10x Your LinkedIn Skills

In a recent NAIFA biweekly educational series webinar, host Shane Nowosacki from the Fortis Agency emphasized the importance of prospecting on LinkedIn for financial professionals. "If we're not prospecting, we're not growing," Shane stated, noting that it's a common pain point for brokers and advisors. The panel, including Joe Mulligan (Cup of Joe) from MassMutual, Matt Simon CFP at the Fortis Agency, and Andy Wong president and owner of Run AME Capital, shared proven tactics to boost your presence and convert connections into clients. Drawing from their experiences, here are key steps you can take, complete with direct insights from the experts.

Understand Your LinkedIn Purpose and Build Connections Actively

First, clarify why you're on LinkedIn. Panelists asked attendees: "Why are you on LinkedIn?" Responses included "to get clients," "to humanize our brand financial partners," and "looking to fish and checking out the content." Joe Mulligan stressed, "The number one reason where everybody's on LinkedIn, the number one reason is to turn connections into clients."

To achieve this, adopt Joe's mindset: "If you build it like Field of Dreams, if you build it, you gotta fish it." He explained, "Time, consistency, personality and compassion are all you need to succeed on LinkedIn."

Steps to Grow Your Connections:

1. Hit the connect button 100 times a week—LinkedIn allows up to 100 connection requests per week.

2. When someone connects, avoid immediate sales pitches. Joe advises sending this message: "Hey, many people ask, why did I request to be connected when we don't know each other? My response is simple. I know you already have a guy or a company that you do business with, and I'm not looking to pull away from that relationship. I'd feel honored for you to consider me a resource that you can turn to when you have a question or two, or need a second opinion. How's that sound?"

3. Focus on targeted people in your niche, as Joe says: "Are you connecting with targeted people? I say hit the connect button a hundred times a day. I'm sorry, a week a day is too much."

This approach has led many to respond: "Joe, that is so refreshing... you're so transparent."

Harness Birthdays for Personalized Outreach

LinkedIn notifies you daily about connections' birthdays, and Joe revealed this as his "secret sauce." He shared: "Give 'em a personalized birthday video... three to five seconds. Don't ask for an appointment or intro call. Don't promote yourself. Just wish 'em a three second. Happy Birthday."

Joe recounted his origin story: "One of my best brokers, Lisa Rossi... I picked up my phone and I, I, I made a video and I said, Lisa. Happy, healthy birthday to you. I hope Pete takes you out for a nice steak dinner. Thanks for your friendship. Thanks for your business. I, I look forward to another 15 years with you." She responded: "Oh my God, that was the sweetest thing I ever got... that hit me right in the heart, Joe. I've never seen anybody do that before."

Out of over 10,000 videos, only nine people said they got another one, proving: "I know it's not being done."

Steps to Create and Send Birthday Videos:

1. Go to "My Network," click on "Catch Up," and select "Birthdays" to see daily notifications (e.g., "Today I have 25 people today that have a birthday today of my connections").

2. Use the LinkedIn app on your phone (not the computer) to record a 3-5 second video: "Hey, happy birthday Andy. Hope you're having a great day today."

3. Send via direct message—it's the only video in their inbox, as Joe guarantees: "That's gonna be the only birthday video in Andy's inbox today. I guarantee that."

4. When they respond (e.g., "Thanks"), follow up: "You're most welcome, and hey, I don't recall us ever having a conversation. Would you be open and willing to jump on a call or a zoom? We get to know each other. Maybe we could be a resource for each other." Include a Calendly link.

5. If in a career agent system, confirm with compliance: "Just make sure you're complain... they know what you're doing and that's why you don't talk about product."

This yields discovery calls from about 75% of the 50% who see your messages, with Joe getting "five discovery calls a day."

Extend Videos to Other Opportunities

Don't limit videos to birthdays. Joe advised: "Birthday videos are not the only video opportunity for you."

Steps for Additional Video Engagements:

1. After a post like: Reply to likers with "Hey, thanks for liking my post on college education planning or whatever. I don't recall us ever having a conversation. Would you be open and willing to jump on a call?"

2. For anniversaries: When congratulated, respond: "Hey, thanks for the 20th congratulations message. Does my 20 years earn me the privilege of getting you on the phone or a Zoom?" Joe turned 123 congrats into 19 appointments.

