When I think about my current position as a digital strategist and my previous positions when I entered the “official” workforce in 2013, I have come to realize that a great chunk of my daily workload could be completed outside the confines of a corporate office. This is in part, if not in-whole, thanks to the internet and the flexibility that it allows. Which brings me back to my original thought that prompted my question to my father; why are we still operating on the 9–5 work schedule?

It doesn’t take much more than a simple Google search to see some broad statistic about Americans being disenchanted and disconnected from their jobs. In fact, 1.76 million search results come up.

Can we say that we are truly surprised by these stats? The monotony that accompanies the same 5-day-40-hour+-work week could drive a sane man/woman crazy, especially when equipped with the knowledge that they can complete their daily tasks in less time and be more productive in their overall lives! The internet has blessed us with the ability to be more dynamic in and outside of the office, yet we continue to succumb to dogma and stick to our static, sit-at-our-desks-til-we’re-65-plan.

Below I will outline a few key ideas of how/why their may be a massive paradigm shift when it comes to professional work and overall life balance. I will also raise some of the questions that an advocate of the devil may pose, and possible solutions to said questions.

If not 9 to 5, then what?

For those of you who are not aware, the 9am-5pm work schedule was originally put in place during the industrial era when a majority of work was produced in form of physical labor in a workshop or factory. At that time, there were no employee protections laws that were in place that protected the employee from working endless hours. Sometimes, this meant an employee would work 80–100+ hours each week. This led to the employees becoming burnt out, which led to mishaps in their day to day tasks, which led to physical injury. Fast forward to 1940, Congress put into place an official & strict 40 hour work-week for employees.

Our current 9–5 system is 78 years old. What. The. Fuck.

So, what are our options? Clearly there are some benefits if we have not changed yet.

This is true, it is not all negatives when it comes to the 9 to 5. For some, the 9 to 5 works, as they are able to get out of the house and separate church and state for the 8–10 somewhat hours per day. Some people need this stability; a set time and schedule to come and socialize with their peers, and to be held accountable for their daily tasks and projects. I’ve heard the argument that we typically start our work days at 8–9am because parents need to shove kids off to the bus stop. But we end at 5–6pm, when school ends between 2–3pm? Something is off there.

You could argue that it’s beneficial to have a hard start and a hard stop time. This can allow employees to have a clear separation in their work life and their life-life, also known as the infamous and coveted work-life balance. However, given that technology keeps us connected 24/7, is there really any “off” time? Our emails, Slacks, and other tools that keeps our communications synchronous are connected to our cell phones, making it virtually impossible to truly disconnect from our work. One could argue that this inability to disconnect has employees working 50,60,70, even 80+ hours a week. However, businesses and corporations are able to call it an even 40 hours for employment-law sake and keep median wages at the same level as it’s been in the 1960s for the majority of earners (the 95%), sans inflation. If employees had the ability to fully disconnect from their 40-hour a week job, they could pick up an extra side-gig or two to increase income. Or, perhaps, just truly enjoy their downtime without the fear of missing an after hours email from a co-worker or client.

In opinion, the goal here is to tear down the walls of a work-life balance, and just have Life. I see colleagues, friends and family get frustrated and visibly upset when a client or co-worker emails them after hours, complaining that they are “off the clock” and “it’s not their problem at the moment”. Which is tough, because these individuals become more and more unhappy with their work and job due to the fact that they see their invisible work-life balance contract being breached. So what do we do?

The truth is, there is no single-best schedule for individuals or companies to adhere to.

For some workers, they feel the most productive starting at 10am. Others, whom are self-proclaimed morning people, may be at their best at 5am. And then you have the late risers who feel best equipped and energized when they start their day at 2pm in the afternoon. Companies in the next few years owe it to themselves and their employees to figure out ways to get the most out of each other.

