15 years on LinkedIn: what I’ve learned (and what I’d do differently)

I joined LinkedIn in April 2009.

Like most people, I had a profile, didn’t post content and didn’t engage with posts. I was what is often referred to as a lurker.

In February 2018, that changed when I set up my own business and started posting. Making it up as I went along, I promoted my debut bestseller, Everybody Works In Sales, my events, and myself because that’s what I thought sales was back then.

I joined LinkedIn in April 2009.

Like most people, I had a profile, added a few connections, and did nothing with it. No posts, no comments, no engagement. I was what people call a lurker - watching from the sidelines, vaguely aware something was happening but not taking part in it.

That carried on for nearly a decade.

How I started posting on LinkedIn - and why it wasn't working

In February 2018, after 23 years in corporate sales in London, I left to set up my own business. I started posting properly for the first time. Making it up as I went along, I promoted my debut book Everybody Works In Sales, my events, and myself - because that's what I thought sales was back then. Push your product. Talk about your achievements. Tell people what you do.

It didn't work. By March 2020, I had 1,000 followers and very little business to show for it.

Looking back, I can see exactly why. Every post was about me. What I was selling. What I had achieved. Why people should work with me. There was nothing in it for the person reading it. No insight, no story, no reason to care.

I wasn't building a community. I was broadcasting into a void.

When everything fell apart

Then I got divorced. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

My business disappeared in lockdown. I was cut off from seeing anyone. I couldn't cope with life and moved back into my parents' house - moving countries to do it. When that's where you end up, something has gone horribly wrong.

I've always been someone who fights back. No matter what life has thrown at me, I've found a way to get up. But this time I didn't. Life beat me to a pulp and for the first time, I stayed down.

It took a year of healing. I had to forgive people who had hurt me badly. I had to learn to become a kinder person. And somewhere in that process, I figured out something important about sales - that it's about serving others and listening to what they want, not pushing your product or service on them.

I couldn't afford therapy. LinkedIn became my only outlet.

I started sharing what was actually happening. The loneliness. The online dating. The fear of running a business alone with no safety net. I wrote honestly about things most people in the business world never talk about.

This was the first post that went viral.

This was the last big one. It still shows what emotional honesty and good storytelling can do on LinkedIn better than anything I could explain in a post.

People stopped seeing me as a sales trainer trying to sell them something. They saw a human being they could relate to. Someone who had been through it and come out the other side. That's what made them want to follow me - and eventually, work with me.

That's not a typical business story. It is one I'm genuinely grateful for, even though I'd never have chosen to live through it.

What failure on LinkedIn actually looks like

Here's something worth saying clearly. No matter how many posts get over 500,000 views, you have to keep going. The algorithm doesn't owe you anything.

I've had posts land with almost no engagement at all. I've gone weeks without a single lead. I promoted my TEDx talk - something I was incredibly proud of - and it barely moved on LinkedIn.

That's okay. Failure is part of the process. The question is whether you learn from it and adjust, or whether you take it personally and stop.

Most people stop. That's the real reason they don't get results.

Consistency on LinkedIn is less about posting every day and more about not quitting when things go quiet. The people I've seen build genuine authority on the platform are the ones who kept going through the slow periods, not the ones who posted perfectly for three weeks and then disappeared.

What LinkedIn is actually for

LinkedIn used to be about jobs and keeping tabs on former colleagues. That's still part of it. But if you use it properly, it becomes something much more useful.

Done right, it gives you a place to build a loyal community, help people who are earlier in the journey than you are, keep learning from people doing interesting work, and create a support network that's genuinely there when you need it.

Selling comes last. It's the result of doing all of that well, not a shortcut to skip straight to it.

I see a lot of people on LinkedIn who get this the wrong way round. They connect, send a pitch, get ignored, and conclude that LinkedIn doesn't work. It works. They just haven't earned the right to sell yet.

What I know now that I didn't know in 2009

Fifteen years is a long time on one platform. Here's what I'd tell someone starting out today:

• Your profile is a landing page, not a CV. It needs to explain what you do, who you do it for, and why that matters to them. Most profiles fail this test within three seconds.
• Posting about your product is the least effective thing you can do. Sharing what you've genuinely learned - including the failures - is what builds trust.
• Engagement matters more than follower count. A post that starts a real conversation is worth more than one that gets 10,000 impressions and no replies.
• You don't need to go viral. I've generated more business from thoughtful, specific posts that reached the right 200 people than from posts that went viral and brought in curious but unqualified attention.
• People can tell when you're performing. Authenticity on LinkedIn isn't a strategy - it's what's left when you stop trying to sound impressive and start talking like a person.
• Vulnerability is not weakness. The posts I almost didn't publish because they felt too personal are the ones that have mattered most.

And perhaps the most important thing: LinkedIn rewards those who give before they ask. Every time.

Why this matters for sales

Sales is tough. Whether you're in a 9-5 or running your own business, the thing that holds most people back has nothing to do with tactics. It's imposter syndrome. Lack of confidence. Not knowing how to handle rejection or how to keep going when nothing seems to be working.

LinkedIn, used well, helps with all of that. The community you build becomes a support system. The act of sharing what you know builds confidence. The conversations you start teach you more about your buyers than any training course could.

It's not just a lead generation tool, though it does that too. It's a place to become someone worth buying from.

If you want to understand what that looks like in practice, I cover the detail in my post on how to generate leads on LinkedIn.

And if you want hands-on help applying this to your business or your sales team, take a look at my LinkedIn training programmes.