3. Prompt all requests with: "Would you be open and willing to jump on a call or a zoom where we get to know each other for five or 10 minutes? Maybe we could be a resource for each other."

Target a Niche and Engage Surroundings

Matt Simon emphasized niching down: "If you can't find those people, what, what good is that gonna be? Right? So what you gotta do is you gotta connect with them or follow them on LinkedIn."

He added: "You want to not just be focusing on those people in your niche, but people around your niche... If I'm commenting on those people's stuff, who's, who's reading their stuff, right? Medical sales reps. My market is on their content."

Steps to Define and Engage Your Niche:

1. Choose a specific group (e.g., "medical sales reps," "professional athletes or entertainers or actors").

2. Connect or follow them to enter their algorithm: "Get them in your LinkedIn algorithm, right? You want to be seeing their stuff and get involved."

3. Comment on their posts: "If you're commenting on people that are active on LinkedIn, they're gonna like you. They're gonna see your name."

4. Connect with adjacent roles (e.g., "coaches, recruiters... even with doctors that are popular on LinkedIn").

5. Immerse yourself: "Listen to the things they listen to, read the books, the magazines, the publications that they're reading... You wanna sound like one of them and you know their situation, you know, their struggles."

6. Create a group: As Joe suggested, "Create a group on LinkedIn... you'll be the administrator of it, and invite all these med techs to the group... and you can advertise that group as well."

Post Consistently Without Chasing Virality

Matt warned: "Everybody wants to make a post that goes viral... the reality is it, it's just not gonna work like that." Instead, "You have to do it over time. Build that trust, and that's where the consistency comes in."

He noted viral posts often attract the wrong crowd: "A lot of my posts that go viral... it's always accountants and financial advisors reading it."

Steps for Effective Posting:

1. Focus on your audience's problems: "You wanna be speaking to your audience about problems that relate to them."

2. Analyze performance: "Every Saturday I will look at the analytics and some of my best performing posts."

3. Avoid non-business topics unless strategic: "If you want to go viral, you could tell a sob story... that's not gonna get your clients."

4. Pair with outbound: "You have to pair it with that outbound."

Master Strategic DMs

Matt stressed: "You gotta send dms... without being weird about it." Avoid spamming: "If you right away start spamming these people asking for a meeting... it's gonna turn people away."

Steps for Outbound DMs:

1. For new followers: "Thanks for the recent follow, Nick. Looks like you've always been a sales guy. Would love to connect."

2. For inbound connections: Acknowledge similarly, then: "Let me know if there's anything that I can help you with."

3. For outbound requests: "Hey Seth, you popped up in my suggestions. I saw you're in the medical device world. I help med reps every day and I love it. Would love to connect with you here on LinkedIn."

4. For post likers: "Hey Joe, thanks for liking my recent post. Didn't realize you were a professional lacrosse player. Very cool. Would love to stay in touch."

5. Give time: "Don't spam them the next day... If you're posting regularly, they're gonna see your stuff."

Embrace Short Form Video for Authenticity

Andy Wong transformed his practice with videos: "I shoot all videos on my smartphone... My videos run about 90 seconds."

Andy earned over 20 million impressions, but focused on: "Conversations... those happen in the comments, they happen in the private messages."

He countered AI content: "When everyone else is posting AI slop authenticity becomes your competitive advantage... Short form video stands out because it lets people see you, hear you."

Steps to Start Video Content:

1. Use a simple framework: "Share your professional insights... Trending news... Behind the scenes."

2. Record daily: "I do a daily market wrap up video... what happened, why it matters, and how it might affect their wallets."

3. Keep consistent: "Post around the same time every day... between five and 6:00 PM."

4. Cross-post: "One video, five platforms... YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook."

5. Experiment formats: "Text only posts... Text with images... Video... Polls."

6. Challenge yourself: "Post every day for 30 days... By day 30, you'll have built a habit."

Disrupt with Compassion

Joe's Dave Rege lesson: "Every connection on LinkedIn has somebody else they do business with. Until they don't be the disruptor... Earn their trust in their business by starting the LinkedIn relationship with compassion, not greed."

After a birthday video, Dave later asked: "Is there a fixed immediate annuity? Can you email me information on it?" Proving videos work.

Incorporate these into your 2026 strategy, as Shane suggested: "Maybe you want to incorporate LinkedIn prospecting into your business in 2026."