There are only two ways to make money on Linkedin:

Sell your time or sell your product.

I made well over 1 million $ on this platform, from the age of 25 to 27.

But I never share anything about monetization.

Yes - I am obsessed about content & how to use AI for it.

But you need to know "what's next?"

Let's map out how you can monetize your Linkedin - and why / why not.

Sell your time.

This section is about you & your time.

It is the easiest way to start. It is the easiest way to go from 0 to (very) comfortable.

Don't fall for the rigged advice of "buuuut you're selling your time, that's a trap".

You always are selling your time, in about 99.9% of the scenarios.

You think selling products isn't time-consuming? Think again.

We know the 'what', let's dive into the 'how'.

Done-for-you

People need you for your skills.

You are both the expert, and the person implementing the solution.

Ghostwriter, Designer, Fractional CMO, Customer support...

Absolutely everything is potential freelancing material.

Solve one problem extremely well. Don't aim at scaling.

For eg. with ghostwriters:

→ Build your entire profile to be the ghostwriter of a specific audience.

→ Drive people to a clear website, with a clear offer - and a potential one-off consultation (NEVER FREE).

→ No. The agency model is much harder than you think (and the margin grows thinner).

→ Aim at getting 3 x clients at $3,000 instead of 10 x clients at $2,000.

Done-for-you is, by far, the best & easiest way to start.

Start here.

Coaching

People need you for your skills.

But this time, they don't want to pay for the implementation. They only pay for the knowledge.

It has massive pros (time, scalability) but also massive cons (are they going to implement it?)

The biggest cons by far are the following: people pay coaches for mentoring.

It means managing humans, motivation, mindset: things that (might) be extremely far away from your original expertise.

Some ways to alleviate the risks:

→ If possible, make cohorts instead of 1-o-1 coaching.

→ Customer success (before, during & after) is just as important as getting the sale.

→ A happy customer will find you hundreds. If you can't make one happy, why do you look for new ones?

Coaching is for people-oriented creators while remaining relatively easy to execute.

But there is another way to go all-in the "people-oriented" side... while being the single hardest way to monetize.

Communities.

Community

Growing a (paid) community.

This is by far the hardest way to sell your time. High risk, high rewards.

I built (years ago) a community around ghostwriters. I stopped it within 3 weeks.

→ I priced it too low. Aim at $50 - $500 per month minimum.

→ It drained every ounce of my life soul. Be prepared to be 24/7 there for your community.

→ I was alone. Running a successful community means having a (well-oiled) team to support you.

One could start small (with a hefty monthly pricing) to climb its way to running a massive community.

But you've been warned: this is the hardest path.

Choose wisely.

Sell your product.

Sell while you sleep, right? Yes & no.

Selling products still means:

☑ Making content to get clients. ☑ Customer support. ☑ Updates.

And that list goes on & on & on.

Besides this, yes – it's quite nice to have a self-serving product you don't have to manually give to someone.

Here's the list of options:

Digital Products

Quite straightforward.

☑ Sell a course (where you implement a solution for example).

☑ Sell a template (like a Notion template) that encapsulates your solution.

☑ Sell a process, a framework – anything that resembles implementing by yourself the solution you keep talking about.

For eg. I kept making "How to prompt" posts. → So I made a course "How to prompt ChatGPT."

The mistakes not to make here:

→ Wide market. Sell a specific solution to a specific audience.

→ Low pricing. A course should be priced from $50-$500 depending on the complexity.

→ Too long. We don't want a lecture. We want a concise course to effectively be transformed.

Sponsorship

Having an active audience can lead to sponsorship deals.

I wrote an entire article about ​"How much to charge for Linkedin?"​

Software

Never start here. Just like communities, that's the hardest & longest path.

I would need much more than a newsletter to map out how to start a software company.

Maybe a course?

Well, if I do, I would start with ​Stan Store​.

This is where to sell.

Where to sell.

I made many mistakes.

→ I tried to host my own courses on Webflow.

→ I paid for dozens of tools I never used (like Calendly, Skool, Circle...).

→ I sold over 3,000+ courses on "How to prompt ChatGPT" on Gumroad (which took 10% of fees).

If I had to start all over again, I'd start for free:

No website. No tools. Just DM people & send them your IBAN.

Making the first step is by far the hardest step. "The first dollar online."

As soon as you feel ready, I highly suggest platforms:

→ Minimal to no fees when processing payments.

→ As simple as possible to host your product & services.

→ Built-in landing pages (because no, you're not a designer).

Gumroad had a nice landing page. But a 10% fee is criminal, and you can't host communities.

Kajabi has no fees & way more features. But no built-in landing pages that convert & a min. $69/month.

I'm about to transition my entire Gumroad to ​Stan Store​.

(Should I make a newsletter about transitioning & starting a Stan Store? Reply to this email if "Yes").

0% fees. Built-in landing pages (with high conversion). Quite a lot of features.

$29 per month.

Now we're talking.