Work should not be seen as “One Size Fits All”

It’s simply not possible that each and every corporate employee is meant to exceed in the current 9 to 5 system. One author went as far as labeling the current workday as barbaric. For those that enjoy the strict schedule, keep doing it. That’s your zone, stay in it, keep at it. For those who do not thrive in it, we need to figure out another way. Also, this is rant is not an argument that 40 hours a week is too much — on the contrary, I believe it is totally up to the individual if they’d like to work 100+ hours a week. Some workers are so into what they do that they don’t want to stop, and if they are happy, that is great! I’m simply (not so simple, though) saying that if an employee who is most productive between the hours of 1pm and midnight wants to work during that time frame, he/she should have the ability to do so, pending it does not mess with their team’s goals.

I’ve seen rhetoric on how the current U.S. education system is outdated, and it is not fair that we benchmark children against one another by expecting them to learn at the same speed. Then why, as adults, do we expect corporate employees to be at their best between the hours of 9–5?

Imagine going through a full Monday without hearing a “damn, the weekend went to fast! This sucks” or a Wednesday without employees high-fiving around the water cooler for surviving to hump-day? Hopefully, sooner rather than later, we rid ourselves of those weekly conversations. Giving employees flexibility in where/when they work is not the end-all solution, but I do believe it’d be a start in repairing employees relationships with their current work situations.

To preface my somewhat data driven take, I love sleep. I’ve always felt that getting at least 7 hours was needed for me to run at my optimal productivity levels. Anything less than 7 hours and I’m a cranky, ass-dragging troll. A few days ago I listened to a podcast featuring the illustrious Joe Rogan and his guest Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience at UC Berkeley and author of the novel “Why We Sleep”. Matt Walker and his facts of how and why we sleep blew my mind, and that is putting it lightly. I’d recommend giving their podcast a listen.

After listening, I followed Matt on Twitter (Matt Walker) and started to read more of his work. His piece on business and unproductive workers hit home for me. As I read it, I witnessed at least 7 zombies walk past my desk, each whom typically tells me they run on 5 hours of sleep, typically waiting for me to give some sort of approval after making their statement.

In studies that were done at the Human Sleep Center at UC Berkeley, they found that shorter amounts of sleep predict both a lower work rate as well as a slower completion of tasks speed. In addition, from a strategic standpoint, sleep-deprived workers generate fewer ideas and less accurate solutions to issues and problems.

Another interesting find in their studies: when given the opportunity to work on difficult problems (helping design creative, thought-provoking strategy) vs. mundane tasks (listening to voicemails), those individuals that reported less than the optimal amount of sleep (7–9 hours) consistently chose to do the easy, boring tasks instead of the difficult problems. So, not only are you exhausted, it’s possible that if you are sleep-deprived, your co-workers will notice that you tend to take the path of least resistance when it comes to tackling work related initiatives. Which means, getting that shiny promotion becomes more difficult.

When it comes to leadership, being under-slept is one of the worst things a supervisor can do. A discovery made by Matt and his team revealed that managers who do not get enough sleep are rated by their employees as less charismatic, have worse self control, and are more abusive to others. As a result, Matt and team also found that after a few weeks of observation, they noticed the employees themselves, even though that were well rested, showed signs of being less engaged and less effective at their jobs.

The next time a friend or co-worker tells you that they are able to run off 4 hours of sleep, do not praise them. Rather, tell them to hit the sack and not come back until they’re getting at least 7 hours a night. They are unaware of it, but they are not operating at their optimal levels and it is effecting the co-workers and friends around them.

It is widely known across the internet marketing world that a customer’s email is the one of the most valuable thing you can have when it comes to generating sales. There is no better way to communicate your message directly to your customer or fan base than by directly emailing them. Email is the only medium that allows you to be absolutely certain that they received your message. For this reason, being able to capture email leads from Instagram has become a highly underutilized yet effective tactic.

