JumpLead
Social selling · 2026
The LinkedIn Social Selling System
Joe Stone, Co-Founder at JumpLead. 15 years of my own B2B selling.
Social selling · 2026
The LinkedIn Social Selling System
Three months of posting on LinkedIn returned 520,191 impressions. No ads, no agency, no budget. Just me, some whiteboard graphics and 15 years of things I got wrong. Here's the whole system: what I post, why those posts work, the real numbers on each one, and how to run it without it eating your week.
Part 1 · The proof
Three months, 520,191 impressions
I started posting properly three months ago and I haven't missed a week since. Fifteen weeks straight. Sales craft, building JumpLead, and the parts of my life that shaped how I work. Three or four posts a week.
Here's everything that came back.
Impressions in 3 months
520,191
All organic. Zero ad spend.
3,494
Reactions
929
Comments
693
Saves
125
Sends
41
Reposts
96
Link clicks
6,100+
LinkedIn followers
15
Weeks posting, consecutive
520,191 is the headline and it's the least useful number on that list. Impressions only tell you people scrolled past. Saves, comments and sends tell you people cared enough to do something. 693 saves means 693 times somebody decided a post of mine was worth keeping. That's the number I watch.
One post did most of the work on reach: 102,579 impressions and 541 likes on its own, a whiteboard list of seven sales quotes. Multiple posts have gone over 10,000. I'll show you all of them further down, with why each one worked.
One thing I can't show you is a revenue number. Look at the link clicks: 96, against 520,191 impressions. This isn't a click-through channel, and I'd be making it up if I told you it closed deals on its own. What it changes is whether somebody already knows who I am when I turn up in their inbox. That's worth having. It isn't pipeline.
Watch saves and comments before impressions. Reach tells you who scrolled past. Saves tell you who's coming back.
Part 2 · The system
Two layers, doing two different jobs
Most people post at random, watch nothing land, and stop. What I run has two layers, and each one is weak on its own.
Layer one is the whiteboard listicle. Five to seven points, a visual, something a person can screenshot. It's the reach engine. It gets me in front of 17,000 to 102,000+ people, pulls follows, saves and shares, and makes the case that I know the subject. Engagement rate sits low, roughly 0.3% to 1%, because most of that audience is cold and passing through.
Layer two is the personal post. The founder journey. Leaving a job. Sobriety. Fatherhood. A deal I lost and what it taught me. Reach is much smaller, usually 2,000 to 3,000, and engagement rate runs 2.5% to 4.5%. Several times higher than the big posts. These are the ones that turn a lurker into someone who trusts me.
Whiteboard listicles
Top-of-funnel reach engine
- Reach
- 17K to 102K+ impressions
- Engagement rate
- 0.3% to 1%
Jobs
- Gets you in front of 17K to 102K+ people
- Drives follows, saves, shares
- Positions you as an authority
Personal / founder-led posts
Trust and conversion layer
- Reach
- 2K to 3K impressions
- Engagement rate
- 2.5% to 4.5%
Jobs
- Lower reach, much higher engagement rate
- Turns lurkers into people who trust you
- Makes the expertise feel human
The listicles fill the room. The personal posts close the deal.
Neither works as well without the other. A feed of only frameworks feels like a textbook. A feed of only personal stories doesn't establish authority. I do both, and that's the system.
Run both layers in the same week, every week. One fills the room. The other decides whether anyone stays.
Part 3 · The themes
Four themes, and the place they overlap
Four themes carry almost everything I post. They're not clever. They're the four things I can talk about honestly for years without running dry, which is the only test that matters.
Sales craft, and what it cost me to learn it.
Real stories from 15 years of selling. What went wrong, what I learned, what I'd do differently now. These beat pure tactical advice every time.
The founder journey.
Honest posts about building JumpLead from scratch. The fear, the wins, the reality of leaving a job to start something.
Personal growth.
Sobriety, fatherhood, Stoicism applied to business. Something personal wrapped round a professional lesson gets my highest engagement.
