How To Leverage LinkedIn and AI To Grow Your Business - Sam Arami

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This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk Sam, the man with the master AI plan.

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Welcome to the show, brother. Hey, thanks for being here. I appreciate you taking some time out of your day to hang out and chat about what's going on in your world of lots going on in your world of artificial intelligence. I know that you and I connected through the great Dan Martell. Spent some time in old Kelowna, Canada. First trip to Canada for for this guy and had a great week. And you were one of the speakers at the second event I attended, the AI driven event and really loved what you had to say. And of course we hit it off and I said, I got to get you on the podcast to talk more about what you already talked about today. And you're like, let's do it. So here we are, ladies and gentlemen. I always like to back up to the beginning of the story, where you started and then what really brought you to, not just present day, So my story is pretty untraditional. I grew up being a very delinquent child. So it was always smart, um, but always getting in trouble. And eventually it actually happened about, uh, 10th grade. So I guess that's a sophomore year of high school. I got expelled essentially. So I realized, Hey, uh, I got to get this shit together. I'm not even going to pass high school. Um, spoke to my father's university professor. So it's pretty funny. Got serious. Um, killed it. My last two years of high school got into basically every university in Canada. decided to move to the biggest city, Toronto. Studied economics thinking I was like, hey, maybe I'll get a cool finance job, talk my way around, got a few internships, and then I became an investment banker. I thought I had it made, good money, good paycheck, get to wear a suit every day. I eventually realized I was a really bad investment banker and the job sucked. So about a year in, I left my job and I thought I was going to start a real estate startup. And this was 2022. So AI wasn't even around. Started the real estate startup, failed right away. Started SMMA for senior homes. You can guess how that went. And then GPT came out in December. I had a friend with a TikTok account and he said, hey, you can make videos on it. And I don't even care about the account. grabbed the account, started making videos on that, getting some reps in. And then I started. just posting every day. Like it's funny how like everyone says like, Oh, post every day and you go viral. It actually worked for me. So by the second month on my birthday, I posted my first viral video on AI and it was like a chat GPT prompt. Like back then you could post anything on chat GPT and it would go viral instantly. Um, used all of those impressions and views to actually end up doing a lot of AI consulting in the early days.

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Eventually got partnered up on a very large government funding program due to my presence on social media, and then converted that into my consultancy, exited my first agency, which was with a partner, and then decided to kind of go off on my own on this one, which is currently NextCall Agent. And that has a focus on AI voice solutions, custom CRMs, basically anything anyone can imagine we create with AI. and we're probably one of the largest players in the LinkedIn growth space. And got the opportunity to work with a lot of great guys, Dan Martell specifically.

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I even had the chance to work with Tai Lopez. I know it's not too hot anymore to mention him, but hey, listen, I give love to everyone that showed me love. Tai was a great guy from everything I experienced. I don't know about investing with him, but I had a lot of fun with him. And now we're here today building one of the best agencies on planet earth and teaching some smart people I love it. So let's talk about what is specifically what you do and why a business would So I think to start that off, I think there's a common misconception.

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It's that every business needs AI. No, only a select few need it. And certain ones actually benefit from it because they have the budgets for it. So I think there's like three sects of the market. There's the ultra low end where that's the low end agency owners and the low end businesses that Have cheap solutions really like quick and easy stuff that could work for them, but they don't do much value. Then you have like the enterprise grade. Where the agencies are overcharging and ripping people off just because they can, they're used to it. And the companies don't really care about the product. They just, maybe their CEO is really interested in AI and they'll, they'll pay it. But there's actually an interesting portion of the market. It's these mid level businesses, ones that make. $1 million to $10 million a year in revenue. These are the actual businesses that A, have the budget to create real products and B, have the ability to actually benefit from it. So that's the market we're focused on specifically. It's going into these businesses that kind of have an idea of AI. but just need an architect to build out a plan for them and build the products for them as well. So we've been partnered on a lot of unique custom projects recently.

