In this tactical episode, Anthony Blatner, Founder of Speedwork, shares how you transition from founder-led, one-to-one sales into scalable, one-to-many systems using LinkedIn and thought leadership. If you’re stuck closing every deal yourself and struggling to scale pipeline without burning out, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– How to structure a thought leadership funnel that attracts, nurtures, and converts high-value B2B buyers
– How to shift from one-to-one sales into scalable one-to-many acquisition without losing message clarity
– What to build before scaling ads so you don’t waste budget on unproven offers
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed. Podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a founder, I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and if you’ve built a company, you’ve built an organization and you’ve built a team, but you’re still the only one closing just about every real deal. If you’re the only one who’s really filling the pipeline, you know how exhausting that can be. It’s not just the work, but it’s the weight of the world that’s resting on your shoulders. But it’s not just that either, because it’s probably costing you a lot more than you think because you don’t scale. And if you’ve built the other parts of your company so they can, there’s really just one more piece that has to fall into line and to help us figure out how to do that and how to build a scalable sales system. I have with me today, Anthony Blattner, who’s the Managing Director of speedwork social, a firm that helps B to B Tech and SaaS companies amplify their customer acquisition on LinkedIn. With more than a decade of experience in LinkedIn advertising. Anthony works directly with founders, CEOs, CMOs and market leaders to help build high impact campaigns that convert based in Austin, Texas. He also hosts a podcast, LinkedIn ads radio check it out, where he shares actionable insights and tactical best practices for the LinkedIn ads ecosystem. So before we get down into LinkedIn ads, because you’ve worked with founders, you’ve worked with rapid growing companies, I’m wondering if we could, for just a moment, dive in Anthony on the shift that needs to happen and how these leaders think about building truly scalable sales systems.
Anthony Blatner
Yeah, so truly scalable sales systems start with like, what are the channels you’re going to use, you’re going to use, and how are you going to leverage your voice so that it goes from just one to one sales to one to many sales. That’s the shift that needs to happen when you’re a small business or just getting started. You’re probably going one to one just to reach out to people, to strike up sales conversations, but that you’re not going to be able to do that forever, that’s only going to get you so far. So the next tier up is, how can you go sell at scale? So LinkedIn is one, one of many great channels of doing that, but there’s lots of channels out there, lots of ways. But to be able to take your voice and take what you’re doing and do it at scale, you need to start switch from one to one to one to many sales.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I really like that language because it’s the opposite early on, right for folks who start at the mistake that I see early founders make is to go many to one at the at the go, and never really get one to one working. And so when, when you go in to work with a company and they’ve already got one to one working. Well, what advantage is that for you as an advertiser?
Anthony Blatner
Yeah, it kind of proves the model first. There’s lots of startups out there, and if you haven’t been able to sell your product on your own, it’s very hard for anybody else or to be able to scale it until you’ve proven the sales model there. So definitely having sales, some sales under your belt, is very important before you go try to scale it. Otherwise, you might waste a lot of money before you’ve really proven out who are you selling to, what are you selling, and what are those important points that are going to get them to buy. You might have some hunches of that going in, but really it is kind of getting the reps in of doing those sales and really proving it out, then you’ll really understand and get a feel for those points that do sell. And then that’s the ammo that you need to go, take to a platform like LinkedIn to go scale it up from there.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that, and I think that’s what’s so powerful about it. But it’s also some of the assumed constraints or head trash that folks have. Oh, I tried that right back when they didn’t have one to one working. And I’ve seen a number of folks who have used various ad strategies before. They really had a proof of concept before they could even sell, and then they kind of get stuck thinking, Well, that didn’t work then, so it’s not going to work now. So how do you help folks? Let’s kind of dive into the actual work of using LinkedIn ads, and I’ll come back to this question. But first off, why LinkedIn ads? Are there companies that it’s the right platform for? Are there companies that shouldn’t consider using it? How do you help folks figure that out if it’s the right channel for them?
Anthony Blatner
Yes. So that’s a good question, and LinkedIn may not be a perfect fit for everybody, but where it does perform very well is when you are selling B to B, business to business, or business to professional, when you’re look looking to sell to a very specific decision maker at a very specific type of company. LinkedIn has that data that almost no other platform really has to the level that LinkedIn does. So on LinkedIn, you can you can go do searches. You can set up your campaign targeting so that you can go after a specific industry, a specific company size, and then a specific job title at those companies, to get very specific into who you’re going to be reaching. So if you want to reach HR directors at financial companies. Is that’s, you know, you can just plug that right into LinkedIn. You’ll find those exact people any other platform. It’s going to be very hard to find, like, a very niche decision maker like that, you know, they those people do live on every other platform, but it’s very hard to reach them on those other platforms. And you might be kind of driving a lot of noise if you drive traffic on those other platforms. So LinkedIn, you can plug those metric, those items like that right in there and reach those exact people.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. What would you say? So let’s say we decide LinkedIn is a channel we’re going to go for it. We’ve got a history of one on one success, but but don’t know how to scale it. That’s why we’re looking for someone who’s got the experience like you all do. What are some of the mistakes that folks make before they bring you in.
