okay, can we get the cast off first?” “That’s a good story, I think we should use it.” All right, thank you. So I will take that story and feed it and make a better version of me. But I do think even though everything we’re saying makes sense, and I think I was putting some of it together myself, hearing you pair personal branding with AI, I think that is not something we see a lot out…

w- the worlds are tend to be separate out there. So I… And to your point about the commenting. We should talk more about that, ’cause that really truly does, is about the relationships. You’re not going to… You wouldn’t be here on this show right now if I wasn’t commenting on your posts.

Mostly, not ’cause you’re a wonder- not a wonderful person, you would just not know who I am. 

[00:15:47] Charlie Hills: Exactly. Because one, the commenting has a dual effect. One, it obviously helps to build relationships, and then it builds a reciprocal flywheel of engagement with other people. Which ul- ultimately was the biggest growth hack for me on [00:16:00] LinkedIn.

I posted for a few months, no one liked my posts because I wasn’t doing any comments. As soon as I started, then it just all started to grow, and my engagement grew and grew every single day. But then also for, social selling and just building relationships with people to eventually pitch them in the DM or to just have a conversation about your respective businesses, that ultimately is the first initial touchpoint.

Because a lot of people just dive straight into the cold DM- Yeah … use an AI-generated message, and then think it’s gonna generate them leads. But you actually need to, one, post content to build authority and trust. Two, actually leave comments on your ideal customer profile to first get them at least familiar with your profile picture, your name, et cetera, so then when you actually slide into their DM, then it feels like a warm conversation rather than just a- 

[00:16:47] Kris Ward: Yeah

[00:16:47] Charlie Hills: cold slap. 

[00:16:49] Kris Ward: It’s almost like when you have a group of friends and you end up eventually dating somebody in that group of friends. And it’s “Oh, I’ve known them a while,” and they’re, they were circling around and now we’re dating, versus if they just walked up to you cold, right? [00:17:00] 

[00:17:00] Charlie Hills: Oh, yeah 

[00:17:00] Kris Ward: Yeah, 100%.

And I think too, as much as I’m all about VAs, sometimes I’ve had people… I don’t even understand this. I had one person comment in something we connected. I had written her. When I w- reach out to somebody, I send a personalized connection request. I don’t just c- connect. So I wrote something about a post that day, and then she responded in…

she accepted the request, and then she responded, “If this is AI, just know I’m not interested.” I’m like, “What the hell made you think this is AI?” I was n- nothing but charming in the comment and I posted on her thing that day, and I made reference to it. I’m like, “Okay. I don’t know, I don’t know where you’re going with that, but you’re a l- you’re a little intense.”

But… So I think to your point too is I know as much as I talk about VAs and stuff like that’s not something that I say you can have a VA do. You can’t have them do the networking for you. So I’m all about that. And to the point now, LinkedIn is now you’re getting a lot more accolades or measurements on people that are seeing your comments.

Which in the past I looked [00:18:00] at it as, oh, okay I… You see this, I post on, I comment on their stuff every day, and they comment on mine. Are we doing anything? We’re just an even trade. But I think it’s changing now 

[00:18:09] Charlie Hills: It’s definitely changing in the sense that, one, it’s way more saturated, that’s for sure.

And then also it’s changing in terms of these comments are actually getting way more visibility than a lot of people’s- Yeah … posts are. Comments- Yeah … with tens of thousands of impressions, which for most people on LinkedIn, to get that kind of reach from a post is really good.

Yeah. So yeah it definitely is changing slowly but surely. LinkedIn is definitely the I don’t know what to call it the goose? The, what do they call it? The ugly duckling of the social media. Oh, 

[00:18:36] Kris Ward: okay. 

[00:18:37] Charlie Hills: Yeah. 

[00:18:37] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:18:38] Charlie Hills: Yeah. But for sure. For sure. They implemented a whole range of algorithmic updates last year whereby, it was actually based on your experience, your network.