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Um, we've been building SAS's for clients. We'll charge an upfront fee, and then we take a percentage of revenue to stay on as long-term partners. So it's not really an agency in that aspect. It's more of like a growth operator that joins with you on a journey. Obviously they get paid for their time of development, but we are incentivized for all of our clients to perform because A, we want a great case study. We always love testimonials and case studies, but B, we make money and we're incentivized to earn with them. So of course we're going to work hard. We're not just there to sit on a retainer and hopefully get results one month and not the next.

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Our bottom line is defined by our performance. So that's what we love to do. We also do help on a lot of LinkedIn growth. And that's where we've realized, I think I said it during my speech, Sebastian, but LinkedIn is probably the number one place now. for real business. We've noticed that Instagram is great for virality and coaching and things of that nature and entertainment. But LinkedIn, people are a lot more serious. They're there to either make their companies better, they're there to find a job, they're there to find opportunity. And the specificity of LinkedIn is where I think the goal is. You know everything about somebody when you click on their profile, if they've done it right.

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If they've done it poorly, then we've seen a lot of cases with CEOs of big companies, they're profiles not optimized. So companies that want to do work with them, they're going to, who are they going to go after first? They're going to go after the CEOs and they're going to see, okay, I'm going to give this guy 10 K. Let me just check and see if he, he did this part. Right. And so many of them empty, no picture. And I think in a world of personal brands, dominating business, uh, it's something you can't do. So say that's a little summary of what we do and the cool things we've Yeah, I love it. So let's talk about LinkedIn for a minute. Cause I've been on LinkedIn since 2002. So that was the beginning for those of you listening and didn't know that LinkedIn was the first social media platform on the planet before MySpace. A cool, cool little fun fact here. We're full of them on here on beyond the story, but, um, and I like to be active on it. I think the engagement is absolutely deplorable these days, unless you, um, are very pretty, let's just put it that way. I'm just gonna leave it right there. If you're pretty and your content's good, you're gonna fucking crush it on LinkedIn. I post every day, same time every day, got a newsletter, got all the things, I do all the outreach to all the fun stuff, falls on deaf ears. Every now and then though, someone said, hey, been following you on LinkedIn, I wanna start a podcast, can we book a call? I go, you sure can, and they book a call. What type of things are you doing on LinkedIn right now? And then let's dive into I love how you mentioned the engagement is deplorable. And even if you put out really good quality content, it doesn't get the respect that it typically should. The way I've seen people doing some of the transformations we've helped is that LinkedIn is a place where people need things. So the way to get engagement on your posts is a method we created. It's called, The lead magnet method they comment you send them over something they want whether that's a template guide whether that's a case study whatever people want things and they want them delivered to them it's the law of reciprocation.

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So it's interesting that you mentioned, Hey, somebody saw something on your LinkedIn.

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Well, actually LinkedIn is the deepest thinkers. So even if you do get 10 likes, 10 comments on it, one of those, or two of those 10 might be someone that's very highly qualified and appreciates a deeper learning.

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So it's similar to the case of YouTube. Whereas listen, I have, I have 60,000 followers on Instagram. I do all my business on LinkedIn still with maybe 10,000 followers now there. Why? Because people are on Instagram for quick entertainment and dopamine. People are on LinkedIn and YouTube for deeper learning, for understanding business processes. And you're allowed to put out deeper value on there without getting axed by the Instagram algorithm, which so many people do. So many people put the best Instagram creators I know have 2000 followers and they're actually their videos are amazing. they're not getting appreciated for it because it's not a deep learning platform. So the way I'd see LinkedIn in terms of the most successful, the writing has to be sharp. People don't get this. People think, okay, value, I'm just going to release a bunch of stuff and hopefully the market loves it. No, it's all packaging down to how each line is written. So what we've noticed is the human mind likes a couple of different things. They like specificity. Seth, if I told you I made $10 million last year, or if I made $10.6 million, you'll probably believe the 10.6. 20, 30% more believable, right? Because of the specificity. And too many people are writing in very, obviously they're using GPT to help them write, which is kind of a mistake in terms of the first two lines. But on LinkedIn, you only see the first two lines and then you say, see more. So your hook writing has to be on point.

