Neal O'Grady 🍉’s Post

Competition is heating up. And the algorithm is making it hard. Reminder: killer content is half the battle. Growing an audience is hard. It gets way harder if you stop and start Or neglect the real people in your audience. Friendly reminders to: Be active. Be social. Be different. Give things time to compound. And, shoot for a viral post and then keep the momentum going. Our student Alex Smith had one viral post add 20k followers, then all the posts he did that week added another 10k followers. ––– Repost ♻️ to inspire your audience and follow Neal O'Grady 🍉 for more.

My first 4 businesses failed. I started & stopped LinkedIn 7 times. And yet... Businesses 5, 6, and 7 are all over 7-figures in revenue. Each one better than the last. This is my 8th time on LinkedIn, and I haven't stopped after a year and a half. I grew to 50,000 followers in a year. I could have spent years reading business, marketing, and copywriting books. I could have stopped at business #4 and failed attempt #7. But instead, I kept trying. I kept making horrible mistakes. Nearly every mistake you can imagine someone making I made them. Now, I know how to avoid them. The takeaway? We suck at learning secondhand. You can't be taught to ride a bicycle in a classroom (or on ZOOM 😂). You learn by falling on your ass. And each time, you go a little bit longer before falling on your ass again. Until it becomes so natural to you that you can hardly believe you used to fall. ––– Let this be the final push you need to do the scary thing you're putting off. For me, it was putting myself out there and letting my ideas be judged by the world. It was one of the best decisions I've made.

Writing is a f'ing grind without a system. Step 1️⃣: Pick a topic/audience One you can sell your product/service to. Or, one you are passionate about AND can monetize AND would enjoy the work to monetize it. Step 2️⃣: Create a list of subtopics Ex: If your topic is "starting a podcast": - Choosing a format/topic - Podcast branding - Getting guests - Sponsorships - Podcast gear - Analytics Step 3️⃣: Create content "themes" - Train your audience on what to expect - De-risk creation by re-working winners - Gain clarity on what you're posting For example, you can theme days of your week to make it easier to design: Mon: Meme Tues: Cheatsheet Wed: Carousel Thurs: Tease Newsletter Fri: Client Win Or you can get creative in your themes: Will Nitze: "Monday Shower Thoughts" Jenny Hoyos: "[Fast Food Chain] for $1" MrBeast: "$1 vs $1,000,000,000 [Thing]" Ryan Trahan: "I Survived on $0.01..." Step 4️⃣: Pick your formats Memes, carousels, cheatsheet, quotes, polls, pure text, crying selfies, short-form video, long-form video, etc. Don't do them all right away. Start with the easier ones that align with your current skills. If you're good at design, do cheatsheets, images, and carousels. If great on camera, do video. If neither, do text. Master one, then move on. Step 5️⃣: Switch up "post types" You can write about podcast branding in tons of ways: 1. Actionable: Step-by-step breakdown of choosing a brand for your podcast. 2. Present/Future: How will podcast branding change? 3. X vs Y: Compare the outcome between thoughtful branding vs not 4. Analytical: Tell a story of Joe Rogan's podcast branding 5. Contrarian: What does everyone else get wrong about podcast branding? 6. Motivation: What would happen if they nailed their podcast branding? 7. Observation: What's a keen observation about podcast branding? Ex: They all look the same. 8. Listicle: What are the 8 top podcasts for their branding? –––– Example for me with this post: Audience: Startup founders Topic: Growing startups + audiences Subtopic: Content creation Format: Cheatsheet Post type: Analytical (cheatsheet) + Actionable (text) Repost ♻️ to help your audience and follow Neal O'Grady 🍉 for more.

We act on emotions and then rationalize with logic. Make people stop scrolling & pay attention by tapping into these 10 emotions. Featuring examples from 10 creators with > 100k followers. ––– Repost ♻️ to inspire others and follow Neal O'Grady 🍉 for more.

YEEHAW! Finally hit 100,000 subs! 🤠 Nearly all organic and ~45-50% open rate. Here's the biggest lesson: People don't have short attention spans: They finish three-hour Joe Rogan episodes and binge fourteen hours of Netflix. No, they have short consideration spans: They must be hooked quickly. Your first minute must be incredible. Then, you must keep them engaged with a steady drip of dopamine hits. Until you've earned a reputation for quality in the reader's mind, they don't read closely. Instead: - They skim. - They don't appreciate your arguments. - They assume you're just trying to sell to them (instead of educate). The ultimate hook is the author's reputation: - The from > subject. - The author > title You need to train people to associate your name with being worth the time investment to stop and pay attention. Because most content is not worth it. You do that by not shying away from great, in-depth content. ––– Extreme quality stems from four factors: 1️⃣ Engagement – Are you hooking readers with your intros? – Are you exciting them about what they're about to learn? – Are you effectively conveying how valuable the material is? – Does it spread out hits of dopamine? – Does it break up lots of text with images? 2️⃣ Concision – Are you conveying your points w/o fluff? 3️⃣ Depth – Are you offering a thorough analysis that exceeds the self-evident parts? – Are you giving them access to knowledge or data they don't have access to? 4️⃣ Novelty  Are you sharing counter-intuitive thoughts that readers wouldn't have pieced together? That's how you trigger dopamine hits. You want those light bulb moments. ––– After 4-5 years of running a content-led business designed to build trust, that's the number one thing I've learned. This is why our subject lines are just: "Growth Newsletter #XXX." We want people to open based on our reputation, not our cleverness. Thanks to all 100,000 of you!

