Takes No. 007
LinkedIn now lets you sell advice from your profile. Here’s what founders should set up first
Paid calls, a business card and a creator dashboard: LinkedIn's October update turns the profile into a small shop. Here's what to set up before you sell.
What happened
On October 15, LinkedIn announced a batch of new tools for people building something of their own. It says the number of founders on LinkedIn is up 70%, and that more than 80% of its creators post alongside another role. The headline features are Advice Sessions, which let you manage bookings, take payments and host one-to-one video calls from your profile (now open to Business Premium subscribers in the US); In-Stream Ads, a test in which select US creators earn money when a short ad plays before their videos; and a new creator dashboard arriving in the coming weeks.
There are smaller pieces too. Authors can pin comments under their posts again, a feature Social Media Today notes LinkedIn tested back in 2022 and then removed. Premium members can keep private notes on other people’s profiles. A digital business card you can add to your phone’s wallet is rolling out over the coming months, and LinkedIn is testing a separate feed of posts from your own connections in the US, India, the UK and Australia. Advice Sessions first appeared in a May announcement, so this widens something LinkedIn has been testing since spring.
What it means for you
Put together, these features turn the profile from a résumé into something closer to a small shop. Someone can meet you at an event, save your card, read your profile and book a paid call without ever reaching your website. I find that both useful and slightly alarming, the way it’s alarming to learn that your shop window is now also the till.
It changes what the profile has to do. A résumé lists where you’ve been. A shop has to say, in a second or two, who it’s for and what you can buy there. Most founder profiles I come across still open with a job title and a company name, which tells a visitor what you are and nothing about what you could do for them.
The Network feed test deserves a moment as well. LinkedIn describes it as a way “to keep up with the people you know and trust.” If it spreads, the people who see your posts there will be your actual connections, not strangers reached by a lucky post. That rewards the slow work: connecting with people you’ve really met, and writing things those people would want to read.
Paid sessions also bring a trust question worth thinking about before you switch them on. A stranger paying for an hour of your time is buying on faith. Your recent posts, your featured section and the recommendations on your profile are the only evidence they have, so those need to show how you think, not only what your title is.
What to do this week
- Rewrite your headline so it names who you help and with what, in plain words. “Helping SaaS founders fix their onboarding emails” tells a visitor more than “Founder at Acme.”
- Pick one offer before you turn on Advice Sessions: one topic, one length, one price. A vague “pick my brain” call is hard to buy and harder to deliver well.
- Refresh your featured section with two or three pieces that show your thinking, such as a case study, a post that started a good discussion, or an article on your own site.
- When the business card reaches you, make it say the same thing as your headline, so the person you met in a hallway recognizes you when they look you up later.
- On your next post, pin one comment that adds something useful, like a source or a good question, so the discussion starts in the right place.
A profile that sells follows the same rules as a good landing page, and that’s the kind of personal branding work we do.
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