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It has to actually look good for the human eye to read. What do people do commonly that fucks up their posts? They bunch all the texts together. They think, oh, I'm going to put more texts. It's more value. The client's going to... No. People read in very clear ways. You do one sentence at a time. Instead of spelling out numbers, you actually put the number because it'll start a pattern interrupt in people's minds. And that's what helps virality is when people stop and they actually read something and they interact with it. Most people, since they're using GPT for the whole process, they actually screw it up. And everyone's post looks the same, so no one will ever stop on yours. But if you do things like tiny, like one line at a time, or if you're doing a list, instead of just writing it straight, have the shortest at the start, then a little longer than the longest, and then go back to the shortest.

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It'll give a parabolic curve and it'll actually make your post look different than everyone else's. Just simple stuff like that, I think the market's lacking. And that takes a lot of time of actually looking at posts, evaluating them, putting your own spin on things. But I've seen guys on LinkedIn just copy another guy's exact post and go viral. So that just shows the actual philosophy of it. I've seen guys copy each other's lead magnets. I had a couple of my students, I just told them, you know what? Screw thinking of a new idea.

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just take my lead bank and add another 20 lines to it of whatever you want to add and it's yours and they still perform well. So the algorithm on LinkedIn is actually very predictable once you get it, but it's the most painful place to be in hell when you only get five likes on a post and you're putting in all that effort, you're really putting in the juice. LinkedIn is a really, really interesting place when you figure it out. And I think that's what most of our clients realize. They're so like, Oh, whatever, we'll give it a try. But, When you build on LinkedIn, better than paid ads, better than anything else you can do, the content is evergreen. It's going to remain on there forever. And the followers you gain from these posts are there forever as well. And they're usually higher quality than Yeah. They have a job. I mean, that's. Or they're looking for a job, or they're looking for a job. Right. So as I scroll through my past two weeks of content on here, we're looking at 49 impressions, one like 40 up, put a new newsletter out that got six likes, 262 impressions, two comments, Man, I'm like, look at my videos. I mean, my might as well just three likes, 51 impressions. Now, I am using chat GPT to write a majority of this stuff. There's my golf post that you saw, and that got 198 impressions and 14 likes. because I actually wrote the post. So there's lesson number one, the robots can't write your shit, Seb. Oh, there's a video with seven likes and two comments of me on stage during a keynote, 115 impressions. I'm trying to remember the Dan Martell post, going on a hike with him. Dan gets a post going all the time on here. I think the last time I had something go really bananas was when I told Big Terry. Yeah. Rest in peace. He I know a lot of all. I watched wrestling since growing up. Yeah, he was the biggest, one of the biggest guys I've ever met really, Neanderthal. But I wrote that post and I just told the whole story and it went crazy. And it was just a picture of Hulk, you know? Yeah. So what type of things are you helping people do specifically from your agency side on here? What are some tasks? I want people to hear something and go, I need that. And then hit you Yeah. Um, well, I would say this, you can't think of it as just purely generation. It has to be a go-to market strategy. So for you, Sebastian, for example, You are the podcast authority. You're the number one podcast authority in the world. You teach people how to start them. You advise them on how to be successful and how to scale them as well. So right away. Your posts, even though it's a pretty polarizing thing to start a podcast, I think it's actually one of the highest ROI activities over the longterm. What do people typically struggle with is, Oh, first episode comes out. I only got 10 views. I can't do this again. That's what the number one learning curve is. And specifically in podcasts. But I would say what we do as a team, we're able to find your voice and still remain authentic, like that post you had about Hulk Hogan. But at the same time, we're able to systemize and productize your offering in a very subtle way where it comes off as, wow, this guy knows everything about podcasts. He's worked with the biggest guys. And now he's giving us a lot of the value from his experience. Because that's the most valuable thing you have is you've worked with some of the biggest podcasts in the world. You've worked with some of the biggest podcast hosts, and you understand what goes into making a 1% podcast. No one just wants to start a podcast and get 10 views and do it forever. If they want to start a podcast, they ideally want their own brand, personal, and business to take off. And they want something that the return over time does well. So if one episode does really well, then we have a format that works. Then we know exactly what type of guests work. And the same way you figure out how a podcast scales, we figure out with LinkedIn. Not everyone can just copy someone else that's viral and hopefully going, but there's actually innovative strategies where you identify stuff on different platforms that work really well. What's the complimentary platform for LinkedIn. If something performs really well on YouTube. It'll perform really well in a LinkedIn post. But the way you have to do it is the YouTube level of thinking. YouTube, the two most important things for a video to be successful, it's not the video itself. The video itself doesn't even matter. It's the thumbnail and the title. Mr.