Anthony Blatner
Yes. So LinkedIn definitely carries the reputation of being a very expensive ads platform, and it definitely can be if you do it the wrong way. And there’s a few different gotchas that can happen along the way to doing that most people have tried, maybe Google ads or Facebook ads. And I’d say for most companies, most, most companies most, most companies do try those platforms first, and then they try a LinkedIn. And if they have had success on one of those platforms, then they’ll just kind of copy paste what they were doing on like Facebook or Google, and then try to copy paste that to LinkedIn. LinkedIn works in a very different way from those other platforms, just purely in like the technical setup and and also down to like the business marketing funnel of what’s going to work there versus with other platforms. But just for a couple examples, on on meta, if you’re just going to set up your ad campaign, you’re you’re going to use the builder, you’re going to click through the setup wizard, and the default settings are usually good for you. On LinkedIn, you usually want to change a lot of those settings, because a lot of LinkedIn tooling is built for big enterprise companies. So if you’re anybody other than a big enterprise company, you want to change a lot of those out of the box. So a lot of people kind of fall into the trap of just using the default settings, which aren’t a good fit for anybody other than an enterprise company.
So they kind of get stuck with launching some campaigns but the wrong settings, and then they’re paying way too much, not getting anything out of it. So that’s kind of some of the most common issues that we see. And then from there, it kind of gets into the content that people are promoting. Lots of you know, if you’re running Google ads, you can go very direct in what you’re offering, because people are searching for you. But on a social platform like LinkedIn, if someone’s not actively searching out at that point in time, and they’re not, they’re in the social feed, then you want to go with more of a thought leadership approach to, you know, draw people in, get their attention. That’s what they’re looking for when they’re on LinkedIn. Is looking for tips and tricks that they can take back to their job and to their company. So to be able to create content and serve that need and desire will then help bring people into your marketing funnel, and then you kind of start the process from there. So a lot of people kind of lead, lead with like, content. Like, contact us or get a free consultation, but you might be jumping in way too fast, and people aren’t ready to just sign up for that just yet. So that’s where we start to build out the marketing funnel, using like, thought leadership and things like that on LinkedIn these days.
Scott Ritzheimer
I really like that, because I think one of the challenging parts of translating one to one into one to many is that most of your one to one conversations have some intent behind them, right? They’re either a warm referral for someone or recommendation. They’re someone who’s calling in and asking you to sell them. And when you go out into the wild, that’s just not true. That’s not the case. And so let’s talk about what you’ve called kind of this thought leader approach. What does that? What does that look like in the real world? We have someone, let’s say they’re a software company in in financial tech or something like that. How do they move from, hey, here’s our software, here are all of its features, to a more effective thought leading campaign,
Anthony Blatner
yeah. So this is kind of the big thing these days on LinkedIn, is thought leadership and thought leader ad campaigns on LinkedIn, which come with the recent, recently new ability that now you can boost posts from people, and, in a way, create your ad campaigns and your marketing funnel using boosted posts from People. In the past, it would just be running company page ads. Now you can boost posts from people and thought leader ads sound really fancy, but it is just boosting posts from people. But the approach is much more effective because you’re you’re putting a person’s voice out there, rather than just a company. There’s definitely places for your company page ads, but these thought leader ad funnels perform much better because you’re putting your people out there, front and center. So this is a perfect fit for any company that is that does have a very visible founder, or very vocal founder, or a founder who is a thought leader. So you know, especially like in the startup space, a lot of those founders are, like, very passionate people. They’re very vocal. They’re really smart in what they do. So this is, like, perfect for those types of companies. So for the example there with like, you know, FinTech, you would have a founder talking about on LinkedIn. You know, there’s lots of topics you could be talking about, but it could be around their usage of AI these days, into their software that they’re building, and how that’s helping. Their customers get better results. So they’re going to be posting on LinkedIn, sharing stuff like that. Other people who maybe want to learn those topics or are interested in that type of financial software are going to stop and read his posts. So that’s kind of the basics of it. And then we start to build it into a marketing funnel in a few different ways. First is, first is thinking about a few different types of content that somebody might be posting and that somebody might want to be reading. And it starts with the standard top of the funnel type of content. There’s lots of stuff that can work well in top of funnel, but what we see work across the board are case studies. So this is where somebody could be sharing.
Here’s how, here’s how we achieved help this. Here’s how we help this company achieve XYZ results. So another company out there who wants to get get that result is going to stop and read that post. So case studies just do well across the board. So it’s a great just option for people to be talking about. And it shouldn’t be the we’re so awesome case study. It should be, here’s how you can learn how to do this for yourself or for your company. So an educational type of post, that’s what people are on LinkedIn to read and to learn. So start with that. That’ll get somebody to know who you are, you know, trust you, because they’re seeing your expertise and kind of that starts the marketing funnel from there, so people who are reading your case studies that you’re posting on LinkedIn is the best starting point. And from there, you can then go retarget those people into a middle of funnel segment. What tends to work well in the middle of funnel is then like redirecting or offering to those people a next step. Like an easy next step. What we like to use here is some kind of downloadable. Or what I think is the best is, like, some kind of, like, subscribe. Type of option could be, you know, subscribe to my podcast, and then you’re going to hear and get all the episodes that are coming out. Subscribe to our newsletter to learn more about, you know, this financial technology, or how we’re using AI and stuff like that. And then people will scrub, subscribe to the newsletter, and then get additional communications from that company later. So I like to use middle funnel as a way to get somebody on some kind of list, you know, offer them. Hey, here’s our YouTube channel. Here’s some interesting videos that we’re posting there as well.
