Can you outsource LinkedIn? A LinkedIn agency founder answers – Sergej Pavljuk

1:06Michal Gula: after, after so many, 3D, specialists and enthusiasts, I just figured that, it's not always about the technology, about the software, about the hardware. And since we are on a LinkedIn, since I became known, and thanks to LinkedIn and thanks to those activities, I just decided that, it, it might be helpful to, to my audience also to have a LinkedIn specialist and a, a LinkedIn expert. I picked one, that, might be interesting to talk to because, we, or at least I expect us to have a quite different approach to, to LinkedIn, and especially when you will start talking about your work with your clients. So welcome, Sergej Pavljuk.

2:04Sergej Pavljuk: Thank you, Michal, and I'm glad to meet your community. I know that, they are used to, listen to, well, I would say more educated, more technical people that, can do something in the real regarding 3D, and I'm quite respectful towards that target group because obviously I can't do any of that. I just can make you a bit more famous on LinkedIn and hopefully earn you some money.

2:29Michal Gula: Sergej, do you think that you can outsource the LinkedIn?

2:37Sergej Pavljuk: Oh, come on. You are asking the most controversial question right away from the start. So you're trying not to lose viewers, during our first seconds of, stream, correct? Okay. then simple answer to simple question is, sure. You can outsource your own LinkedIn communication. It's not a problem if you do it properly. It's not a problem in any way if you do it properly, and it's actually a good idea because you are a smart person who can do the real k- kind of stuff. And for, for me to consult you that you should, well, click on LinkedIn and, click there and click there and click there and do it for hours and hours of your time each day, that's quite crazy. Consider your hour rate. Consider how much do you, get paid when you do what you really can do the best. And then consider that you would invest that time into your LinkedIn visibility. Well, it will be very, very expensive. That's number one. And number two, I am quite good at LinkedIn. You are not. You're quite mediocre. That means that, regarding, the rational decision, it's actually better to outsource LinkedIn most of the times than not to outsource it. I know, Michal, I know, Michal, that you are not outsourcing. I know that you are this hybrid kind of person who does both things, the real life technical stuff that I truly respect, and also your own LinkedIn visibility. And clearly, you are successful in both things. But Gula, this is the worst thing you can do. You can judge other according to your own experience. You are not typical. You are an extremist example. Don't judge others by this extreme example. Other people are in charge of running, huge companies, and they just physically don't have time. Or those other people are less talented and less lucky than you are. They have other conditions, and in most of those conditions, outsourcing is a good option.

4:56Michal Gula: I, I have one problem with this. usually a person who tells me that he or, or she doesn't have time for LinkedIn is usually also saying that they are doing cold calls, they are doing cold emails. And my typical response is, "You are spending, valuable time on, on very shitty things. Are you? Aren't you?" So the response is, "Well, yes, but that's how I'm used to be doing this business and, and, and outreach." So what I'm trying to explain is you can spend the same amount of time with much broader reach and, and, in, in terms of, of people who can see your communication and, and your message, it can be, like, on another level. So-

5:49Sergej Pavljuk: True story...

5:49Michal Gula: that's, that's, that's what I'm trying to explain here is that I don't really agree that, even though people are, are good in, in their own, services and products, I still think that- They should get better also in LinkedIn, because this can replace their current ways of, of reaching out to people

6:12Sergej Pavljuk: You see, let's talk about specifics because, it's not about the same kind of solution for every situation. There are different situations. So if we are talking specifically about LinkedIn, how much time do you spend on LinkedIn, you as Michal?

6:27Michal Gula: Me personally, mm, it used to be much more. Now it's maybe like two hours a day.

6:34Sergej Pavljuk: Two hours a day. Two hours a day. That's what, 40, 60 hours per month, correct?

6:41Michal Gula: Mm, I don't count it this way but probably, yes.

6:46Sergej Pavljuk: That would be, well, this is, a hard mathe- mathematician task for me as a marketing guy, but, we are talking about, for example, 1,000 hours yearly. It's just crazy.

7:01Michal Gula: Can be. Can be.

7:03Sergej Pavljuk: It can be half a thousand, it can be 1,000. I actually met people who are spending even 2,000 hours yearly on LinkedIn. What

7:11Michal Gula: do they

7:11Sergej Pavljuk: do? sure, some of them, procrastinate a bit. That's true. but, they, study other people posts, to think about their own, posting and their own topics. they establish connections. They send, connection requests. They are commenting other people posts to, get more visibility. And, also, they are trying to find, prospects and address them with private messages. Is that your story or am I missing some huge part of your time?

7:45Michal Gula: it more or less is yes, yes. I can say that like 90% of, of the time it's what you're saying.

7:54Sergej Pavljuk: Right. And, the question is, how efficient are you while doing that? Okay? one of the main things is that, you need to write your own posts to stay authentic. Sure. So obviously me or my team member trying to be more Gula than Gula is, it's quite ridiculous. How can we write your posts? I mean, we don't know a thing about 3D. We can try to match your personality, but obviously it will not be 100% your per- personality. And anyhow, we would need some time of yours, to talk to us and any- anyhow we'll need also your feedback, before we publish. So it's, actually easier for you to do your own content. True?

8:44Michal Gula: I, I, I truly believe so, so that's, that's why I do my LinkedIn on my own.

8:51Sergej Pavljuk: Yes and no. Now, this specific Mr. Michal Gula is, quite, an unique example of, smart people from, manufacturing industry who can also without a problem create his own video and text content. Most of pe- people from your industry, when we ask them to shoot video, or to write text, they do the kind of video and the kind of text, that you don't wanna see. Just don't, don't wanna read it. You don't wanna spend your time by consuming it. It's terrible. You actually meet a person who speaks very nicely about his industry with a great passion and you say, "Okay, that's, that's great. Please, could you write it? You just told me the great stuff. Could you write it?" And that exact person sits and tries to write that in a LinkedIn post and while he was able to speak about it in a great manner, he is unable to write it down. When he tries to write it, it becomes some kind of weird bureaucracy nonsense stuff that is unreadable.

10:06Michal Gula: But you are trying to position myself, as, as an exception. as, as something that is not usual on, on the market. But it wasn't the case from the beginning for me, uh-... because I, I also had to like learn how to write, how to start the, the post, how to end the post, how to create a call to action, how to, create interesting video or image, how to hook people. So I n- I don't think that, that the question is whether someone is born for it or not. And, and now when you are trying to position m- me, myself as an exception, it would mean that everybody that doesn't have like a natural talent for this shouldn't be doing Linke- LinkedIn. Is that what

10:57Sergej Pavljuk: you're trying

10:57Michal Gula: to tell me? Oh, you're

10:58Sergej Pavljuk: not exception in ability to learn. You are exception in, trying to learn, failing, trying a- trying again, failing again, still sticking to it, and eventually getting to the point. Everyone did give it a try to begin in sports. Everyone. But only few people are still doing those sports. So you're not exceptional by trying and learning. You are exceptional by sticking to LinkedIn even though at first it was very non-productive, at first it was very non-efficient, and most probably it did not bring you any kind of results for a long time. That's exceptional about you.

11:53Michal Gula: so are you trying to say that you can outsource not the personality but like the, the endurance or the stamina or like the the dedication?

12:09Sergej Pavljuk: Let me

12:09Michal Gula: try to- Is it what you're

12:10Sergej Pavljuk: trying to say? Let me try to finish that example with the posting, okay?

12:14Michal Gula: Okay.