Practical frameworks.
Whiteboard lists. "7 signs you'd be great at sales". "5 sales truths". High saves and high shares, because people screenshot them.
Themes one and four feed layer one. Themes two and three feed layer two. That's how the week gets planned.
The strongest posts sit where two of them overlap. Personal vulnerability plus a professional lesson beats pure tactics, and it beats pure personal story.
Pick four themes you could write about for a year without repeating yourself. Everything outside them is a distraction.
Part 4 · The evidence
Seven real posts, and why each one worked
Numbers with no post behind them are worth nothing. Here are the actual posts, in the open, with the actual figures. Open a few, look at how they're built, then write your own version of the shape.
| Post | Impressions | Layer |
|---|---|---|
| 7 sales quotes that still hold up | 102,579 | Reach |
| 7 sales myths I believed | 95,705 | Reach |
| Most of what works, no one taught me | 92,202 | Reach |
| 7 things I wish I knew | 43,028 | Reach |
| Struggle vs scale | 17,531 | Reach |
| I'm a Co-Founder | n/a | Trust |
| 2.5 years sober today | 2,728 | Trust |
Impressions for the launch post aren't in my figures.
Layer one: the reach posts
7 sales quotes that still hold up. Decades later.
- Format
- Whiteboard listicle. Zig Ziglar quotes reframed with personal commentary.
- Why it worked
- Old quotes, my own commentary on each. People screenshot it and send it on. "Decades later" makes you want to check whether you agree.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joestone22_7-sales-quotes-that-still-hold-up-decades-activity-7477263843208007680-ztKD
7 sales myths I believed that cost me deals.
- Format
- Whiteboard listicle. Myth-busting with a personal admission.
- Why it worked
- 81 comments, more than any other whiteboard post. Saying "I believed" invites people to admit their own. Big reach, and a real conversation underneath it.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joestone22_7-sales-myths-i-believed-that-cost-me-deals-activity-7475454168716161025-Xk4w
Most of what works in sales, no one taught me.
- Format
- Whiteboard listicle. Experience over training frameworks.
- Why it worked
- It says the training didn't teach me the useful part. Most salespeople have thought that and never said it, and the hard lessons behind it are what earn you the right to teach.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joestone22_most-of-what-works-in-sales-no-one-taught-activity-7458058544538574848-LIdR
7 things I wish I knew before I started in sales.
- Format
- Whiteboard listicle. Hindsight wisdom.
- Why it worked
- A strong engagement rate at that reach. "Wish I knew" is universally relatable, and the shares are strong because people tag juniors and new starters.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joestone22_7-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-i-started-in-activity-7472920022009589761-q1gR
The difference between salespeople who struggle and salespeople who scale.
- Format
- Whiteboard. Side-by-side comparison.
- Why it worked
- Highest engagement rate in the top five, around 1%. Two columns, easy to scan, and you can tell which one you're in.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joestone22_the-difference-between-salespeople-who-struggle-activity-7475087831330373634-U1yq
Look at what those five share. A small, specific number in the hook. A first-person admission. Nothing that reads like a brochure. Now look at the next two. Different job entirely.
Layer two: the trust posts
I'm a Co-Founder.
Impressions aren't in my figures for this post.
- Format
- Personal milestone. No whiteboard, just the story.
- Why it worked
- 86 comments, the most on anything I've posted. People turned up personally: congratulations, their own stories, tagging others. Nobody saves a post like this. It's the one that decides whether someone who has been reading quietly ever replies to you.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joestone22_newjob-jumplead-salesconsultancy-activity-7449732624719233024-zDza
2.5 years sober today.
Several times higher than the big posts.
- Format
- Personal reflection. Sobriety milestone.