That was how LinkedIn was deciphering whether your post was getting views. So now if you post to LinkedIn and you’re talking about AI one week and marketing the other, then, s- sales the other week, then your posts are actually [00:19:00] gonna get deranked. So it’s all about building this kind of like authority, kind of neural network of your own experience, connections, and content to really, stand out and grow on the platform.

That’s what LinkedIn are really pushing at the moment. 

[00:19:15] Kris Ward: I guess that makes sense if LinkedIn is an authority platform. It’s not Facebook, so you know, it’s okay Facebook to be talking one week about your vacation, next week about wanting to get a dog. I don’t know, but that makes sense. Now, you do have consistent following, consistent engagement, and you talked about when you started you didn’t.

What… you mentioned some of the things, but w- what do you really think makes a difference? ‘Cause where the algorithm is it… You know what, the algorithm, I think it’s like a, I don’t know, social media religion. ‘Cause now it’s always like this mystical thing like God. We don’t know what it is, but we know it’s mad at us.

So people have complained that it is a bit saturated, the numbers are being pulled back, but you are still doing consistently well. So what do you credit that to your engagement and things that you’re doing? 

[00:19:59] Charlie Hills: Sure. [00:20:00] So obviously, like I mentioned, when I first started, it was down to those comments and building real relationships with people on the platform.

For example, I’ve always treated LinkedIn very much as a social media platform because- 

[00:20:11] Kris Ward: Okay … 

[00:20:12] Charlie Hills: they’re using the name. And then that was just simply to talk with people in the DMs, not to sell to them, but just to have a conversation, to hear more about people’s lives and businesses, and then also accepting everyone who sent me a connection request.

In those early days, that’s what I believe, honestly, got me a foothold on the platform. ‘Cause then I grew to 50,000 followers in year one, but then three months after that it doubled to 100,000 simply because, one, I had, built a name for myself in the comments and DMs, but then also because I had so much content to repurpose.

‘Cause I think that’s what a lot of people do when posting social media. They think they write a- an exceptional post, but it doesn’t perform very well. Yeah. Whereas after a year of doing it almost every single day, I was like, [00:21:00] “Okay, I know this exact topic and this exact format will do exceptionally well.”

So now almost every time when I go to post, I treat it like a science. I know that this topic, this format, combined with this hook angle will perform exceptionally well because I have so much data. And I think that’s what a lot of people f- where a lot of people fall down on LinkedIn. They either don’t pre-validate their content, so they’ll just simply post something and hope for the best.

[00:21:23] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:21:24] Charlie Hills: They use it like a megaphone and just broadcast their company to everybody, or they’ll literally just copy someone’s content one for one, and then that is just the worst way that you could possibly scale your personal brand, because it can instantly ruin your credibility and trust in seconds.

So that’s yeah, how I approach it, and that’s just simply down to the reps and the data that I have at this point. 

[00:21:43] Kris Ward: Okay. So going back to the social part of social media, which we often forget, and you talk about the DMs. I always struggle with the DMs because even if I’m trying to just be like, unless I have something to say with you, I’m like, “You know what?

I’ve been following your stuff and I just th- think maybe would be fun on my show,” I have something. But [00:22:00] then then to be like, “Hey, what made you get into this?” Or, “How’s your week going?” I’m not good at small talk in real life at all. And then I always feel, too, like they’re waiting for me to pitch them.

I just… I think it’s- Yeah … awkward. I feel like I’m in grade seven and they’re teaching you, I don’t know, you’re… They sign you up with somebody in your class that you don’t know well, and you have to square dance or something. You know what I mean? It just… i’ve never exceeded in the DMs, unless I have something purposeful to ask for 

[00:22:25] Charlie Hills: Yeah, so I rarely, reach out to people in the DMs.

Maybe on the odd occasion. But I totally hear you on that, Kris. I’m not here just to have general small talk with people, to be honest. But I think ultimately for me personally it’s because I posted so much content, then people saw the content, then wanted to start talking to me, from my perspective.

So I don’t 

[00:22:43] Kris Ward: every- So you’re following, they’re reaching out to you in the DMs and you’re keeping them engaged. 