12:15Sergej Pavljuk: So, you are either alone and you are watching from the window and trying to search for some kind of topic you would post about, and then trying to write some kind of text about it, and then publishing it and hoping for the best. That's scenario A. Or there is a scenario B. You've got some team of people, and obviously you have to pay them for doing that, but, they spare your time. They do the research for you, and they say, "Okay, Michael, those are quite good topics to publish about because we have data tools that say that people who are interested in 3D in general are way too interested in this particular topics. So those are trending topics among people who are interested in your industry." Okay? So instead of doing that research yourself or watching from the window, you've got the research from people who know how to do it and have tools that help to do it m- in the most efficient way. So you don't need to publish anything. You need to publish the stuff that on one side is interesting for your target group, and on the other side, you want to talk about it. So we are searching for the common ground between your target group, what they want to read, and you, what you are willing to comment on. That's the first step. Obviously, we are quite, happy about ourselves that we found some topics about your very niche industry, and, we also tried to give you the best possible examples. But if you are a typical client of ours, you would say, "No. No. I don't like that either. Oh, that's a great one, but we can't publish that." so we need to talk to you, and we need to get you to understand that some topics are not as crazy and as controversial as, you are thinking. For example, we would suggest you to publish your pricing, which for most people from manufacturing industrial companies is a crazy idea. But it's super efficient because nobody is doing that, and as soon as you talk about money, as, as soon as you talk about specifics, you get tremendous interest. Of course, there are reasons why they don't want to do that, because obviously in different kind of situations they do kind of pricing. So we as experienced- Of people, we would say, "It's all right. Let's talk about specific example and put the disclaimers that this calculation applies to a specific example." But still, now we've got your public's attention because they want specifics. They want to talk about specific solution for specific amount of money. They don't want to read just random text about your industry without any specifics and without any use for them. So our way is to give you topics, to coach you to not be scared of those topics that might seem to be a bit, a bit, I would say, for people who have courage. And also, the third thing is that, from moment when you agree, we begin to record. This is the kind of device we use. It's called Pod. You record the video call, and in that Pod, there is a special prompt of our team. It has two pages that we use for every and each customer of ours, and there is an extra page for you as Michal Gula and your company that is describing you as a person and what you are trying to achieve on LinkedIn. All right? And when we have that recording from a video call with you and we use that prompt, we've got you an excellent draft of your own post. Why? Because in that prompt, there are rules such as you need to use conversational language. You need to use short sentences. You need to use bullet points when and if it's proper. if possible, use quotes. If possible, use rhetorical questions. So we are trying to use as attractive language as possible. And also there is other rule, if possible and as much as possible, respect Michal's own vocabulary and Michal's own way of talking. Okay? So that prompt is trying to match what people want to see on LinkedIn and how you come, come off in a realit- in reality when we meet, when, when we talk. Okay? What is the result? Well, I can show you after our today's meeting because I'm recording. Obviously, I can create posts based on it. But the result is that when we send those posts to Michal, he says, "Oh, that's fine. We can publish that. Oh, that one is not fine. I just told you this information, but we cannot publish that. We sh- definitely shouldn't." But it's not about the style. Clients do like the style of our writing, not because we write so well, but because we are following, the rules that people want to read and their own personality so much.

17:54Michal Gula: Oh, what do what do you think it makes so special,... Can the client potentially do this on their own with either ChatGPT or, or, or Claude? Like, why, why do you think your prompt is so special that it can deliver better outputs than your clients trying it on their own?

18:19Sergej Pavljuk: There is no problem to do it. I can send you my prompt right away with no strings attached. I won't ask you for y- your email. I will never spam you for this. I can give you this, that prompt for free. And you can get prompts from other LinkedIn communication experts for free as well. That's not special about it.

18:44Michal Gula: Will you do it?

18:46Sergej Pavljuk: Sure. Not a problem. Just ask

18:47Michal Gula: me. people from the audience will ask for it, so make sure to put the money where, where your mouth is, or how, how is the saying in, in English. No,

18:59Sergej Pavljuk: seriously, it's not about special technology. It's not, that I don't have muscles because I don't know how to get them. It's quite obvious. I pay the membership in the, fitness studio. I visit. I, pay for a coach. I get instructions. I follow the instructions. I repeat. I eat healthy. I sleep. I repeat. Everyone knows how to become super fit and super attractive and super healthy. It's not about knowledge. Knowledge is super cheap. It's about execution. It's about discipline.

19:35Michal Gula: But when, when I'm listening to you, it feels like y- you want to be the one that does this for the client. Like, you wanna replace, like, his ability to be consistent, to be motivated to, to do what it's sup- what he's supposed to do. Is it so?

19:59Sergej Pavljuk: The funniest

20:00Michal Gula: part is- Do, do you w- do you want to be, do you want to be that trainer that, does the pushups for me and do the squats for me? Is it so?

20:11Sergej Pavljuk: the funniest part about it is that, when I talk to most of our potential customers on the first meeting, I suggest them, two pills as in Matrix number one. the blue pill and the red pill. One of the pills is, "Michal, we will coach you everything. After four months, you won't need us. It will cost you only 20% of the yearly budget, and it's for one time. So you pay us one hund- one thousand, two hundred euros monthly for four months, and then for this, amount of money, for four thousand eight hundred, you know everything we do. You are able to use it. You don't need us, and you've got the success already." That's option A. And option B is, Michal, we do most of that stuff for you. If we succeed, you never get rid of us. Sure, you can get rid of us any moment, but you won't have a mo- motivation to do so because it's outsourcing, and we are successful. The issue is that, you will be paying us 2,400 each month pretty much forever. What do you think? What do those people choose? Which option?

21:38Michal Gula: It's, hard for me to answer because I, I couldn't imagine to pay 2,400 every month for, for a LinkedIn. So it really depends on what will I get for that.

21:52Sergej Pavljuk: Oh, it's super simple. I say, "Michal, what you will get most probably is, some kind of LinkedIn visibility, but most importantly, you will get about 20 to 30 relevant business meetings to your calendar each year. But careful though, in most industries and in most countries, it takes us about four month to generate first leads into that calendar. So for the first quarter, you get only quite expensive brand awareness."

22:24Michal Gula: 20, 30 meetings in my calendar you say? Meetings or leads? Yeah.

22:34Sergej Pavljuk: Meetings.

22:35Michal Gula: Meetings. Okay. W- where is, where is like a breakeven point or, or, or what's the limit in terms of industry? What, what is good... Like, who can benefit, from this? Because there, there are industries where, where you can have potentially like thousands of clients, then there are industries that, like for example, in, in Central Europe, you, you can have like few tens, like at all, of your clients. So who do you think is, is the good potential client for you?

23:10Sergej Pavljuk: The good potential client for me, based on the first deal he closes, should, already pay for my service for about a year, year and a half. So you should have success rate of at least 10%. And, by making two deals yearly, you should get a huge green number from this investment. If that does not match up, then it's either you pay for our coaching and you do it yourself because perhaps it's cheaper for you. Perhaps it's not. You should count your own hour rate. And, also you should know that, there are no guarantees. So the numbers I'm telling you, those are mediocre numbers. Some of our customers have much better numbers. Some of our customers did not achieve even those 20 meetings yearly. So 8 out of 10, this is the outcome, 20 to 30 relevant meetings in your calendar with exactly the counterpart you want to talk to and exactly on a position in a company you want to talk to. So those are good, super relevant meetings, and those people have already some kind of attraction towards you and your company. Because we saw on LinkedIn that they are following you, and they deliberately like to consume your content. What we do is that we don't do any kind of cold outreach. First, we pre-warm those people with the content we just discussed. Then very carefully, we measure who got a bit warmer, who got a lot warmer, and who got even colder by reading your kind of posts. But, but

25:02Michal Gula: LinkedIn- And then we approach

25:02Sergej Pavljuk: only the warm ones.

25:04Michal Gula: But LinkedIn really sucks in giving you insights and, and statistics and like, like deeper insights into what's happening on your profile, on your posts and everything else. So how do you know like, who is, who is interested or who is like more keen to discuss with me?

25:24Sergej Pavljuk: May I present my screen?

25:26Michal Gula: Sure. Sure. Go ahead.

25:27Sergej Pavljuk: You purchase Sales Navigator Advanced. You publish the kind of that, they are interested in. And then you have the data. You know who has read that PDF. When was it? For how long? You even know what that person was interested in.

25:51Michal Gula: Okay. So stalking is, is your answer. this, these PDFs, these are different kind of PDFs to when I just upload the document to, to LinkedIn, right?

26:03Sergej Pavljuk: Absolutely. You need to pay money to earn money. and it's quite a lot of money. It's about €140 monthly. And you would be disappointed. There would be only a few people actually reading those PDFs, and even fewer, who would be relevant to you. But our idea is that it's better to have, 10 relevant readers that you know of and you can address than to have tens of thousands of readers that you don't know of and you cannot address. Because our main task on LinkedIn is to generate you that relevant business meeting, and we cannot do that by showing you the general data. "Oh, Michal, we've got such a huge success. You've got, 10,000 impressions, and you've got 100 likes." Because you would ask us, "Who liked my post?" And that would be me- Your friends, your colleagues, your present clients, your potential customers almos-al-almost never like or comment on LinkedIn. They do other kinds interactions, such as they, decide to follow you on LinkedIn. They decide to follow your company page. They decide to dis- to subscribe to your newsletter. They decide to read your PDF. And these kind of interactions, they are possible to track. There are 11 of them. But it's just time-consuming. You need to spend a lot of time by doing that. You can do it yourself, you can outsource it inside of your team, or you can outsource it to my team. That depends on your reasoning. That's up to you.