When you make a post on Instagram, Facebook, or any other social network for that matter, your content is only seen by a small fraction of your audience at any given time. Think about it… only the people who happen to be online at that time will see your content because after 10 minutes or so has passed your content will be buried in the depths of their Instagram feed. With an e-mail list, however, the opposite is true. You can be sure that your message is sent to 100% of your subscribers.

What is even more important about an e-mail list is that your subscribers have subconsciously decided that they are interested and invested in your content, which makes them far more valuable than a ghost follower who just skims through your content. If you are able to communicate with your email list effectively then they will reward you by acting as your miniature army of word-of-mouth marketers. Nobody else will talk about your business or brand as highly as loyal email list subscribers will.

Okay, okay… Enough about the importance of an email list! So now you might be wondering, how do I start building an email list so I can capture leads from Instagram? Luckily there are tons of free tools to help you get started, which we have outlined for you below.

Step #1: Choose your email client

An email client is a service like Aweber or Mailchimp that stores customer emails for you. You can use their services to send targeted email messages to your customers. This is by far the best way to build your brand and communicate your voice. There are a ton of email clients you can choose from. The point of this article is not to get into the details of which is best, just choose one and go with it. Mailchimp is free when you first start out, so maybe give them a try.

Step #2: Create a Kick-Ass Landing Page

A landing page is basically a very simple website the communicates your value offering to your customer and tells them why they should give you their email. On your landing page you need to convince your visitors why they should want to give you their email. This is the core of getting leads from Instagram, or any lead source really. Put yourself in your visitors shoes and ask yourself “why would I want to give this person/brand/company my email? What value will it bring me?”.

There are various ways to build a landing page. But the easiest and most effective way is by using Thrive Themes. We actually use this plugin here at Socialnerd. They have great easy to use WordPress plugins that come with pre-made templates. You can just type your text in, swap out some images and you are good to go!

Step #3: Connect your email client to your landing page

This sounds a bit harder than it actually is. Once you have your landing page you need to connect it to your email client so when a user enters their email it is stored somewhere. The process for this varies depending on how you built your landing page.

Luckily there are THOUSANDS of tutorials online that you can use. Like this one here for Thrive Themes. Just google how to connect “your email client” to “your landing page client” and you will be able to find a tutorial.

Step #4: Put your landing page URL in your Instagram bio

Now that you have your landing page it’s time to make use of your traffic so you can start to generate some leads from Instagram. Put the URL in the website field of your profile and edit the bio to explain why someone should go to your link. For example: “Every week we show the hottest new wardrobe items. Check us out below!!”

Step #5: Follow up with your email subscribers

The last thing you want to do is get email subscribers and then do nothing. Make sure to schedule pre-written emails and communicate with them frequently and consistently to gain their trust and loyalty. You can write about informative topics, product offerings and much, much more.

To learn about how to generate leads leads on auto-pilot, check out our page on Instagram Engagement services!

When most people start using Instagram they don’t have any game plan. They just see the app on their phone, start posting and then wonder why their account doesn’t grow. Most people don’t know this, but there is a hugely complicated algorithm that Instagram works on. Once you figure it out, you can learn how to funnel insane amounts of traffic to help grow your business and make money from Instagram.

Instagram can be a huge waste of time or it can be an absolute gold mine for your business. It all depends on how seriously you want to take it. Every time people ask about my business and I tell them that I am involved in Instagram marketing they all respond by saying the same thing;

“But you can’t really make that much money on Instagram right?”

Wrong.

Instagram is one of the leading social networks for a good reason. People like the platform and it’s insanely active. Furthermore, more and more business and purchased are being made through mobile transactions. People are stuck in this old school way of thinking and assume that nobody buys anything from their phone. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

With that being said, we are going to walk you through some fundamentals to get you started in the right direction. We go deeper into the details in the eBook, so we highly recommend you have a look at that. To get you started, here are the basic steps we’d recommend you take to learn how to monetize your Instagram.

