Konnected Minds Podcast

Segment:- LinkedIn Secrets: Turn 0 to 1,000+ Connections in 30 Days.

• Derrick Abaitey

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Stop grinding and start compounding. We walk through a practical system that turns LinkedIn from a job board into a growth engine and show how to sell without cash by leading with skills, partnerships, and transparent deals. Our FAVA framework—Vision, Authenticity, Value, Visibility, Authority—anchors the conversation and gives you a repeatable path from zero to traction. You’ll hear how posting consistent, useful content exploits LinkedIn’s underused organic reach, why teaching in public creates narrative capital, and how authority forms when your results are visible and verifiable.

We get tactical on capital-free sales: commission-based agreements, service layering, and collaboration that compresses time. Instead of asking “How much money do I need?” we ask “Whose demand can I serve today?” You’ll learn why persuasion beats convincing, how to run real discovery that maps to the customer’s reasons, and how adaptability—customizing scope, packaging, and delivery—wins deals that rigid offers lose. We also dig into trust mechanics, explaining why undisclosed markups poison referrals, while honest pricing builds defensible margins.

Strategy ties it all together. We break down alumni-network outreach for warm job paths, show how founders can protect thinking time by documenting SOPs, and outline how to reinvest into authority assets that lower acquisition costs. If you’ve been working harder without moving faster, this conversation gives you a map: publish value, partner for leverage, and design systems that scale your impact. Enjoy the playbook, try a step this week, and tell us what changes: subscribe, share with a friend who needs this shift, and leave a review to help more builders find the show.

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Host: https://www.instagram.com/derrick.abaitey/

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SPEAKER_01:

So I do that with a number of strategies and everything, but the whole thing is that on LinkedIn I can take somebody in, take you from zero to one thousand in thirty days. But they can't tell you, okay, I I pressed one, two, three, and I got here. And so what I did was that since when I joined LinkedIn, nobody knew who I was. I was I came from obscurity to Limelight. And so LinkedIn was my medium to come into the Limeline. And so what I did was that I developed a system that I can use. And so once I had that system, I just began to teach it to other people for free as a start. And when I started working for them, they started telling their friends, and their friends started telling their other friends, and the other friends started telling their other friends. That's how I started, and I started charging people and doing that. Take me through the system. So I call it Faba V-A-V-V-A. So Baba starts number one vision. It may sound, but you need to start with vision. Number two, authenticity, number four, visibility, and number five authority. If you follow those five steps, you actually have LinkedIn visibility. Most people come on LinkedIn and they don't even know what advice they're looking for. So their vision is wrong because they come there looking for a job. Meanwhile, I mean if you want opportunities, LinkedIn is a social media platform. You can't just come and all you're thinking about is a job. So because it because their primary thought is that they approach everything so wrongly, you should have a real goal, a real outcome, a real connection. What exactly are you trying to get out of this platform? If you don't have that, most people have their vision wrong, and so every other thing now goes away. Authenticity is always the bedrock of personal branding. And so what you want to do is that you want to be able to find a way to not be like everybody else. You need to rightate your authenticity in terms of you have your value, you have your things, your core, your core elements, but how can I do it in my way that is not necessarily a standard procedure for everybody within my space? So you need to be able to define your authenticity. Now, your value value comes from the Latin word or from an old French friend known as valuable. So when we're talking about values, like what are you bringing to the table that is worthy for someone else? And so most people come on LinkedIn and they're just they're just the oh, I got a job. Oh my god, I just what I do is that I spend when I first started LinkedIn, I was posting twice a day, sharing value about random things, leadership and marketing, twice every single day. By the time I was done with my university, I had over five jobs reaching out to me. And so it was just because I was using it as a platform where I was sharing my wealth. And so when you start doing that, especially at a very in a very consistent manner with high volume, I'm telling you like you are going to grow because now the thing about LinkedIn platform is this. So on LinkedIn, you cannot run ads on your personal account, but on LinkedIn, you can't do that for yourself, and now they're trying to include that into the platform, but like you can't do that. So the the only way you can run ads on LinkedIn is using a company account. Now, what that means is that the company accounts they've killed the reach for it, basically, that when it's when when it's a personal account, the organic reach for a personal account is so high.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So they may they've optimized the organic reach for you to be able to get a lot of views. Once you start actually actively using the platform, because less than one percent of all of the LinkedIn population actually posts on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn has over a billion members, so you should think that's just a number of people. The moment you start and you start posting value, I am telling you the the platform is designed to give you a lot of visibility. Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_02:

The reason I wanted to take us through because I know Blessing is not directive on LinkedIn. Now, Blessing, take me through how you got your capital to start your business.