27:45Michal Gula: that's interesting what, what you just mentioned, that your clients or potential clients usually don't interact with you, like openly so that other peoples can see it. And from my experience, I can just confirm, that this really is the case. Like 99% of my clients has never liked my post or commented on my post. They simply just write me a DM. One day, they write me a DM, "Michael, we have been following you for two years. We wanna do something with you." And I'm like, "Who the F you are? I have never seen you."

28:25Sergej Pavljuk: And it's quite pleasant. It's like getting a Christmas, gift on, July. That's great. But, the issue is that, those people have to be super, super motivated and super warm to outreach to you. And some people are just a bit warm, a bit motivated. They would be okay with you presenting them your solution, but they are not warm enough to outreach to you. So if you outreach to those people yourself, you will get those relevant business meetings. If you don't, you will get nothing. So I'm a huge fan of warm outreach to people who are, for some kind of reason, reading what you are posting about. But you need to identify them first. I'm not encouraging you to write those crazy long messages. "Hi, I'm Michal Gula. I'm against 2D. That's in my... That's against my religion. And, I'm one of the greatest influencers on LinkedIn regarding my topic, actually the greatest one. And we should cooperate in this, that, and that." No, no, no. D-don't spam people, please. Don't ever spam people on LinkedIn. What I'm telling you is you should identify Who is reading your posts, then you should think carefully which you will write to him. And in most scenarios, the best option is say, "Hi, George. I would like to meet you and talk about possible cooperation." That's it. Because George already knows Michael. He knows what you do. He doesn't need this crazy kind of explaining. And if yes, then George will ask, "Hi, Michael. Sure. What do you want to talk about?" And now he asked, and it's okay to describe. It's okay to explain because he asked. But don't push him with this crazy long salesy messages generated by your quote. You're not unique.

30:30Michal Gula: we have a question, that is I think connected to this. what is the average response in, in percentage from LinkedIn messages now? So, I, I wouldn't ask this like in general because it, it doesn't really make sense because you need always to know like what you are comparing it to or like, like what's the context. but especially with, with what you just said. You will use that, that, advanced, feature from, from the Sales Navigator, and you will know that somebody is interested in your content. He's reading your, your posts, he read... has read your, your, PDF, for example. Now you will try to connect to him, so you will outreach with this simple message that you just mentioned. What's the success in, in person's, percentage?

31:25Sergej Pavljuk: In Europe, in manufacturing, about 10%. In US, in manufacturing, about 15%. the conversion rate-

31:32Michal Gula: So it means like every, every 10th person will respond to my message?

31:37Sergej Pavljuk: No. Every 10th person would have meeting with you. Okay. Response rate is a bit higher, but we are not talking about response. We are not, talking about he is sending, you the phone number. That's not a meeting yet. The conversion is you are sending 100 messages like this, how many meetings will you get? Well, first of all, don't send crazy counterparts and don't send crazy messages. But if you send the correct message to correct counterpart, we are talking about 10, 15%. And 10, 15-

32:11Michal Gula: it's 15. One, one, one yeah? 15 in US. Not 50.

32:16Sergej Pavljuk: No, 15. It's

32:17Michal Gula: 15.

32:18Sergej Pavljuk: One five.

32:19Michal Gula: One, one five. Okay.

32:20Sergej Pavljuk: One five. Yes. So we are talking about, 15 people out of 100 in US confirming the meeting and actually showing up on the meeting. That's the conversion.

32:34Michal Gula: and so far what you're saying that you are able to do it on behalf of your client. Everything up to now, right?

32:45Sergej Pavljuk: If we are talking about LinkedIn, we also spend about 40, 60 hours on LinkedIn, and we need our client to, take about four to six hours of his time monthly.

32:57Michal Gula: To do what?

32:58Sergej Pavljuk: Because, because we cannot outreach, a person you have not confirmed that we should outreach, for example. Okay? So we need you to see, the kind of people that are interacting with you and say, "Okay, but this is my current client. Don't offer him, a service as if we have never been talking together. this client we, have a informal relationship with, so don't address him with a general message." Okay? So, we need, you to make your LinkedIn functional and make it authentic, not only to create posts, but also to decide regarding the targeting. But in general, the idea, of LinkedIn acquisition that I would like our viewers to understand is that if you do this, InMail stuff, you purchase a premium on LinkedIn, and you send cold messages with no reason at all, you will get close to zero conversion rate. So you will get zero meetings or one or two very cold meetings, and you will harm your brand quite a lot. If you connect those people first, wait for several months, and then address them with a message, you will already get about 2 to 3% of conversion if you are talking about industrial and manufacturing companies, even though you are not posting. But the best recipe is to post during that time period, then measure who has read, and you would be quite surprised that, about, 40 to 60% of people who are reading your posts and watching your videos are not your followers, are not your connections. Those are people that are not connected to you, and even though they are not connected to you, they decided to spend their time consuming your content. We need to identify those people. And we... If we outreach only these kind of people, then yes, conversion rate gets to be about 10 to 15%. Again, we are talking about mediocre numbers. Some of our clients have 40, 50%. I-

35:17Michal Gula: What, what does it depend on? I can be quite honest

35:18Sergej Pavljuk: on who.

35:19Michal Gula: Why, why, why somebody, why somebody has higher numbers, why somebody has lower numbers? Is it about the, the company? Is it about the, the already built personal brand? Or what does it depend on?

35:31Sergej Pavljuk: Well, we've got only several hundreds of campaigns, so limited data source. But based on our limited data, if you are a woman, it's about plus 10% of success rate. If you are a chief executive officer, it's about plus 10, plus 15. If you are a woman and a boss, it's wonderful.

35:56Michal Gula: And beautiful. If you

35:57Sergej Pavljuk: are a sales guy, we don't measure that. if, you are a sales guy, marketing guy, financial specialist, real estate agent, LinkedIn coach, your success rate is terrible. No one likes HR-

36:15Michal Gula: You are, you are already, you are already on a blacklist, right? Yeah. with this kind of a position.

36:20Sergej Pavljuk: But I'm CEO on the other hand, so there are some pluses and minuses about me. you see, there are kinds of position that just get to be ignored on LinkedIn in general. Sales, HR, marketing, no one likes us. If you are technical, if you are engineering, success rate is much higher. If you are board member, it's higher. If you are female, it's higher. Also, it depends on, the niche you are in. So even among manufacturing companies, there are niches, in which there are too many, companies competing with one another. For example, industrial automation. There are just too many of, of those companies, okay? So it's quite hard to get at least those 10%. But there are very niche kind of, companies doing, for example, semiconductors, and they are talking about 30, 40% success rate in those niches.

37:21Michal Gula: maybe I like to go back to, to the core of the problem. Where do you think that your typical client... Or, or first, could you describe your, your typical client? Who is, who, who it is? Like, not, not,.. I, I don't mean to talk about what industry, but like what's his position in the of the

37:45Sergej Pavljuk: Well, the client that, purchases only the consulting and wants to, do, the sit-ups and push-ups for himself with the trainer. this kind of client, is, most commonly, either a freelancer or owner of startup, rather small company. So every cost hurts. Every dollar counts. Those people just want to handle things internally because obviously they don't have money. There is other type of client, and we are talking about SMB and corporate. If you are talking about SMB, in that case, money is not the issue provided that it does generate the leads, and leads generate the relevant meetings. So SMB is, generally okay with outsourcing because, it's easier, it's more predictable, and, the cost is all right if it generates the results that are promised, and if not, they cancel. And there is, the third category, the niche-

38:55Michal Gula: So, so, so are, are you suggest, are you suggesting that your ideal client would be someone from already running business that, is not like either on the, on the edge of profitability or a very early startup? So you need to have like running pipeline, that you know that you have to like reach out to someone, create the deal, and then you have somebody to deliver the, the either service or, or product. Yeah. So, so you, you need like already established running business to be ideal customer for your service, right?