Our newsletter, podcasts like that are all great. So that’s what middle funnel is good for. And then finally, you can then go retarget those people with your bottom of funnel. And that’s like the direct offer where, you know, hey, if you are interested in this, in this app we’re building, you know, go here to get a demo, or go here to sign up for a free trial or try it for yourself. So that’s kind of like building out the stages of the marketing funnel. At the end of the day, I will also say, if there is active demand for what you are selling, you don’t, you kind of don’t need to go through those stages. You can go direct to the offer. So for a lot of stuff AI these days, people are building new tools, and there’s lots of active demand out there for AI tools. So sometimes you can go very direct. And you know, you don’t really need to go through that whole funnel, but you can go just direct to posting about this new tool you’re building and then tell people where they can go to get a demo. But that said, the bigger, the bigger your the larger your price point, the more enterprise type of things you’re selling, then you will need to start building out that funnel on those stages for people to go through. So kind of depends on what you’re selling, who you’re selling it to, but that’s how we’re helping people build thought leadership ad funnels as a way to, you know, draw the right people in, get them on your list and then offer them, you know, whatever your core offer is,
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, for folks who are used to get a deal close a deal that that very concrete, you know, next step, how do you help them to measure whether or not campaigns are working, especially in the early days of a new launch?
Anthony Blatner
Yeah, so a lot of it starts with like the initial engagement that you’re getting on your posts. So there’s a few different things. Number one is the initial engagement you’re getting on your posts. When you’re putting these case studies out there, for example, are people leaving comments? Are they asking questions? Are they DMing you to get more information? Those are the initial things that you want to look for. So that’s kind of the starting point. From there. You can set up with as with any kind of advertising campaign, whether it’s meta or Google or LinkedIn. You can set up conversion tracking. So then you can start to see, are people reading my content, clicking on my post and then going to my website to sign up for a demo, or whatever it is. Your next step is, could be a free trial or free consultation. So you can start to see if those actions are happening. So standard conversion tracking is possible with these types of campaigns, but otherwise, keep an eye on your engagement stats. Are people DMing you? Are they leaving comments? Those are good things you want to look for, kind of initially,
Scott Ritzheimer
Got it excellent. Anthony, there’s this question that I have asked all my guests. I’m interested to see what you have to say. And the question is this, what is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Anthony Blatner
Yeah, so in context of what we’re talking about, while founder led sales is a very great marketing funnel. You don’t have to put all that work on yourself, leverage your team and your people, and it is beneficial. To have lots of voices from your company, you know, conveying your message. So while you’re the founder, you know, don’t rely don’t don’t put all the weight on just your shoulders, but involve your team. People like being involved, and they like sharing on LinkedIn. I think a lot of what I hear is a lot of employees are also, you know, kind of maybe a little scared initially, to to put themselves out there and share. But if you encourage them and then help them find their voice and grow, it’ll be extremely, extremely effective way to get you and your company out there and incorporate everyone’s voices.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s excellent, excellent, Anthony, there are some folks listening. They’ve been toying around with the ideas. They’ve been trying things that haven’t worked, and they need to find a scalable sales solution. And they think LinkedIn ads may be a big part of that. Where can they reach out to you? How can they find out more about you and the work that you all do?
Anthony Blatner
Yes, so I’m definitely on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m the only Anthony Blattner there, but otherwise you can go to speedworksocial.com, and that’s our website. You can learn more about LinkedIn advertising, and then you can schedule a call with us there, and then we do have the LinkedIn ads radio, podcast, if you’d like to learn more. And then additionally, our YouTube channel, we have lots of different tips and tricks and tutorial videos posted there. So those are some different places.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, fantastic. Well, Anthony, thank you for being on today and sharing with us. Love the structure. The approach really broke it down, made it simple for us, and I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much for those of you watching and listening, you know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Anthony Blatner
Anthony Blatner is the Managing Director of Speedwork Social, a firm that helps B2B tech and SaaS companies amplify their customer acquisition on LinkedIn. With more than a decade of experience in LinkedIn advertising, Anthony works directly with Founders, CEOs, CMOs, and marketing leaders to build high-impact campaigns that convert. Based in Austin, Texas, he also hosts the podcast LinkedIn Ads Radio, where he shares actionable insights and tactical best practices for the LinkedIn Ads ecosystem.
Want to learn more about Anthony Blatner’s work at Speedwork? Check out his website at https://speedworksocial.com/
Connect with Anthony through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyblatner/
Check out Speedwork’s YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/@speedworksocial
Check out Speedwork’s podcast at https://open.spotify.com/show/01QPcQE41cI1GCDchUJqTu and https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/linkedin-ads-radio/id1692236492