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Beast has done this perfectly. Ty has done this perfectly. Dan does this really well. But life is all formats. We all want to be creative beings that put something new out every time and hopefully all of them go viral. It's not how it works. The best thing is to find a format, exhaust the life out of it. Joe Rogan's the perfect example of this. I mean, Joe Rogan, it's like no format anymore. It's literally raw conversation and he leaves it uncut. But he can get away with that because of his authority in the space. Whereas someone else, they're going to have to come in with a more newer format that matches it or a specific podcast goal with specific types of guests. that'll attract people for that, and they'll know, okay, that's the podcast guy for taking care of your dog, for raising your children. He brings a new expert on every week, they go on their philosophy, and then he might ask the same last question or the same first question. Stephen Bartlett does this really well with Diary to CEO. When he asked the first, how are you doing? Just simple. Right away off the bat, people expect that moment, right? And that sets a format in their brain of, okay, cool, I'm going to watch Diary to CEO today. I wonder what he's going to say to the first question. Wonder what he's gonna say to the second. And that's what they're doing really well with certain podcasts I've noticed too. It's like the trailers.

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The trailers before are crazy because it's literally forcing people to watch the whole thing. And by the way, my favorite podcast episode in a long time, I watch a lot and I watched some of yours, Seb, but I have to tell you, the Sam Altman and Tucker Carlson episode is the best. It's the craziest podcast that I've ever seen in my life. He accuses the guy of murder at the end. It's a And I'm pulling that one up, putting that one on the list for sure. So if someone's listening to this right now and they're like, Hey, I love this conversation. I love this dude. Sam sounds like he knows what he's doing. Like, what are Um, typically I want people to be highly qualified and know a little bit about me. So go on LinkedIn, search Sam Arami, see what I'm about, see if any of my offers fit.

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And if you truly feel like I'm a guy that can come into your company or your personal brand and actually scale it. which I've done many times with my, myself, on my own base, best case study, as I always say, um, go onto Instagram as well at the clubhouse or Sam Arami, you'll find me, uh, and you'll be able to book a call pretty easily. It's all over the page. I make sure, and that's a tip I'd actually tell people. And I've noticed a lot of clients. If you have no easy way for someone to find your profile and talk with you, whether it's a 30 minute booking call or a podcast link like this, You're dead in business because all your competitors have it. They have better optimized pages and it's easier for people to interact with them. People are very shy. They want either an easy way to do it, or they want you to ask. They're never going to go out of their way to kind of find it and start a conversation. So Yeah. Stop making it hard for people to find you. Will you? Pardon? That's not making it so hard for people to find you literally or I find so many people like they keep everything secret, whether it's their pricing, whether it's their actual offer, cause they're scared that someone else is going to come in and take it. That's the whole point of a brand. Everyone sells the same thing. They sell money exchange.