39:35Sergej Pavljuk: True. To be very ideal for Sergej and his team, you need to be corporate. Corporates, don't even care about lead gen. They care about their brand. They care about their visibility. They care about being top of the mind. So that's a completely different kind of game. We can play in this game. We are quite successful in it, and it's even more expensive. But that's perfect for me. I think that for most of our listeners, it's SMB story, meaning that, they need business meetings, and then they need to see the return of invest- of investment. For this kind of people, I would say that, we are a good match either for consulting or outsourcing if based on one to two meetings, that you actually close, you got perfect return of investment. So I generate you 20 meetings. If you have two wins and you've got a huge green number regarding my investment, a clear return of investment, we are a good match. If you don't, let's not do it.

40:51Michal Gula: Okay. let's, let's get back to those problems of, of, of your clients. You already me- oh, you already mentioned two types, and, and I like disrupted you, disturbed you when you were, going to speak about the third one. So can you just continue with that or I already lost you there?

41:16Sergej Pavljuk: Oh, it was, the corporate company.

41:18Michal Gula: Oh, okay. The

41:19Sergej Pavljuk: corporate company is super complicated, guys. I can relate with your rules. Everything is forbidden. You are forbidden from communicating, but still, you are bullied for not being visible enough. That's fine. We can work with it.

41:36Michal Gula: I asked you about your typical clients because, client because I wanted to go to their, where they fail. I mean, your typical client, why does he think about going with you with your service? What's his, like, biggest failure in, in, on LinkedIn?

41:55Sergej Pavljuk: Obviously, if you pay for coaching and consulting, you can pay either me and my team or any other competent people in the industry. That does not matter. The issue is exactly the same. You get the know-how, you use it for a few months, and then you don't use it anymore. So the principle of LinkedIn, and Michal please, confirm this or, just say that, you have a different experience. The principle of LinkedIn is super easy. You get most of the results after half a year. You need to push and push hard for six months, and then you get most of it. Then you need to stab- stabilize that success. If possible, make it even greater. But some people, even after getting the first success, they just quit because it costs them so much effort, it costs them so much time, and the ratio of that time compared to is not good enough. So it's exactly like beginning in the sports. It hurts, but you don't look nice yet. That's the main issue.

43:12Michal Gula: The... Maybe we could find a reasoning behind the, behind the six months period. because if you think about it, you, you usually... And it, it goes for the e-commerce, for example, that, like, usual conversion rate is like, what? Around 1%, 2%, right? So you have to be in touch with 100 people for, one com- customer to show up or, or to actually make a deal, right? F- w- with one customer. At the same time, there is statistics that you need to get in touch from se- Seven to 11 times with a stranger in order so that they actually, like, remember you and know-

44:01Sergej Pavljuk: True. Very

44:01Michal Gula: true... who you are, right? So for each of those 100 people, it goes the same. Like, you have to get in seven to 11 touch points with, with them, and it takes freaking time because nobody's caring about you. Like- And

44:17Sergej Pavljuk: don't you imagine that when you publish that post on LinkedIn they have seen it? No, they haven't. Yeah. If I'm your connection on LinkedIn and you do everything fine, you do everything well regarding the algorithm, regarding all the things that you need to do fine about your profile, still it's about you publishing five posts and me seeing one of them. Okay? So in order to reach out to your target group, you need to publish 12 posts monthly to get them to see three of them. And if we are talking about conservative kind of, industries such as manufacturing and construction, then most of people are being considered crazy for publishing more than two posts weekly. So it takes some time.

45:12Michal Gula: And that some time can be around six months as, as, as we mentioned earlier. In

45:17Sergej Pavljuk: my experience, you've got visibility during first three months, and in the end of that period, you've got first meetings into your calendar.

45:25Michal Gula: So, so that, that would be, like, the first thing they fail. They, they don't have an endurance. They, they don't have, like, a, like a courage to stick to it for- But-... a long enough period?

45:37Sergej Pavljuk: Don't let me tell you that outsourcing is the solution for everything. It isn't.

45:46Michal Gula: I hope it's not. We do

45:46Sergej Pavljuk: the outsourcing. We deliver Michal meetings exactly into his calendar with exactly the kind of people he confirmed he wants to talk to. He goes to those meetings, and you know what? He says, "Oh, but they weren't ready to buy. They were just asking me what kind of ideas do I have and asking me to present those ideas. This is crazy. I don't want to do that. I thought that those people were ready to buy, that, that they would have a specific idea what they are trying to pitch me, specific idea what they are trying to purchase from me." You see? we are not able to generate demands. It's an exception to get a demand on LinkedIn. We are able to generate warm meetings, but you are supposed to sell on those meetings. So we are not able to generate you lovers, wives, and husbands. No. We can't do that. We are able to generate you relevant dates. That's our business. But on that date, you should perform.

47:03Michal Gula: Mm. That's interesting a- and that's something that maybe we, we should emphasize, that your job is not to do the business instead of your client. Your job is to create them opportunities to meet- Absolutely... people that might be a good fit for them.

47:22Sergej Pavljuk: And that's the main issue with our customers. We are losing customers for two main reasons. You purchase outsourcing, you like everything about it, you get exactly what we promised you, and you cancel because you have not sold on those meetings. And the second reason, it's a tricky one for us. You get the outsourcing, you learn, and then you decide to do it So you are happy with the service, you've got results, but after some time you decide to become Michal Gula to do it yourself. Is

48:02Michal Gula: it possible?

48:04Sergej Pavljuk: Sure. It's not a problem.

48:07Michal Gula: So, so we already mentioned that they don't have enough, dedication to s- to stick to it for, for six months. usual Like, this, this is very usual bias or, or, or claim from, from potential clients. "I don't have time to do LinkedIn." Do you think personally now, like, w- like, like internally in you, what, what's your feeling? When you hear somebody saying, "I don't have time for LinkedIn," what do you feel at that moment?

48:39Sergej Pavljuk: It depends on who is telling me this idea. If, that, person is, a freelancer, if he's an owner of a small company, I think that, he has time, he just, doesn't have motive. If we are talking, about, an owner of a huge corporate company, about general director of such a company, then, if I would be in his shoes, I wouldn't have time either. So importance of LinkedIn for us small guys is super huge. We just need to see that it's working. We need the motivation from it, and then we will find that time because we are small. We are not that rich. We are not that important. For those super big bosses, they just don't have time and won't ever have it.

49:34Michal Gula: But at the same time, they don't need calls, so that wouldn't be your client either, right?

49:42Sergej Pavljuk: Yes. Those kind of people, they want to have brand, personal brand as well as the company brand, and obviously they try- To treat LinkedIn as just another PR tool. So for them, the simplest, thing would be to send an email to a journalist and have it published in that, relevant media. But that time, well, it's changing. This time it's about, being more personal, more relevant to the target group, and we cannot make them visible on LinkedIn. We cannot make their company visible on LinkedIn without they time... without them talking to us for at least four hours monthly. These huge bosses also need to be authentic as any one of us. So yes, it's not about lead gen for them. It's about brand visibility. They were used to get it from fairs. They were used to get it from media. Now it's a bit changing. It's less about fairs. It's m- less about media. It's more about social media. But social media is different in more needing your personal touch. So yes, they can outsource quite a lot, but they cannot outsource everything.

51:04Michal Gula: I, I have seen, people going from, from, like, things like I do. Like, I do myself everything, up to people doing nothing on LinkedIn and still being visible and, and with, with, big reach and, and en- engagement. do you for yourself have some kind of a red line, like, when you would suggest your client, "No, we are not going to do this for you. This is something you have to do it on your own"?

51:36Sergej Pavljuk: We've got quite many of those. We are doing this business for almost 10 years, so we have learned a, some bit. And, one of the red lines is that if you keep canceling meetings on us, we can't publish your posts. Even though you would allow it, we just won't do that. It's non-authentic. It won't deliver results, and after all, you will blame us. So we just cancel the cooperation because you don't deliver your part of that cooperation, which is one meeting with you each week. Other red line is that, you don't attack other people on LinkedIn. I know it sounds crazy because most of people don't do that. But, some of those people want to, and you just don't do that o- in this kind of environment.