How to Monetize Your Instagram, the Starter Kit:

Step #1: Having a killer profile

Not to beat a dead horse, but this goes without saying. If a user stumbles across your feed and you have horrible pictures then nothing is going to help you. Every Instagram profile represents a brand and people either choose to associate positive or negative values with your brand. By having a subpar Instagram feed you are just causing yourself more hardship. You are passing up on potential money and customers. Your conversion rate will be lower and you will be stuck wondering why none of your followers are converting as loyal customers.

If you want actual examples of good content and how to build an influential Instagram feed then check out the free eBook.

Step #2: Utilizing Landing pages

The last thing you want to be doing is sending your audience to a website without any direction. Again, you will be passing up on conversions. You want to keep the purchasing journey for your audience as simple as possible. You don’t want them to have to make all the hard decisions.

If you send your followers to a website that has 30 options they will likely get overwhelmed and end up leaving the site (a lost potential customers). However, if you direct them to a simple enticing landing page with a very clear and specific offer then it’s likely you will have a conversion.

We discuss very specific strategies on how you can start creating landing pages to improve your conversion in the eBook.

Step #3: Driving Traffic

This seems to be the biggest hurdle for most people who are actively trying to grow their brand on Instagram, and the #1 question we get at Socialnerd. They work so hard on creating good content but don’t know how to get more eyeballs to their page. It’s unfortunately really. But once you understand how Instagram works, you can rig the system in your favour.

You can “hack” your way to the explore page. You can get to 50k followers in the matter of a few weeks. In the coming weeks we will be introducing something called The Instagram Vault which will be primarily focused on helping your implement these strategies for yourself to grow your brand.

In the meantime, we highly recommend you pick up your FREE 10 step guide to making money on Instagram. Start thinking about your Instagram strategy and familiarize yourself with some of the concepts we discuss in the guide and we will be sure to let you know as soon as The Instagram Vault is ready to launch.

This 7-step guide from Socialnerd is going to show you how to generate 10–20 new leads through LinkedIn every single month.

Guaranteed.

If you are in a rush and want a white-glove service to generate leads for your business on auto-pilot then click here to how we’re getting other business owners 10–20 new leads per month.

Otherwise, keep reading and I am going to show you how to turn on the LinkedIn lead generation tap for your business.

So how do I know that this will work?

Simple.

It’s the exact process that I use to build my business and get new clients for our agency.

We’ve also used this exact outreach formula for several agencies and service businesses to help them generate several high-ticket clients in one month.

This formula works best for businesses who target high-ticket clients that range from $1,000-$15,000.

This is going to be an automated formula that accomplishes the following:

• Allows you to stand out from the crowd & be unique and memorable
• Generates leads for you on auto-pilot
• Ensures a high response rate to your messages

If that sounds good then I encourage you to keep reading…

We are going to be discussing the following steps in vivid detail and it’s very important that you follow them in sequential order to ensure that you are getting the maximum results possible from your LinkedIn outreach efforts.

Step #1: Hyper Targeting
Step #2: Optimizing Your Profile
Step #3: Liking Relevant Posts
Step #4: Viewing Strategic Profiles
Step #5: Sending Connection Requests
Step #6: The Simple Messaging Strategy
Step #7: The Follow-Up Message

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LinkedIn Lead Generation: The Winning Formula Breakdown

Step #1: Hyper Targeting

The best way to have no success on LinkedIn is to try and target anybody and everybody as clients. LinkedIn lead generation is about getting hyper-specific in who you want to do business with.

As a rule of thumb, the more general your message and offering is, the more likely it is to be ignored.

In fact, if you can’t define a specific sub-set of your clients that are your most ideal clients then I strongly suggest you take some time to figure that out before moving forward.

Let’s run an experiment…

Let’s say we are an SEO agency who serves all kinds of different clients and we want to attract new customers.

