This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
In this week's Failure Friday segment, we hear the story of a LinkedIn coach whose aggressive marketing tactics backfired, leading to a ban from the platform and a crucial lesson. I guess if you get banned from something that is a primary business model for you, it is going to result in a crucial lesson, at least I hope so. And welcome to Side Hustle School, my name is Chris Guillebeau. Of course, this segment is Failure Friday, where we can learn from failure as well as success, failure and success, failure that leads to success, the transition between the two, the rise and fall, the fallen rise and so on. Just like our Throwback Thursday segment, you get to hear directly from a Cytosleur who has struggled to get something off the ground or otherwise encountered a big difficulty. It often starts
with an idea. In this case, it's more of a strategy. It starts with a strategy or a tactic. Ben from La Jolla, California is doing some LinkedIn marketing outreach and such. And of course, LinkedIn is all about outreach. They actually encourage you to do that. Like they
have various tools and you can pay for a premium membership and then you get a certain number of emails that you can send or messages, I guess, through the platform to anybody. And you can also just go and start adding a bunch of people and messaging them. And people do this all the time. But you know, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. And if you do it the wrong way too much, the platform doesn't like it. So let's hear the story from Ben and see what we can take away
from it. I'll be back at the end, but first over to him. Starting my journey as a LinkedIn coach, I was confident in my ability to help professionals enhance their presence on this powerful networking platform with years of experience in digital marketing and a robust LinkedIn network. I believed I had the expertise to guide others in optimizing their profiles and strategies for career growth and networking. My name is Ben. And
this is the story of how my well-intentioned venture led to an unexpected and severe setback. I launched my coaching service with enthusiasm, offering personalized advice on profile optimization, content strategies, and networking techniques. My initial clients saw tangible improvements in their LinkedIn engagement, which bolstered my confidence. Encouraged by these successes, I began to aggressively market my services directly on LinkedIn, reaching out to potential clients through connection requests and messages. At first, this approach seemed effective. My client base grew, and the feedback was positive. However, I underestimated the fine
line between proactive networking and intrusive pitching. My messages, initially tailored and personal, became more frequent and standardized as I tried to scale my outreach. It wasn't long before this aggressive strategy backfired. LinkedIn's algorithms, designed to maintain professional and respectful interaction, flagged my account for spammy behavior. Warnings came first, which I unfortunately overlooked, confident in my understanding of the platform. Then one day,
I found myself locked out of my account banned from LinkedIn. The ban was a professional disaster. LinkedIn was not only the primary channel through which I acquired new clients, but it was also the platform around which my entire coaching business revolved. My credibility as a LinkedIn expert was shot. Attempts to appeal and explain my situation to LinkedIn were met with standard responses, and the ban remained firmly in place. This experience forced me to reevaluate not just my
marketing strategies, but the very foundations of my business. I had become so focused on expanding my client base that I lost sight of the values and professional standards that LinkedIn upheld. My aggressive marketing approach had crossed the boundaries of what was acceptable on the platform, turning my asset into a liability. In the wake of the ban, I had to pivot. I shifted my focus to general career coaching, utilizing other social media platforms and more traditional marketing methods. This transition was challenging, requiring rebuilding much of my online presence and client
trust from scratch. The failure of my LinkedIn coaching business was a hard-earned lesson in respecting platform guidelines and the importance of ethical marketing practices. It taught me that understanding and adhering to the rules of any platform is crucial, especially when that platform is the lifeline of your business. Today, as I rebuild my practice, I approach each interaction and marketing effort with a heightened sense of responsibility and ethics. The LinkedIn ban, while a significant setback, turned into a learning curve that shaped my professional conduct and approach to digital marketing and coaching.
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. Ben, thanks so much for sharing the story. And yes, when it comes to cold outreach or just pitching people randomly, that doesn't usually work very well in the first place. You really need to build some kind of relationship with people and that takes time. And those who are willing to do that can often see success. That's how a lot of
coaching and consulting models are built up. But yeah, if you just start sending random pitches to as many people as possible, that's annoying. It's annoying to each person and a lot of them are going to report that. And ultimately, it's not going to be effective. And then in some cases, it's going to be counterproductive or counter effective, because you're developing the opposite of goodwill with all those people. And then as you can see, sometimes the platforms don't like it. So what
do you do instead? Well, I think it's helpful to follow LinkedIn posts and comments. And don't just say great posts, like add something to the post. And then after you've done that a lot, you know, at least a few times with any particular creator, or anybody who's writing the posts, then you can reach out to them and just say, hey, you know, just wanted to kind of connect a bit. And here's what I do.
You know, if I can ever be helpful in some way, I would love to talk about that. And sometimes that will lead to something often it won't, but at least it doesn't generate, again, the opposite of goodwill. Anyway, glad that Ben has learned his lesson. I appreciate him sharing Candid's story. sidehustleschool.com, some resources, show notes for every episode. This one's 2596, 2596.
I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