52:25Michal Gula: It's not a good idea. What, what do you mean? What do, what do you mean to attack people on LinkedIn?

52:28Sergej Pavljuk: Well- Like,

52:29Michal Gula: like, what's, what's their motivation and, and what they want to do?

52:33Sergej Pavljuk: They want to say, "Oh, we are the best, and other companies doing, the same kind of stuff is a bad, kind of stuff, and we don't like them. And, they have this kind of issues, and, you shouldn't, be working with them." Even huge corporate people want to do that. I don't know why. Because obviously, yes, they will get attention on LinkedIn by publishing this kind of stuff, and, they might be even right. It might be true. But this kind of, success is, very shortsighted. It's a very shortsighted strategy because what you've got is, interest not towards you being good but towards someone else being bad and you saying that aloud. I know that most of people don't like LinkedIn exactly for this kind of positive attitude, for being just nice topics and nice things. I don't like it for this reason. I like bad topics, but bad topics should be published about yourself. So Michal Gula saying, "Generally, I am good 3D specialist, but this is the thing that I had to learn myself. I was bad in it, and I became better by doing this mistake and learning from it," that's authentic communication. That's what I would recommend to Michal. Michal Gula saying, "Oh, these companies, that claim to do the same stuff that we do, they are bad. Don't work with them." This is the bad kind of s- communication, and if our customer is pushing this kind of narrative, we just cancel. We don't do that.

54:16Michal Gula: But I think this goes generally for a- any kind of marketing, agency. I, I think, like, this is the, the, like, PR 101, not to be bashing about, about your competition.

54:31Sergej Pavljuk: True. It's not a good idea. Because it, it,

54:32Michal Gula: it can, it can ba- backfire, like, very easily.

54:35Sergej Pavljuk: Yes. And if it backfires, Then they would say that, we are the ones to blame always, even though it was their idea. So that's why the safest and the only option if they agree is just to cancel.

54:52Michal Gula: in terms of, posting for them, commenting for them, is there any red line, or you can just, like, overtake the LinkedIn-

55:05Sergej Pavljuk: Oh, Michal, we don't

55:06Michal Gula: comment for

55:06Sergej Pavljuk: them... like, 100%? We don't comment for them. Never. Because, you need to read the post that you comment on, and you need to come up with your own unique idea about it. Because generic comments such as, "Oh, this is a great post," it's not a good idea at all. So it needs to be actually a mini post. Each of your comment to be successful needs to become a mini post of its own. And, in order to do that, we are spending that time once a week on a consultation. We are discussing those comments and doing them together. But we are never doing anything in name of our customers without discussing that first. So no, we cannot comment. I

55:57Michal Gula: have seen so many, profiles using AI for comments. It's so obvious. I really hate those. and, and I'm, I'm really not afraid to expose those. I do it quite frequently. What's your opinion about using like very straightforward AI on LinkedIn?

56:19Sergej Pavljuk: Actually, I'm super happy with, latest changes on LinkedIn. They are doing everything to, ban people who are doing, AI comments, who are doing, bot engagement, meaning that, they just like, posts of other people from the said group for no reason at all. they are trying to fight, generic AI content, meaning non-specific, non-personal, without any story or added value. And they are getting more and more successful with fighting those kind of things. So yes, with, AI and, any other efficient methods, it seems that you can spare those 60, hours per month. It seems that you can automate sending your connection requests, sending your messages, commenting, and even posting. But, honestly, everyone that used this method and we had an opportunity to see his or hers results had close to zero results and a lot of troubles. Did not spare much money, did not spare much time, and got a lot of problems. So I'm quite-

57:33Michal Gula: What problems in, in terms of? What problems?

57:38Sergej Pavljuk: Well, how do I know these people? They address me, "Hi, Sergej. I'm writing you, from a personal profile of my wife because my own profile got banned.

57:49Michal Gula: Could

57:49Sergej Pavljuk: you help me please?" And I say, "Okay. Hi. Let's go." And then I'm asking, "What happened?" "Oh, I just got banned for no reason at all." "Tell me more." "Oh, I was just sending connection requests." "How exactly?" "Oh, I was using this tool." "Oh, what tool?" "Automation tool. Oh, it claimed to be fine with LinkedIn, but it's not." "Okay, what then?" "And also I was, well, I was using the other tool. I like automation, so I was using the other tool to comment on other people posts." "Well, you've got banned for those reasons." "Okay, what should I do?" "Well, nothing. Most probably we won't be able to get you that profile back. And if you try to register-" Again, they may ban you with the new profile as well. It's just too late. So

58:45Michal Gula: th- there, there is nothing like a second chance?

58:50Sergej Pavljuk: Well, it's not guaranteed that they will ban the second profile of yours. It happened a few times, and I know of few other people that, succeeded. And I know of one person who succeeded three times and got banned three times because that person likes automation so much. So it's never the same, but I would say that, it's very short-sighted strategy to automate.

59:22Michal Gula: Is there any sign before you get banned or is there any, like, w- warning message from LinkedIn coming like, "Hey, Sergej, this is your last chance, please"?

59:34Sergej Pavljuk: Oh, I was banned myself two times this year already.

59:38Michal Gula: Because you are using a lot of automation?

59:40Sergej Pavljuk: Nope.

59:42Michal Gula: First

59:42Sergej Pavljuk: time, first time I got banned, because I was testing, the Atlas browser from ChatGPT, and I still don't know why, what exactly happened, but obviously it did some kind of scraping and, LinkedIn identified that and banned me for three days. So I tried to go to my profile. I was, signed out, so I put, my password and, I wasn't able to get there. There was a sign, "Oh, you have been using automation. Confirm that you won't do that anymore and in three days it will give you your profile back." Again, I was not using automation, or at least not intentionally. I was testing the new tool, and obviously it had some kind of scraping in it. That's why we use our profiles to test n- new stuff. We don't use our customers' profiles. And, the second time I got banned, was when they, updated the algorithm and any kind of Google Chrome extensions, any kind of Google Chrome extensions, even those that are just, banning, the ads, God forbidden. There are about 6,000 Google Chrome extensions that are forbidden and considered to be automation, even though they are not directly LinkedIn related. So sure, for about 15 years I was using this AdBlock Google Chrome extension, and I got banned for one week for using that. What

1:01:25Michal Gula: about- So for 15

1:01:25Sergej Pavljuk: years it wa- it, it was okay. It was all right, and then I got banned. What,

1:01:30Michal Gula: extension like AuthorUp, for example?

1:01:35Sergej Pavljuk: I did not use it in particular, so I'm not sure. I heard from other people that it is an issue, but I don't have it firsthand. I don't know for sure. I know for sure because I got, issues on, other profile of my colleague that Rusha Google Chrome extension is al- also an issue. So AdBlock and Rusha, I have firsthand experience. It is an issue. About AuthorUp, I would be very careful.

1:02:09Michal Gula: It hasn't been

1:02:09Sergej Pavljuk: a problem. I must say- It already became one.

1:02:12Michal Gula: I must say I've been using AuthorUp for almost, like, three years, I think. I have never had an issue that would be directly connected to, to AuthorUp. Although, although I have a feeling like

1:02:32Sergej Pavljuk: I

1:02:32Michal Gula: might be a shadow banned a bit because of it.

1:02:37Sergej Pavljuk: I

1:02:37Michal Gula: know that officially n- nobody's going to confirm some- something like this, but do you think this might be a case or do you think that just my content got worse?

1:02:50Sergej Pavljuk: Well, so far I have been telling you what I know for sure. this is just a speculation. my speculation is that, for using any kind of, extensions, you've got e- either a, a shadow banned or, the ban for three, days or banned for one week or just general ban and bye-bye, and it depends just on the severity of the issue.

1:03:17Michal Gula: Wh- why do you think... Would it make sense to be shadow banning your, your user? Bec- because you are punishing someone, but the person doesn't really know why they are being punished. So in- instead of shadow banning, wouldn't it be better just to say, and send a message like, "Hey, don't use this.

1:03:44Sergej Pavljuk: We

1:03:44Michal Gula: don't like it"?