Copywriting is one of the most critical skills for an entrepreneur. Writing is the most effective and scalable way to persuade. From negotiations to DMs to social posts. Sharp copywriting makes the difference. Here's my cheatsheet compiling: 1. 12 ways to hook people 2. Actionable writing tips 3. Literary devices 4. 8 post types 5. Copywriting frameworks Feel free to save it and reference it later. You can either right-click and Save Image As... or check the comments for a link to a high-res PDF. #copywriting #cheatsheets ——— And if you liked this, follow me, Neal O'Grady 🍉 I dive into how to build an unignorable startup and personal brand.

Terrible thumbnails, titles, and production. But the tide is turning. We're getting sick of the corny, attention-grabbing hacks that have worked on YouTube for so long. We're just begging for someone to be real. To not be so damn performative. It's why Huberman does so well. He isn't claiming to teach you more than a medical school degree. He talks for hours. He doesn't dumb it down. He uses the weird medical jargon. He looks really good with his shirt off. Sam Sulek, a college kid, has embraced the same ethos. He films slow, dark, grainy vlogs of him driving to the gym and talking about muscle. And working out at the gym talking about muscle. And driving back from the gym talking about muscle. The thumbnail is just a random shot from the video of him on a leg press. And the title is "Spring Cut Day 22 - Legs" And it's 55 minutes long and unscripted. It's breaking every "trick" in the marketer's playbook to get and keep your attention. Yet, his videos have been watched 172,277,836 times. It's real. He just lives and breathes this. And you're just hanging out with him. You don't have to do the cringy stuff everyone else is doing. In fact, it's probably better you don't.

7 years ago, I started my 4th business We raised $450k in a crowdfunding campaign for our first client. Within 2 years, we worked with Microsoft, Segment, Envoy, Perfect Keto, and dozens of other clients. We wrote for Techcrunch. We gave talks at YC and Google. We even got accepted into YC in 2019. In a few years, we had created two 7-figure brands, Bell Curve and Demand Curve. But nobody knew who I was. I hid behind the brands—and let my cofounder, Julian, be the face. He leveraged his writing to reach millions of people while working together. The result? - My network was small - I was never asked to be an advisor - I was never asked to speak on podcasts - I only got DMs from recruiters and SDRs - I relied on Julian to meet other cool founders 2 years ago, Julian moved on to start an investment fund. I decided to stop hiding behind the brand. I started posting on LinkedIn multiple times per week. I didn’t expect to: 1. Hit 50k followers in the first year. 2. Be asked to be an advisor frequently. 3. Get invited to speak at conferences. 4. Get DM'd by some of my startup heroes. Nor did I expect to create UNIGNORABLE, which earned $500k+ in its first few months—part-time. I just hoped it would help grow our newsletter, attract more agency clients, and reduce my reliance on Julian to make connections. (Which it has.) My follower count is great for my ego. But what I care about are the knock-on effects. I know, I know. These transformation stories on LinkedIn are cringe and contrived. But I swear this is the truth. Every week, I reflect on how different my life looks today. A lot of the people I interact with daily are a direct result of writing. And how my entire business was bootstrapped off my cofounder's personal audience. If you’re an entrepreneur ready to stop hiding behind your brand, enrollment is open for the Apr 22nd cohort of the UNIGNORABLE Challenge. In 5-weeks, you’ll learn how to build an audience of future buyers. To become the go-to expert in your space. To become UNIGNORABLE. 252 people have already enrolled. And this is the last cohort for ~6 months. Learn more and enroll here: https://lnkd.in/gYcVDnDB (This photo was taken in Australia a few months into running an agency—before various stages of burnout 😂 )

My student, Eric Partaker hit: ↳ 100k followers after 6 months ↳ 548k after 15 months (today) Last month, he got:  – 80,000+ new followers – 15,000 new newsletter subscribers His average post gets over 3,000 likes. It's honestly insane. Yet, his first 30 posts all had <100 likes. I remember celebrating with him when his 35th post skyrocketed to 2,500 likes. He used the same 11-step framework we give all our students in @beunignorable Eric just did it at a really high level (and has a ton of experience and credibility to back it all up). Here’s a breakdown so you can build an unignorable personal brand too. At a high level, the steps are: 1. Get f*ckin' going 2. Discover “Your Oneness” 3. Know your buyer 4. Pick a topic/channel 5. Get inspired 6. Build your network 7. Revamp your profile 8. Master psychology 9. Build intention 10. Systematize 11. Audit + double down Dive into the carousel for a breakdown of each step in the process. ——— If you want to become unignorable, enrollment is open for UNIGNORABLE's 4th and best cohort. We've trained 1000+ students, like Eric, to build their personal audience to help grow their business. Check the link on my profile to enroll. Or DM me!