[00:22:47] Charlie Hills: Yeah. Okay. I’d say that rather than if I was just treating it to generate leads or treating LinkedIn like a sales channel. Okay. Ultimately I posted good content, people saw the content, they wanted to talk with me.

And then I know from [00:23:00] being, like, when I first started out, if someone with a bigger following replied to my DM or accepted my connection request, that meant the world to them- yeah … or to me at the time. Yeah. So that’s the methodology I keep in mind for my own LinkedIn, and it’s part of the reason why I think I consistently get high engagement on the platform.

[00:23:16] Kris Ward: Okay. That is really important, and I think that’s a s- so I think what happens is we’re always just chasing… K- I always compare it to the fitness industry, ’cause everybody wants to lose five pounds, right? So what’s the, “Oh, this month you’re gonna lose 10 pounds if you eat oranges with your left hand.” Do you know what I mean?

So I think they do the same on LinkedIn. And then there was this big push, get in the DMs and do all this stuff. And you’re right, w- that’s awkward. So I think what you’re saying is, look, at the end of the day you’re really working on quality content, you’re doing good posts, you’re doing that, you’re connecting with people, you’re making comments, they’re sincere, you’re doing it yourself.

Then by virtue of that, people are connecting with you and starting a conversation with you in the DMs. Which, again, I want to reiterate that it’s now really about the content, but then you’re… [00:24:00] Once you get to be, “Hey, I’m doing pretty good. Everyone look at me, Charlie Hills,” you don’t ignore the DMs, right?

And so you’re now not too big for your, not too big- … for your britches, and you’re still engaging them. But really ultimately, the North Star is still always going to be the content. Where I feel- … depending who you have on here, they’ve got people working the DMs, but really it’s always back to the content.

[00:24:26] Charlie Hills: Yes, 100%. That is the school of thought that I’m from. I know everybody doesn’t wanna become a, quote-unquote, “influencer,” but ultimately that trust, that credibility that you build with the content is the easiest way to sell to people on the platform, whether that’s just through content alone or it’s leveraging warm intent signals, or even if some light outreach.

Because I know people with a tiny following who make hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes a month just simply from DMs and doing that tastefully. Whereas, it is such a science. It’s… Social selling is there’s so many nuances to it- 

[00:24:58] Kris Ward: Yeah … 

[00:24:58] Charlie Hills: there’s so many ways you can start a [00:25:00] conversation.

[00:25:00] Kris Ward: Yeah. And I’m barely functioning with w- face-to-face people. Like- Yeah. I’m just getting by, people. I’m annoying people, I’m offending people. I don’t have it to do it in text and work all the words and the kinks out and no, and without any social cues. Are you frowning at me? I don’t got that. Yeah.

Yeah. 

[00:25:19] Charlie Hills: Honestly. So but I think the perfect marriage between them is ultimately both, building an audience with content and also doing effective social selling through lead magnets and, funnels, et cetera. Okay. That’s really 

[00:25:29] Kris Ward: the best way. We could have you on here all day, Charlie.

Oh my gosh. We’re… What would you say, with your posts, you talked about, the framework and whatever, what do you think some of the biggest mistakes we’re making with LinkedIn? I do agree with you. I did this for years too “Oh, is this post good enough? Is it written? Get it up.” It was just so I could check it off the box and say, “Done.”

And I’d be much more purposeful about it now, whereas before it w- it’s really is crafting and constructing something, whereas before it’s like, “Is this good enough? Great, I can move on with my day. I’ve fulfilled the beast of LinkedIn. Get off my [00:26:00] back.” 

[00:26:00] Charlie Hills: I totally relate to that. I’m growing on Instagram right now, and sometimes “Yeah, just get the post out, I don’t care.”