1:03:45Sergej Pavljuk: If we are talking about perfect world, sure. But in the real world we are living in, most of stuff that they are doing is not, perfectly rational and it's not, perfectly easy to understand. I have been talking to about 15 people that are officially employees of LinkedIn and represent LinkedIn. The funny part is that, most of them were telling me exactly different stuff. So you are talking from... You're talking to John from LinkedIn and you're talking to Jane from LinkedIn. You're talking to them the same month of the same year about the same topic, and they both represent LinkedIn officially on that topic, and they tell you different stuff. You say, "Hey Jane, could you write me an email? Can I quote you in my post?" "No." "No." "Hey, Jane, I was talking to John. He was telling me exactly the opposite." "Oh, he must be wrong. Or am I, or am I wrong? I don't know." My thing so far, no one actually knows. As LinkedIn communication experts, we are trying to pitch you the idea that we know everything. Those official LinkedIn kind of people, they have to pitch you this idea that they know. But the thing itself, it became so huge and it's evolving so fast in so many con- contra- intuitive and contradicting ways that no one understands it perfectly. Some

1:05:22Michal Gula: Uh-...

1:05:22Sergej Pavljuk: understand it well enough. That's it.

1:05:26Michal Gula: So, so far when I was trying to communicate with, with LinkedIn, I always had the feeling that it's like, a communication with the financial institution or the government about your taxes. Like, they will never tell you what to do. They know exactly what you did wrong. But they will never, like, confirm that you can do this or you cannot do this. They are just, like, 100% sure when you have to pay fine or you need to be punished.

1:05:54Sergej Pavljuk: Very nice analogy. But, with LinkedIn, sometimes it's even worse. Sometimes you address them and they don't react. They don't respond at all.

1:06:03Michal Gula: So for

1:06:03Sergej Pavljuk: those of you who are facing this there is a very short recipe. Find LinkedIn on X, meaning X Twitter. They have an account. It's called LinkedIn Help. It's on Twitter. And write them private message. So write private message and send it to LinkedIn Help account on X, and it will make them respond. At least respond to your issue.

1:06:38Michal Gula: Do you have any idea why is it so?

1:06:41Sergej Pavljuk: Sure. It's always about people. Sometimes there are people they, that try to do their job in the best possible manner. Sometimes they don't care. So some people that you, reach out to by means of official protocol, of Contact Us by LinkedIn, they are very responsive and they are really trying to help you. And some of them don't, they don't care. So, if you got unlucky and your counterpart doesn't care, then, I know that the current admin of, that X group, of that X account on X Twitter is a nice person. He's actually trying to help.

1:07:27Michal Gula: I would like to do one thing right now. since we have a LinkedIn expert, you are working and, and, analyzing tons of data from tons of different, LinkedIn profiles from hundreds or thousands of, of, of clients.

1:07:49Sergej Pavljuk: I

1:07:49Michal Gula: would like to talk about some, like, low-hanging fruits and what to do and what not to do. Like, like something that is very actionable. Like, people, if, if they have their notebooks right now, just write it down and use it right away or don't, or stop using something right away. Do you have something like, like five plus or five minus or three- Yeah... dos, three don'ts? what would be like, like, like best tips?

1:08:17Sergej Pavljuk: Okay. So I will have three tips for beginners, three tips for intermediate, and three tips for super advanced. Right? Beginner stuff number one, don't you touch that repost button. If you are trying to make yourself visible, if you are trying to make you as a person visible on LinkedIn, and you are trying to achieve that by reposting other people posts in any way, you are just failing, and you are failing spectacularly. Don't repost ever. If you don't trust me, give it a try. Publish exactly the same post by repost and by your own deforn- default posting. Compare the results. But if you do that, then I want you to publish a post that people should not repost. You don't have to mention me, but spread this knowledge because most of the posts on LinkedIn right now, they are reposts. And if you click on your own feed, if you click on Home button in your own LinkedIn application, then you will see that there are close to zero reposts in your own feed, even though more than half of posts on LinkedIn right now are reposts. So they are just invisible in the feed. That's number one.

1:09:45Michal Gula: The, the... So sorry, let me, let me just add to that because this, this repost button is really ridiculous. It's, it's, it's like, if you are driving and on the wheel you will have, like, the claxon, the horn, and two centimeters away you would have auto-destruct.

1:10:02Sergej Pavljuk: And, and

1:10:03Michal Gula: you have to push something re- really fast. It's, it's, it's really stupid that they use this, button there because it's really hurting not only your posts, but it, it really does not help in any way the, the person that you are actually reposting. True story. I, I've, I've have heard some statistics, from, from some other people, and I, I am also using this from time to time. What do you think about reposting your own post to get a boost, in, in views?

1:10:36Sergej Pavljuk: So

1:10:37Michal Gula: for example, I will, I will post something at, eduCode in, in the morning, and after, like, six hours I will repost it just, just to get the Boost.

1:10:47Sergej Pavljuk: What do

1:10:47Michal Gula: you think about it? I think

1:10:48Sergej Pavljuk: that, I'm still, still not eligible to using this method, and you are. I have 31,000 people, following me on LinkedIn. You've got what? About 90,000, almost 100,000.

1:11:00Michal Gula: Hopefully this year I will go to 100,000. I have 99, yeah.

1:11:05Sergej Pavljuk: So, what I'm trying to say is that, some people rank a bell on your profile. Most probably, it's, half a thousand already, perhaps even 1,000. I'm talking about this particular bell. So those people rank a bell on your profile. Okay? They have chosen most relevant, and they clicked on save. Okay? And the trick is that, they will not get this kind of notification that Nicolette posted her own post. They won't get it. For some reason that is lost to me, they will get it only when Nicolette reposts her own posts. Okay? So I did not get notified about original post from Nicolette, but I got notified about her repost of her own original post seven-

1:12:01Michal Gula: And, and, and what's your setting-... seven

1:12:04Sergej Pavljuk: hours later... what's

1:12:04Michal Gula: your setting on, her profile? You wanna see all posts or just the-... important ones?

1:12:10Sergej Pavljuk: All. I want to see all, but I'm not delivered all. Mm. Even so, I'm delivered some, but I'm delivered repost. Okay? So if you are at Michal Gula, it's a good idea and a good strategy to repost your own post. Why? Well, because half a thousand of people rank a bell on your profile with- will get that notification. So even though you've some minus in algorithm for reposting in general, the plus for reposting is bigger for you.

1:12:51Michal Gula: Okay?

1:12:53Sergej Pavljuk: But me, as I said, I've got 31,000. If I would be reposting my own post, I don't think that there are enough people who rank a bell on my profile, and the minus I get from reposting is still bigger than the plus. Is that clear?

1:13:14Michal Gula: Mm, I, I think so. I, as I said, I, I'm using this, strategy, especially with the posts that, are either in a collaboration where I, I really like to have, better numbers, so I, I'm trying To push them as well. so I, I am using this strategy. I am recommending to people

1:13:38Sergej Pavljuk: if,

1:13:39Michal Gula: if they do repost something, never to use, repost with, your thoughts. the main reason is because it became a new post. Okay? Yeah. So, so reposting with your thoughts, you are actually doing a lot more harm than, than good, because you... I- it will behave like a new post. It will underperform heavily. It has a zero positive impact on the post that you actually reposted. True. So never use that.

1:14:15Sergej Pavljuk: And, the second thing that even beginners should understand is that the idea of, publishing short stuff on LinkedIn is a bad idea. I'm not talking about videos. Short videos might g- work well for you. I'm talking about text. If you publish a short text, I'm talking about text that has less than 600 characters, then you get lower impression rate. You've got lower probability of your post becoming viral. This network wants people to read. This network wants people to spend a lot of time on your post. And obviously, if you've got two sentences, even though everyone likes them, even though everyone comments on them, it's hard for that post to keep attention of a viewer for a long time. I read the two sentences. I give you a like. I leave. So the only way how you can improve that is by having the kind of illustration they will spend time on. Some kind of pictures or PDF that they would spend that time on. Or it's quite controversial, so people will be discussing, and I will be spending my time on the discussion, so on comments. Altogether, it's called dwell time. So how many seconds was a mediocre reader watching your post, its comments, and its illustration? Sure, you can believe that it will get some comments, but you never know. So by writing it long enough, meaning 600 characters plus, you improve your chances quite a lot. But I need you to write it in a proper manner so that someone would be willing to read it. To have long enough post is not enough. It needs to be interesting as well.