SPEAKER_00:

I've always been entrepreneurial, so I always find a way to sell something. When I was eight, I remember there's this pack of jello toffee in class. I would say I'll buy the pack and sell it one-one to my classmates. GSS2, I was selling bags and belts that my father was bringing to the teachers, to fellow students. So I got some traction. And then in national, when I was doing my national service, a friend suggested I buy hair from Nigeria and sell. Just bought two sets of hair. That's three bundles each, two sets of hair. And then a friend of mine gave me a thousand Ghana cities to start. So that was two sets of hair I bought, and that's how I started my business, glamages. I know a lot of people always ask, how much do I need to start a business? And I find that question very amusing. The product, the product when we are trying to start a business. The product is really important, of course. Yes, but having the product without having the marketing skills, the sales skills, the product doesn't move. It sits there, right? So once you build the skill, the sales skills, the marketing skill, you can now sell that. And then we're like, okay, so I'll bring you customers. I don't want any of your capital, I don't want any of your cost price. I just want a commission on every client I bring you. So people have used this method to generate thousands of dollars. And that is your seed money for whatever else you need to do. Another way to run a business without using capital or money is partnerships. Honestly, we don't put enough emphasis on partnerships. Yesterday, I was just chatting with somebody who sold cars and I had so many ideas because I realized that he had a flaw in his hiring system. He has a lot of employees, but none of them, none of them is educated. So he struggles with sharing his vision, making them understand what he wants. And I'm like, I know how to hire. Why don't I just tell him I can hire for you, I can create SOPs for you, onboard your staff, and then you just pay me. That is how to make money without money, right? He has he can build LinkedIn platforms for people, he can do so much. So I just had an idea. Okay, so how do we work together to make money? So there are so many ways to make money. I think we we need to move away from being stuck on how much do I need to start a business? That question is getting old. How much do I need to start a business? Yeah, we need to move away from that.

SPEAKER_02:

And by the way, I just want to chip it in that looking for a product and adding your markup to it is different from somebody asking you that they want a service from you or they want a product from you. And then you telling that person that the highest quality of this product that they can get is 2,000 cities or$2,000. And then you go and buy them a substandard product, and you keep the difference. What we're saying is that you identify a product right in the market, then you bring that online, or you can do it face-to-face. But the person must be aware of the markup you want to put on top. Don't tell somebody that you're gonna go and buy them a cup. The highest quality is gonna cost$2,000. Yeah, and then you go and then you get the lowest quality of$500, and then you keep$1,500.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean that's it's not even scalable. But how do you how do you build a business from that? From being dishonest from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02:

I think Blessing has just spoken about two ways where you can start a business partnership and then you know offer your services to existing businesses, whether it's product or services. Now, I do understand that you speak very much about soft skills. What sort of skills do you think people need to be able to then go sell the products?

SPEAKER_01:

Number one thing, communication skills. I'm talking about communication to sell. Now, most people do not know how to sell. Most people think selling is convincing, but selling is persuasion. Convincing is when I get you to do something for my own reasons. Persuasion is when I get you to do something for your own reasons. So for the customer's reasons, not my reasons. Most people start a business and then they already define their reasons why people should buy the thing. But what you should find out is why would my customer want this thing? What are their desires, their goals? And so the moment you learn about communication, because communication is this. Communication comes from the Latin one as communication. And communication m simply means it simply means it simply means a making common. What that means is that you're supposed to find a way to find a common ground with the plan. And when I'm talking about a common ground, I'm talking about two-party streets. Communication is a two is a two-way street. You can't just, you can't just, if I'm talking to you and you're not responding to me, I'm just the one talking, but we're not communicating. Communication always has a listener and the person speaking. So when I'm talking about soft skills, what you need to do is that you need to have communication as your prior, as the main soft skill that you're using to sell.

