Cultivating Executive Presence

Ep. 12: The Best Company Doesn't Always Win

There's a conversation I have more than any other. A CEO calls. Twenty years in their industry. Deep expertise. Serious client roster. And they say - with a frustration that is equal parts wounded and furious - "We are losing to a competitor that has a fraction of our experience. They have fewer clients, less track record, less everything. And they are getting more attention than we are. How is that possible?" It's possible because being the best in your market and being perceived as the best are two completely different things. And in the absence of visibility, the market can't tell the difference. In this episode, I explain why this keeps happening - and what to do about it. What You'll Learn: •  Why the frustration of watching a less experienced competitor win is both emotionally valid and strategically costly •  The VHS vs. Betamax story: how a technically superior product lost the market entirely - and what it means for your business •  Three things the less experienced competitor has that you don't (speed, risk tolerance, first mover advantage) •  The one thing they can never have: your twenty years of earned expertise •  Why LinkedIn is a compounding game - and why every month you wait makes the gap harder to close •  How to compete on your terms, not theirs: leaning into what can't be replicated •  The magnetic leader: why bringing who you actually are to LinkedIn is the distribution strategy The best company doesn't always win. The best-perceived one does.

Ep. 11: What the Data Actually Says About Executive LinkedIn in 2026

Most LinkedIn advice is built on data from the wrong people. Influencers. Content creators. Marketing professionals. People whose full-time job is posting. When you study that population, you learn what works for that population. And what works for an influencer is often actively wrong for a CEO. For the fourth year in a row, we published the Executive LinkedIn Report - built entirely on executive data. 6,035 posts. 33 million impressions. 457,000 engagements. From CEOs, C-suite leaders, and senior executives across healthcare, software, financial services, education, and more. The findings are different from what you've been told. In several cases, they directly contradict it. What You'll Learn: •  Why influencer LinkedIn data is the wrong benchmark for executives - and what four years of executive-only data shows instead •  Format performance: images reach 31% more people than text, video leads on engagement, and documents have been declining for two years running •  Why original posts reach 5x more people than reshares - and why resharing is costing you more than you think •  The content hierarchy: personal stories outperform every other category, including industry insight and company news •  Two myths the data kills definitively: hashtags (32% reach penalty, zero engagement benefit) and closing questions (don't drive comments, cost reach) •  The Sunday finding: 88% more impressions than Monday, highest engagement rate of any day - and only 1.3% of posts use it •  How 7 executives generated 47% of all impressions - and the system behind it •  Why human voice is becoming more valuable, not less, as AI floods the platform with noise Full report: https://the-executive-linkedin-r-j780ndt.gamma.site/ [https://the-executive-linkedin-r-j780ndt.gamma.site/]

Ep. 10: The Reluctant CEO - How to Be Visible Without Losing Your Integrity

I hate social media. That's not something you'd expect to hear from the CEO of a LinkedIn ghostwriting company. But it's true. And I think it's the most important thing I can tell you before anything else in this episode. Because the discomfort most leaders feel around LinkedIn visibility? I feel it too. After four years of posting. After hundreds of posts. It still stings when something I care about lands in the void. The edge doesn't go away. What changes is that the discomfort becomes purposeful. And that's a completely different thing. In this episode, I share more of my own experience than I usually do - including the meditation retreat post that fell completely flat, the Stanford Business School reunion where I didn't have to explain what I was up to because everyone already knew, and what I've learned from watching the shyest, most reluctant clients generate the most powerful responses when they finally speak. What You'll Learn: •  Why the discomfort of posting doesn't go away - and why that's actually the honest answer •  The difference between being ignored and being criticized - and which one stings more •  Why authenticity alone isn't a strategy (and the meditation retreat post that taught me that) •  Why the most reluctant leaders tend to have the most powerful voice when they finally use it •  The Stanford reunion: what the compound effect of visibility actually feels like in a room •  How to reframe visibility from ego to service - and why that changes everything •  Finding your voice in public: why it's messy, iterative, and worth it anyway If the idea of posting on LinkedIn makes you uncomfortable - this episode is for you.

Ep. 9: How Do I Know If This Is Working?

The question I hear from almost every CEO six months into posting on LinkedIn: "How do I know if this is working?" But here's what I've noticed: most leaders start the conversation telling me exactly what they want - credibility, trust, narrative ownership, the ability to walk into a room and be known. And then the moment I ask "what does success look like," something shifts. They start talking about pipeline, attribution, follower counts, and dashboards. That gear shift is the problem. And it's why so many leaders quit right before the flywheel starts spinning. In this episode, I break down: •  Why the mismatch between what leaders want and how they measure it causes premature quitting •  Dark social: why 70-90% of your audience will never like or comment - and why that's not a bad thing •  The Matt story: a Naval Academy friend I hadn't spoken to in 15 years who introduced me to a CEO client after 18 months of silent reading •  Why probing in sales and hiring conversations is your most underrated attribution tool •  The conference analogy: why LinkedIn ROI looks exactly like conference ROI •  The performance curve: what to expect in months 1, 2, 3-6, and 6-12 •  Four quantitative metrics to track - impressions, precision, profile views, follower growth - and the qualitative signals that get there first •  The practical playbook: what to track, log, and ask If you've been posting and wondering whether it's worth it - this episode is for you.

Ep. 8: How Business Services Leaders Win Deals Before the First Meeting

In business services, everyone knows relationships win deals. The problem is arithmetic. You have 5,000 people in your network - and you can't have 5,000 coffees. So most business services leaders stay genuinely top of mind with 30 or 50 people. And for everyone else - the former client who just moved firms, the referral source who's actively looking for a recommendation - they're invisible. Not because anyone forgot them. Because they stopped showing up. LinkedIn solves that arithmetic problem. And in this episode, I walk through four business services leaders who proved it - an executive search partner, a chief of staff search CEO, a veteran staffing CEO, and a managing partner at a 5,000-person global firm. What You'll Learn: •  Why the best business services leaders win on trust and visibility - not just quality of service •  The arithmetic problem: why you can only stay top of mind with 30-50 people without a system •  Case Study 1 - The Rainmaker: 5.5x posting frequency, 97% follower growth, $400K in directly tied contracts •  Case Study 2 - The Specialist: 700K views on one post, $300K contract, 15% of annual revenue from LinkedIn •  Case Study 3 - The Community Builder: 20 posts/month, 687 likes, LinkedIn as community not marketing channel •  Case Study 4 - The Firm: how a managing partner at a 5,000-person firm uses LinkedIn to lead in public •  The four-pillar content framework: 40% industry, 30% leadership, 20% company, 10% personal •  Why "giving away value IS the sales strategy" in business services The gap isn't closed in the pitch room. It's created in the 18 months before.