1:16:10Michal Gula: Okay. What would be more, easy, actionable tips to, to do?

1:16:17Sergej Pavljuk: And, the last, super easy one is, you cannot win this game on LinkedIn unless you show the algorithm the target group you would like to target. Okay? So if you just randomly establish connections with random people, algorithm is being lost on who is your target group. It's trying hard to identify it, but most probably it will fail. I need you to establish 100 connection requests weekly with the kind of people you would like to read your content. If you don't do that, you don't help LinkedIn to help you, and LinkedIn doesn't care enough. So if you are publishing stuff about 3D, then you need to connect people that most probably will be interested in this kind of content. And if you would connect Sergejs instead, marketing guys, they will give you likes. We'll try to reach out to you and sell you our great stuff and our great services. But we won't be reading. So I would discourage you to disconnect irrelevant people, and I would encourage you to connect as many relevant as possible. What

1:17:36Michal Gula: not to do?

1:17:38Sergej Pavljuk: Don't use automation. Don't spam. Don't be too general. Be as specific as possible. So 3D is a trend in 2026, and I believe that it will stay a trend in 2027. That's a boring post. That's a useless, boring post. Let me say what I thought that will happen about 3D in 2026 and how it did surprise me. It's quite specific, and it's a nice hook. So again, being modest, being, fair, and being open is the kind of approach that is very much appreciated on LinkedIn. Admitting your own fault is a nice hook to catch attention. I would do that. I wouldn't be afraid, and I wouldn't try to look as ideal as possible because obviously we don't like ideal people. We like useful people. And if you say only good information about yourself, I don't believe you.

1:18:53Michal Gula: If

1:18:53Sergej Pavljuk: seven out of in- information you communicate are sweet and three are sour, that would be a very nice taste, and I would consider those seven sweet information about yourself to be true.

1:19:09Michal Gula: just be- just before, this live, you mentioned that you liked my AI video. it was fully AI generated. it was, I, I think like 10 seconds video.

1:19:25Sergej Pavljuk: What

1:19:25Michal Gula: do you think in general, like About, about AI slop at like in g- in general, but for the future. Because right now it's, it's very obvious

1:19:38Sergej Pavljuk: to the

1:19:39Michal Gula: viewer that it's AI, but it will not be in, in, in one year.

1:19:43Sergej Pavljuk: Where do

1:19:43Michal Gula: you think it will go?

1:19:47Sergej Pavljuk: I think that, we will value, the authenticity more and more. So about five years ago, everyone tried to have a perfect punctuation, perfect grammar, perfect texting. Right now, in the communication of the biggest bosses we are in charge of, sometimes we leave minor mistakes. For examples, for example, after comma, there is no space. Thus, we prove that it's not AI written, it's not written by communication experts, that it's authentic stuff written by that CEO. And it is authentic. We did discuss the text. He did approve the text. The text includes his own ideas and his own wording. We just help to actually do it, but we need to prove its authenticity to you as a target person, so we intentionally leave there minor issues. And this kind of authenticity is what people value more and more. Being perfect, having a perfect illustrations, having a perfect text is less and less valuable with this AI revolution. Being human is more and more valuable.

1:21:14Michal Gula: we can, we can see more and more, these AI, influencers and, and AI personas. I really think they will be indistinguishable, online, so-

1:21:29Sergej Pavljuk: You think that they will

1:21:30Michal Gula: teach them to do

1:21:31Sergej Pavljuk: mistakes as well? But

1:21:33Michal Gula: do you think they will overtake the, the content on LinkedIn?

1:21:37Sergej Pavljuk: Don't believe my predictions. I have been saying predictions about LinkedIn to fade away in second half of this decade. And it's rising, and it's becoming more interesting and more important. It's becoming better and better. So I'm this, skeptical kind of guy, always ready to give you a skeptical kind of prediction. But so far I have been wrong. So perhaps 2026 I should get more optimistic. I think that AI will actually get content more interesting, but won't destroy its authenci- authenticity. I believe there will be found the m- middle path. Most of people will be using AI, and it won't be an issue. They will find a way.

1:22:29Michal Gula: It's funny thing that you, that you mentioned that Microsoft is doing or LinkedIn is specifically is doing all they can to, to ban and get rid of the AI au- AI automation like, like the posts being created with AI, comments of being created with AI, all these AI, profiles. And at the same time, they were the first that caused this problem because they allowed it. They were encouraging people to use, AI, in, in a, in a comment sections, right? So th- this is crazy. They, they cause the disease, and then they are trying to sell us the belief that they are going to help us.

1:23:19Sergej Pavljuk: There are different people in that company with different kind of ideas, and all their care in the end is to earn money. So they have tested this approach, they have failed, and they were smart enough to stop it. Right now, and this is, I would say intermediate to advanced, information. Right now, if, your post contains either emoji in the beginning of the line or hashtags in the end of the post or long dashes, they consider it to be AI generated, even though it wasn't. So they will ban you from being visible. You will lose about 60, 80% of impressions for having these traits. So careful about using AI. If you are asking for my prompt, well, half of it is not what to do, but what not to do. So half of our prompt is just explaining AI to not to look as if it was AI, including about 50 or 70 words it should not use, such as excited, circle back, et cetera. So all this AI fluff that we are tired of and LinkedIn can already identify can be excluded from your AI generated content. You just need to have the right kind of prompt. Mm.

1:25:00Michal Gula: we have some, some comments here, so I will go just quickly through them. Martin is saying that he's posting almost three years every day,

1:25:14Sergej Pavljuk: and

1:25:14Michal Gula: he hope he's not crazy. You're not crazy, crazy Martin. Or no, no, you know what? You are crazy, but you are good crazy. and it's worth

1:25:23Sergej Pavljuk: it. You are one of, you're from Poland most probably. You're one in, 80 people. One in 80 people in Poland are publishing posts. 78 out of 80 are reading them So I would say that, regarding, the time efficiency and the result, you are the smarter one.

1:25:45Michal Gula: There you have your q- your answer. having to contact LinkedIn through X is ridiculous. My two cents.

1:25:56Sergej Pavljuk: Well,

1:25:56Michal Gula: yes. True, but

1:25:57Sergej Pavljuk: it's efficient.

1:26:01Michal Gula: Yosef is asking about, reposting without thoughts. I think we already answered that.

1:26:10Sergej Pavljuk: Yosef, one more thing for you. if you are talking about URLs, don't use them. And if you have a very good reason why would, you post a post with a URL, then at least use it in the post itself. About three, four years ago, it was more efficient to post and then to comment on your own post with the URL. It's not working anymore. So the best option, don't use URLs. The second best option, use URL in your post. The worst option is to use, the, this workaround that worked previously and it's not working anymore, and that's to put the URL in comments under your own post. That's a bad idea. Don't do that. Mm.

1:26:55Michal Gula: have you, have you, have you tested something like, this approach where you should po- like, like post i- in, in, in the text post you should put there, like three plus links, for example, with some descriptions? And I've heard that the, the algorithm is then considering it more like a source of information rather than just trying to the user somewhere else.

1:27:25Sergej Pavljuk: It is true. Is it true

1:27:26Michal Gula: or is it just a-

1:27:28Sergej Pavljuk: It is true. Our data matches, this,.. And, as we see it, this is the most efficient way. But, let's face it, most commonly you need, people to go to one particular URL. For example, to register. And, it's hard to use it with three URLs. Mm. Mm.

1:27:51Michal Gula: do videos perform worse than text posts?

1:27:55Sergej Pavljuk: I

1:27:55Michal Gula: see them rarely in my feed.

1:27:58Sergej Pavljuk: Right now videos are quite mediocre, so, I would say, the best way is to combine, pure text, text with a PDF, text with picture, and text with video. That's for June of 2026. But, as I mentioned on, LinkedIn today, I think that, our future is, TikTok, TikTok for business, which is crazy kind of future, and it's coming Can,

1:28:27Michal Gula: can you,

1:28:27Sergej Pavljuk: can you

1:28:27Michal Gula: elaborate on that? I don't know whether...