Now, which of the following messages would sound more enticing to you? (put yourself in the shoes of the restaurant owner)

Message #1:

“Hey John, was just browsing LinkedIn and noticed your profile. I run an SEO agency that helps business improve their rankings on Google.”

Message #2:

“Hey John, couldn’t help but notice your involvement with XYZ restaurant. I actually put together this free case study that shows the exact formula we used to increase a similar restaurant’s walk-in business by 30% through Facebook ads. Let me know if you are interested!”

Which message sounds more enticing to you as the restaurant owner?

Obviously message number 2. It’s solves a direct pain point that all restaurant owners face and provides them with immediate value (a topic we are going to discuss later in this guide).

Step #2: Optimizing Your Profile

The best way I can articulate this, is that your profile is not for you. It’s a sales page that tells your potential customers what they can expect from you.

As such, every part of your profile needs to be communicating what value you can offer and why you are the “no brainer” decision for them to hire.

Again, the more specific you can be the better.

We go into 3 unique strategies in our condensed LinkedIn lead generation guide that allow you stand out from your competitors.

Step #3: Liking Relevant Posts

Appreciating other people’s content is one of the best ways to generate inbound leads.

Inbound meaning that the person sees that you liked their post, they become curious about your profile, which then leads them to check out your LinkedIn profile.

It’s pretty tedious to do this all on your own, which is why our LinkedIn experts do this on your behalf with our LinkedIn lead generation service.

Step #4: Viewing Strategic Profiles

Because LinkedIn allows you to view hundreds upon hundreds of profiles in a given month, you should be taking full advantage of that.

When you view someones profile, LinkedIn notifies them that you have done so. As such, it has the same “pull effect” as liking someones content as we just covered in step #3. Behavioral psychology plays a huge role in LinkedIn lead generation.

Step #5: Sending Connection Requests

This is the holy grail of generating clients on LinkedIn. But if you do not do it properly then it can absolutely destroy your LinkedIn lead generation ability and people will just ignore you.

With a connection request you need to ensure you meet the following criteria:

1. You are sending the message to relevant users
2. You are personalizing the message (to their interests)
3. Your are not being salesy or spammy
4. You are following-up in a non invasive way

Sending connection requests is an art form that we have mastered for hundreds of clients.

By all means, you can do it yourself or you can hire our experts to do it for you.

Step #6: The Simple Messaging Strategy

Here is the golden rule of LinkedIn:

Nobody wants to be sold to.

So you definitely should not be selling in your first message to your prospects. LinkedIn lead generation is about building relationships and respected competency. You should be getting the conversation going and appealing to their interests, while letting them know what it is that you do.

Here is a simple script you can use:

“Hey {First Name},

Was just browsing LinkedIn and noticed we both {something personal related to their profile} so I figured we could connect.

-{Your Name}

P.S. I help SaaS businesses”

There you have a very simple, non-invasive and non-salesy script that you can use over and over and over again.

Step #7: The Follow-Up Message

This is perhaps one of the most important elements of LinkedIn lead generation.

The reality is that most people will not respond to your initial connection request message. However, they will respond to your second, follow-up message provided they you craft it correctly.

The second message is where you add something that we call “non-needy value”. This can be an informative article (similar to what you are reading now), it can be a targeted case study for their niche, eBook, whatever…

As long as it is relevant to them, free, and provides no-strings-attached value then you will experience a high response rate.

— — —

Ready to Get Started?

Alright folks, well that just about wraps it up. We hope our Socialnerd team has made it easy for you to hit the ground running. I encourage you to take all of this content and execute on it today but it’s super important that you build a strong foundation on LinkedIn (by having a strong profile and value proposition) before going out and sending messages.

To be quite honest, this process is a little tedious and in our experience it can take up to 6 hours per day to send these messages, like relevant posts, send follow-up messages, etc…

So for those of you who are looking to explode your LinkedIn lead generation for your business then we encourage you to try our 14 day free trial where our team generates leads for your business while your are sleeping.