SPEAKER_00:

I really love it because I want I have a I have a perfect example for him. So their sales rep reached out to me, and then she wanted me to use the platform to book clients for services, for salon services. So I merely told her that we don't offer services. She went ahead to still talk about how the platform can help me to get clients for services. So a lot of the time we train people, we train our sales directs to just go out there and talk about the product. But they don't even know if the product is right for the customer. Because she could have told me that, okay, they are going to maybe adjust this a bit or something. But she was just talking about what she had been trained to talk about. So that's what happens a lot when we get sales calls, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

What other skill do you think people need to be able to sell products without owning the products?

SPEAKER_01:

Emotional intelligence is one of that because the soft skill. But and I think it all boils down to the communication thing. Instead of emotional intelligence, I love to say adaptability is a soft skill. So, I mean, because you are in a marketplace with different types of customers, with different types of wants, traits, needs, and everything. And so, how then can you be able to adapt your services to somebody else? So, for example, somebody has a particular need that they want. Can you be able to find a way to tailor that product for them? Because it's about most people, some people don't just want a regular service, they want you to be able to find a way to tailor what you have for them in a particular way. So that is one of the things that most people don't have. They don't have the idea or the grit to be able to be adaptable. Whatever they are selling, they are so stuck on it, so strict, they are so cemented in their opinions about their services, about their products. But are you willing to make a bend? Are you willing to modify your product offerings just for the person you're working with? The moment you have adaptability coupled with communication, I think you will make a killing in business.

SPEAKER_02:

In a sense that they think they work hard enough and they've tried everything.

SPEAKER_00:

So a lot of people think hard work just means you're going to succeed. We start businesses and we use ourselves as the goal. So we are trying to sell to ourselves instead of listening to the customer. We don't listen to the customer enough. So you bring something, clearly, there's no market need for it. But you believe that in marketing it and putting it in front of people's faces, in waking up early every morning to shout about your product, you are magically going to change the customer's needs and make the customer want your product. So hard work doesn't mean anything if you're not willing to apply a bit of what he said communication, not just convincing, persuading, right? And also in adaptability. How do I shift it a bit for it to work? Right? And also sometimes, as the founder of the business, I don't believe you need to work hard. Your job is not to be working hard physically. Because when you work hard, you don't make room for your mind to think and come up with ideas. Because that's your job as the founder. You're supposed to work on the business and find ways to grow the business. You're supposed to meet people who can give you inspiration, ideas to grow the business. But most of the time we found we find entrepreneurs waking up early, taking all the videos, they want to be the face, they want to do everything in the business by themselves. And that is not equal to that, doesn't necessarily mean your business is going to work.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So I'll say when tall fails, tall fails, strategy always works. When tall fails, strategy always works. So most people have been working hard. They work, work hard, hard, hard, hard, but they are not being strategic. Most people don't take the time out of their busy shadows. Or they are just they're so stuck with working hard until they get stuck and consumed by the hassle, but they're not consumed by strategy. That's the difference between a lot of big companies and small companies or big brands and small brands. And so one of my one of my godfathers told me this when the tough gets going, the tough see collaboration. I mean the quote is when the tough gets going, the the when the going gets tough. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. And so what you need to do is that you need to be strategic. And that's seeing collaboration as being strategic. Because you need most people when they when they are working so hard, like, oh my god, I've been working so hard, I'll be applying to a lot of jobs. Have you decided to be strategic? Because I see because I do a lot of like because of the LinkedIn thing, I help people also get like jobs remote in Ghana, here in here in Ghana, outside of Ghana, and all of that. And so you see some posts, oh, I've been applying to jobs every day. Have you decided to be strategic for once? On LinkedIn, the one thing that you can do, this is outside the realm of this business person, I just want to say this is that there's a feature called because everybody puts their school on there. So if let's say I'm in Ashesse or I'm in Cape Coast University, like it's over there that you put on your page. And so when I open the school's page, I can literally just go to the page and look at the alumni. Now I go to the list of the alumni and just go there and just look at it. So I just look at somebody and see that oh, this person is working over here. I'm an alumni from this. And that what happens is that because you both share a bond, it's called it's called affinity, affinity bias and psychology. And that's called strategic thinking. So I'm not just going to apply to a job, I'm just going to look for an alumni, ask him for a job opening if there's one in this company, and then apply to that company. He becomes my voice, and that company says, Oh, I kind of know this person, especially if you kind of target somebody in the HR recruited space, oh, you're cool to go. And to most people, whether it's a business and career, whatever they're doing, they are just doing the work without being strategic. And the people that always win are the people that always prioritize strategy. You have helped several businesses. Yeah. Connected Minds podcast.