1:28:28Sergej Pavljuk: I mean, this year for sure? Sorry? Can

1:28:31Michal Gula: you elaborate on that? What, what do you mean by TikTok-

1:28:34Sergej Pavljuk: Yeah... for business? right now they are testing, video short format, feed, in Great Britain. They have launched it, several weeks ago. It seems to be a huge success. I'm conservative about it because they have tested this last year and they quit. And now they are testing this again, and I see it as an inwe- inevitable future. So people that, well, people that got used to short video format from TikTok, from, YouTube Shorts, from Instagram Reels, they are growing up. They are becoming, business decision-makers. And LinkedIn needs to find the path how to implement this short format unless they want to lose attention from younger, target group, which might happen to them. Uh- So I think that it is inevi- inevitable. It's just a question whether it will be happening this year. Most probably it will. Maybe not. Then in next few years.

1:29:39Michal Gula: I have my two cents why I think this, might work, w- when they, like, redo it again. The first cent would be that,

1:29:52Sergej Pavljuk: if

1:29:52Michal Gula: I'm not mistaken, they tested this, during, an old algorithm where it was still about the connections and followers. True. Right now they, they switched to, like, interest, graph. So, so the algorithm is working in a very different way and it actually might work better as, as, as compared to TikTok, for example. That there will be one- They have tested it,

1:30:15Sergej Pavljuk: while they have implemented the dwell time, but not so-called 360 brew. it's not actually a 360 brew, but everyone tends to call it this way. It's this huge reform when, your visibility on LinkedIn is not dependent on, the kind of keywords you are using, but on the kind of sense your posts are making. so yes, after this algorithm changes, I think that videos might be more successful. But you had a second point, so please continue. Yeah.

1:30:46Michal Gula: Yes. The second point would be, and this is my observation, I just recently learned that... Learned. Observed that wh- when I'm scrolling TikTok and for some reason I switch to, to Instagram because I want to check something, and I got- Michael,

1:31:05Sergej Pavljuk: you are scrolling TikTok in your free time? Yes.

1:31:08Michal Gula: In your spare time?

1:31:09Sergej Pavljuk: Seriously? No,

1:31:10Michal Gula: no, no. No, no, it's for business. It's for the- Wow... con- content inspiration. let me finish the idea. Sure, sure. And when I switch to Instagram for some reason and, and I go... start going through Reels, I realize that

1:31:26Sergej Pavljuk: I, I

1:31:27Michal Gula: easily get lost. Like, I, I don't remember on which platform I am right now.

1:31:33Sergej Pavljuk: Oh. Okay?

1:31:34Michal Gula: Be- because you are watching videos on one, then on the other one, and you just get lost like which platform are you right now on? And this might be the reason why the fee- video feed on LinkedIn, if done well, might work. Because you can get lost easily as well there.

1:31:57Sergej Pavljuk: Well, let's face it. if it will happen and if they will be successful about it, they'll be procrastinating for a long time. It's quite addictive.

1:32:06Michal Gula: I call being inspired.. What do you... What, what are your thoughts on hashtag use on, on LinkedIn?

1:32:15Sergej Pavljuk: Right now if you use hashtags in any manner, you lose attention. You don't get extra attention. You actually lose a bit of attention. You lose a bit algorithm points and thus visibility. So if possible, don't use hashtags at all.

1:32:31Michal Gula: It's very safe to say that hashtags are dead, and, especially with the new AI algorithm, it really don't care about your hashtags. It cares about, the text, the video, what you're speaking about, what content you are looking at, what people are you, getting in touch with in, in your DMs. There, there are multiple different variables and, and, and, things that are going into the decision of algorithm what will be shown and, and what will not be shown. And hashtags has, like, literally zero value.

1:33:05Sergej Pavljuk: Uh- There's one extra thing that you need to understand. Yeah. And that's the new way they are trying to work with keywords and hashtags. they try to compare, what's written about you on your profile, especially in this About section. So, Michael is, saying that, he's doing this 3D kind of stuff. And, what a coincidence, his posts are about 3D. But you see our, today's post is an issue because it's not about 3D. So from point of view of, current LinkedIn algorithm, this, livestream of ours will be disadvantaged. Why? Because, what you claim to do on your LinkedIn profile does not match this particular livestream of ours. Okay?

1:33:54Michal Gula: It's

1:33:54Sergej Pavljuk: not a major issue, it's becoming one. what you should try to do is to post about the stuff you have on your profile and have the kind of keywords, on your profile that you post about. There should be a clear match. It's not a definite rule. There might be exceptions. But if possible, follow this rule because they are enforcing it more and more.

1:34:22Michal Gula: So in reality, you guys watching this video are actually hurting my, performance and my algorithm. But I still did it for you so that you can learn from, from Sergej about- How to do or, or how not to do the LinkedIn. Sergej, do, do you have some, some last words? And m- maybe before last words, I, I would like to ask you also, like, if, if some of our audience is interested in getting in touch with you, what should they do as a, as a first step? I, y- you know,

1:34:57Sergej Pavljuk: I

1:34:57Michal Gula: communicated our, our live to be controversial and, and, and, because I'm still 100% sure and, and, I think that the authenticity should be the first and, and people should do their own LinkedIn. Still, I can see the value, of your, services because I understand that there, there are plenty of people that are in positions or, in, in a, in a time of their lives where they still want to be on LinkedIn, but it's... They don't want to spend the time. They don't wanna do the work because, their motivations are very different. So I still think that your service has a value and, and, has the audience. So can you just give us like, like a quick plug, like where can people find you except of the LinkedIn? Well,

1:35:48Sergej Pavljuk: I think that I am one of the most visible Sergejs on LinkedIn

1:35:51Michal Gula: already.

1:35:53Sergej Pavljuk: so, just search me and, write me a private message. You can do that without being connected to me. this is, actually, one of the last tricks I would like to recommend to you. start a featured section on your profile. if I may s- share my screen for the last time. Yeah. I will show you exactly how to do that. So, click on me. Click on View Profile. Click on Add Section, and click on Core, and click on Add Services. Here is how does my section Add Services look like. Try to match it. And the most important thing here is allow LinkedIn members you're not connected with to message you for free through open profile. This is super important. Even though I don't believe you will have hundreds or even tens of demands, most of you won't, it's quite pleasant to get one, two demands monthly. And if it would be just one demand yearly, it's still quite motivational you spend three minutes. It looks like this, it's super efficient. So some people, just find you through this catalog of service providers, and some others don't find you through this catalog. They find you through search. But even without connected to you, they can message you for free, and they don't have to wait you to accept that connection request. Remember, right now most of people don't have Premium, and most of them cannot send connection request with a message. You have only a few free connection requests with a message monthly. Okay? So actually they have a hard time to outreach to you and ask for your product or for your services. By this feature, you make it easier. So perhaps this is the final technicality for today. But I would not look at LinkedIn as a technical ma- matter or as a marketing matter. I would look at LinkedIn as a matter of, your business. It's either efficient for you or it's not. If it is efficient for you, we need to find an efficient way. It might be Michael's way. It might be Sergej's way. It might be a combination. But any way you choose, search for return of investment, evaluate data, and be consistent. So even though you are evaluating data, even though you are searching for, for return of investment, don't expect it to perform in the first quarter. In the second quarter, it will start performing if you do it well. In the third quarter, you should search for ways how to optimize it, so either get even bigger results or cut costs. This is the approach that I strongly believe in.

1:39:04Michal Gula: If you guys, hesitate about whether, to trust Sergej or not, whether he is professional enough or not, just let me tell you this. I have

1:39:17Sergej Pavljuk: also

1:39:17Michal Gula: Slovak language podcast. here in Slovakia, we do a podcast, about the LinkedIn, about the business, about the, personal brands. And Sergej has already been guest, like five times I think, in, in the period of two and a half years. So- Because

1:39:37Sergej Pavljuk: you have such

1:39:37Michal Gula: an funny

1:39:37Sergej Pavljuk: name in Slovak. Kolotočári. That's just spectacular. Yeah.

1:39:41Michal Gula: It, it's hard to this. but, but this is just the support that, I really think that, you are, one of the, most educated and, and skilled, people on, on LinkedIn, within our region. And so guys, if, if you really don't have time or you have too much money, you can get in touch with, with Sergej and he, he can help you, very strategically with, with your LinkedIn.

1:40:07Sergej Pavljuk: Thank you

1:40:07Michal Gula: Sergej for being here. Thank you guys. Thank you

1:40:09Sergej Pavljuk: Michal. Thank you for today. Have a

1:40:11Michal Gula: good day.