- Why it worked
- It wasn't written for reach. When somebody is choosing between two consultancies and one of the founders has been honest about something like this, that's what they remember. The line "I don't think I'd be nearly 3 months into building my own business if I hadn't" ties the personal straight to the professional.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joestone22_25-years-sober-today-i-dont-keep-track-activity-7477634284116316161-gtOK
2,728 impressions against 102,579. On a dashboard the sobriety post looks like a failure. It's one of the most valuable things I've posted.
One thing on personal posts before you go and write one. Only post something you've finished processing and are happy to have public for good. If you're posting it for the reach, don't post it.
Judge a personal post on engagement rate, never on reach. Judge a listicle on saves and shares. Same feed, two scoreboards.
Part 5 · The formats
Five shapes to write into
On the days I've no idea what to write, I pick a shape and fill it. These five have done nearly all the work.
- 01
The confession opener. Start with something honest ("I got this wrong for years...") and build to the lesson.
Best for: trust layer - 02
The whiteboard list. A visual with five to seven points, each in a different colour with small icons.
Best for: saves - 03
The "here's what I fixed" story. Walk through a real problem you solved, anonymised if it needs to be. People learn from the specifics.
Best for: specifics - 04
The "most people get this wrong" post. Pick one thing you see constantly and explain the better way. Slightly polarising.
Best for: comments - 05
The numbers post. Share real results with the context around them. Data backed by story carries weight.
Best for: credibility
5 sales truths
- 01The hook line at the top. Same line that opens the post.
- 02Five to seven points. No more.
- 03One colour per point.
- 04A small icon per point.
Rotate the shapes, not the themes. Same four subjects, five ways in, and the feed never feels repetitive.
Part 6 · The rules
Ten rules I post by
These are the ones I'd hand a new starter on day one. Most of them cost me something to learn.
Write for one person.
Be relatable over impressive.
Consistency beats virality.
Post after 8:45am, UK time.
Story first, lesson second.
End strong, don't add a CTA.
Engage with other people.
Learn from what doesn't land.
Use a visual when it adds something.
Don't copy, adapt.
Nothing here works in a fortnight. Fifteen straight weeks is what changed how people react to my name.
Part 7 · The tools
What I use to stay consistent
Staying consistent is the hardest part of all of this. Three things help.
Stanley. An AI content partner that learns your writing voice from your real posts, helps you draft content that actually sounds like you, schedules and publishes across LinkedIn and X, and tracks your analytics. Closest thing I've got to a content strategist on call, and it keeps me accountable. It drafts from my notes and my old posts. It doesn't decide what I say, and anything personal I write cold.
x.getstanley.aihttps://x.getstanley.ai/r/zpyvpj
LinkedIn analytics. I check what's working weekly. Saves and comments matter more to me than impressions.
Notion. Planning content themes and keeping notes on what I want to write about next.
The Stanley link is a referral link.
Part 8 · Getting started
Start this week
The cost of posting is zero. The cost of staying invisible is the pipeline you'll never know you missed.
Start with one post this week. Write about something you know. Don't overthink it. You'll get things wrong. Learn from it. Keep going.
I'm 15 weeks into a consecutive streak. Week one felt uncomfortable. Some weeks it still does. Post anyway.
See it on the feed
Everything in this guide is on my feed, in public. Follow along, and if something in here helps, tell me in the comments.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joestone22
Joe Stone
Co-Founder at JumpLead
I'm Joe Stone, Co-Founder at JumpLead. 15 years in B2B sales across the full deal cycle. I started in charity fundraising on the streets of London (a year of asking people to save tigers), then customer success, then 150 calls a day selling IT solutions, five years in recruitment advertising, five plus years in SaaS, and now JumpLead. £8m+ in new business closed across our careers. JumpLead builds and runs B2B outbound sales systems for founders and revenue leaders: done-for-you outreach, fractional sales leadership, consulting and coaching.
Posting changes how people react when you reach out. Outbound decides who you reach. The two work far better together, and the outbound side is what we do at JumpLead: the data, the messaging, the follow-up and the routing, set up properly and run for you. Book a free Sales Engine Review and I'll tell you honestly whether you need one.
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