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I'm not afraid of someone's deal. There's a million methods of money exchange. Um, the reason why I'd say, and this is kind of like a final point, I just overall LinkedIn and AI. The AI stuff is not the product. And that's what people mistake. The AI stuff isn't enhanced. Think of AI as steroids. That's what it is. It turns a two-man team into a 10-man team. It's the methods you use and the outcomes you get from it. So what do we do? We get five to 10 book calls helping with the AI, but we still do a lot of the thought and the strategy. And that's where I think we're better than most agencies is our main product isn't the AI. We just know how to use AI better than probably 99% of the world. And we know how to use it efficiently. We know how to train it.

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So eventually let's say you stop working with us or something happens. You have products that are actually fully to your voice, fully to your product, and now you can push it out. You don't even need good old Sam.

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Most of my clients do keep me, but they're not keeping me because I built them a nice AI shiny tool. They're keeping me from my thought process. They're keeping me from my taste. In the same way that Rick Rubin doesn't know how to play a fucking instrument, why do all these artists have an executive producer who doesn't know how to play an instrument? He doesn't know how to use the AI. It's the mind. And why has my mind been so good? Because my brand is good. People see it already. They see perceived value.

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People aren't afraid to pay me 5k upfront, 10k upfront. Why not? He's already proven it. The conversation we had was great. Why not? What's stopping us? And I think by the way you're showing either on LinkedIn or on your socials, the energy you bring will attract the same level of clients. I attract highly confident clients, highly confident partners, highly confident developers, because that's what I show. If I were to show a very humble, soft-spoken, weak-speaking style, I'd probably attract a lot of nerdy guys. Not to say nerdy guys aren't the best. Some of the best workers are nerdy, as we both know.

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But for levels of clients, you want clients that will pull the trigger. You want clients that understand that business is a bunch of separate risks, and one risk might blow up. And if they believe in your risk being the Love it, Sam. Hey, listen, if you're listening to this right now, listen, if you're listening to this right now, let's see how many times Sebastian can say, listen, make sure you connect with Sam. I'm going to put his link to his LinkedIn. Wow.

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We're saying a lot of the same words in the same sentence. I swear. Put a link. to his LinkedIn, also a link to his Instagram, which is The AI Clubhouse, just like it sounds in the show notes. That's the description of this podcast episode in case you're wondering what the hell a show note is. Make it easy to connect with him, send him a DM, let him know you heard me on Sebastian's podcast. He'd love to connect further. I'm sure he'd love to connect with you and find out what's possible. Sam, I appreciate your time. Great to see you again, man. I'm looking forward to making- I think there's a lot of crossover here where you and I can make some moves together. So I'm looking forward to exploring that. Any final I'd just like to thank Sebastian for having me on. When I came on to the stage of Dan Martell, Sebastian, first thing, he's never met me. I don't think he's ever seen me, but he gave me a straight look in the eyes. He raised his hand and he gave me a good high five. So energy transfer is very real, guys. Whether that's with clients, with friends, with family, the energy you put out will truly be the energy you get back. And I think this podcast is an example of it. That's I do that because as a, as a keynote speaker, I know what it takes to enter a room and take the stage and the more energy and endorsement that you can get, while you're on the way up to do your thing, the better it is. So that was more of a reciprocal thing because if I was getting ready to hit the stage and Sam was in the audience, the odds of you doing that to me are extremely high. And I kind of just knew that. Um, so that was just how it went out. And then we ended up being besties, you know, I appreciate And this guy has the best hat at any conference I've ever seen. You Hey, we're working on our new merch line, so stay tuned for all of that. I need one of those. We're going to make it happen. We're going to make it happen. All right, brother.

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Thanks again, Sam. I appreciate you, my brother. Pleasure so much, Seth. Talk soon. You got it. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, Launchlab.com Studios.