Whereas- Yeah … if I put the same amount of time and effort into Instagram as I did LinkedIn, then boy, I’d be flying. But ultimately, number one is 100% commenting on other people’s posts- Okay … just to, build that flywheel of reciprocity. Yeah … number two is to actually pre-validate your content to actually analyze what’s working for other people, and then also yourself, and then marry the perfect topic with the perfect format to basically build out as much data as possible for 

[00:26:32] Kris Ward: your- So are you looking at your competitors, or are you looking at anyone who’s got a good post?

So it doesn’t matter if they have a good post and they sell whatever, y- yoga memberships, you’re l- that could still be a- like credited to their layout? Or what are you looking at when you’re looking? 

[00:26:47] Charlie Hills: So for me personally, I do this manually. And what I do is that I’ll scroll social media on LinkedIn, Instagram, sometimes X just to browse and scroll.

Yeah. And then I’ll see either a topic or a format that I’m like, “Damn, that is really [00:27:00] cool. I really wanna make a post about it.” Okay. But I will then literally just save that on my notes folder, but I won’t copy it whatsoever. It’s not a, a- like I mentioned, it’s not a copy-paste job. It’s very much like I’m gonna take inspiration from this topic, test the AI workflow myself, then make my own unique post about it.

[00:27:17] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:27:18] Charlie Hills: And if ever, if there’s any semblance of okay, this is someone’s framework, then I’m gonna credit them in the post. Yeah. So that’s ultimately how I approach it, and you’d be surprised at how many gurus, influencers do this. It’s honestly like it fuels the entire creator economy. Which is sad because, sometimes I really wanna see more original thought from people, and I do believe that you can push original ideas and thoughts, but there still has to be an element of it being backed by data- 

To ensure that your content and time and effort you’re investing into it, it will actually pay off. So yeah, that’s number one and number two. And number three, I’ll- I honestly it sounds so cliche, but it is really a long game, especially on LinkedIn. 

[00:27:58] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:27:58] Charlie Hills: If- if you invest six [00:28:00] months and you get 1% better every single day- Yeah

then trust you will build a really powerful personal brand, honestly. 

[00:28:07] Kris Ward: You know what? There’s no other option. Because every once in a while I have a love-hate relationship. There’s sometimes I’m all up in LinkedIn, other times I’m like, “You know what? Me and you need some space,” right? But where I try to remind myself is back in the 1800s, boys and girls gather around, when you had a business you’d have to get up, especially in the winter here in Canada, a cold winter’s day, and then drive to some awful breakfast chamber thing where you sat with other business people in the community.

And you could be sitting beside, for me, a guy who sells tires is not my ideal client. Yeah. And now you’re like, “Oh, I’m stuck with him at breakfast for an hour and a half.” So maybe I don’t like LinkedIn, but I can do it in my pajamas and I can talk to people around the globe. And let’s remember that it was worse before, and you can’t not be on LinkedIn.

You just… I don’t see that as an option, so I might as well do it well. 

[00:28:54] Charlie Hills: Yeah. No, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Content is the new sales, so- 

[00:28:58] Kris Ward: Yeah … 

[00:28:58] Charlie Hills: yeah. Instead of, yeah, like you said, investing [00:29:00] an hour and 45 minutes sitting with someone who’s not your ideal client. Yeah. Why not create really good content and get- Yeah

thousands of ideal customer profiles looking at you and your profile and your business? Yeah. It’s a no-brainer, if you ask me. 

[00:29:12] Kris Ward: Okay. And we did ask you. All right, Charlie, oh my gosh. Ugh. Where can we find more of your brilliance? 

[00:29:19] Charlie Hills: If you wanna dive deeper, then obviously I have my LinkedIn, but then I have- Yes

Substack, which is charliehills.substack.com. And then also, I recently launched on YouTube. That’s where I’m sharing all my latest- Okay … workflows. Okay. Yeah. If you really wanna see the, the best and latest stuff that I’m actually sharing on, yeah, 

[00:29:36] Kris Ward: on- Okay. We’ll do that. Everyone else, please share this show with a business buddy. Oh my gosh, there’s lots of content here. We do not want them banging around by themselves. Thank you again, Charlie, and everyone else, we’ll see you in the next episode.