I spoke with two small business owners last week.

One was frustrated because her LinkedIn outreach had a low strike rate.

Another said posting wasn’t really “doing anything” for him.

Both wanted what every business owner wants:
👉 More sales

Both thought the other’s approach was a waste of time.

If you ask me, they were both wrong 🤷‍♀️

The cold outreach problem

When you only do LinkedIn outreach, you're cold-pitching strangers who:

• Have no idea who you are
• Probably aren't in market
• Have already had 10 other unsolicited DMs this week

You burn through your list before most of them would've ever considered you.

The content-only problem

When you only post content, you're passively waiting for the right buyer to stumble across you – and missing your chance to connect with the ones ready today.

It's treating content like a vending machine that should spit out leads, instead of a tool to build:

• Visibility
• Credibility
• Connection

And speaking of connections... please, for the love of LinkedIn, don't send a generic "thanks for connecting" DM, then weeks later follow up with an offer like you're reaching out to an old mate.

I'm guilty of opening with that line too – it makes sense, we just connected!
But at least follow up with something real:

• An observation
• A question
• Anything that sparks a conversation

My latest go-to:
​👉 "Have you ever met anyone famous?"
​Feel free to steal it.

The marketing science

Only 5% of buyers are in-market at any given time.
The other 95% will probably buy later – but only from you if they already know and trust you when the time comes.
​
Before you reply asking where I got my stats, it’s a heuristic, not an exact figure.

But the point still stands. And it’s the reason your marketing needs to do two jobs:

1. Build visibility and trust with the 95%
2. Activate conversations with the 5%

When you split outreach and content apart, you waste time, energy and budget.

When you connect them, every touchpoint warms the audience for the next.

Introducing the Authority Framework

This is the core idea behind something I've been building lately:
👉 The Authority Framework – a LinkedIn strategy that fuels both brand and sales on repeat.

✅ Your content builds familiarity and trust
✅ Your outreach sparks conversation
✅ Together, they turn strangers into buyers

But that's just the beginning.
There are other moving parts that make the flywheel spin faster, which I'll share in future newsletters.

For now, just know this: if you've been treating content and outreach as mutually exclusive, you're leaving a lot of opportunity on the table.

P.S. Can’t wait until next week? Reply with “Authority” and I’ll share more details now.