Social selling · 2026

The LinkedIn Social Selling System

Joe Stone, Co-Founder at JumpLead. 15 years of my own B2B selling.

Three months of posting on LinkedIn returned 520,191 impressions. No ads and no agency behind it. 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 and 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

Reposts

Link clicks

6,100+

LinkedIn followers

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 and comments 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. Worth having, but it isn't pipeline.

The rule

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 and stop when nothing lands. What I run has two layers, and each one is weak on its own.

Layer one is the whiteboard listicle. Five to seven points and a visual a person can screenshot. It's the reach engine: 17,000 to 102,000+ impressions a post, and it pulls saves and shares. It 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.

Reach and engagement rate by layer
Layer	Reach	Engagement rate
Whiteboard listicles	17K to 102K+ impressions	0.3% to 1%
Personal / founder-led posts	2K to 3K impressions	2.5% to 4.5%

The overlap is one week's posting. Ranges come from all my posts, not only the seven below.

Whiteboard listicles

Top-of-funnel reach engine

Puts you in front of 17K to 102K+ impressions
Drives follows, saves, shares
Positions you as an authority

Personal / founder-led posts

Trust and conversion layer

Lower reach, much higher engagement rate
Turns lurkers into people who trust you
Makes the expertise feel human

Run both in the same week. One fills the room, the other decides whether anyone stays.

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.

The rule

Run both layers in the same week, every week. Either one alone does half the job.

Part 3 · The themes

Four themes, and the place they overlap

Four themes carry almost everything I post. Nothing clever about them. 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 and 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 that came with leaving a job to start something.

Personal growth.

Sobriety and 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.

The rule

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 posts themselves, with the real figures. Open a few, then write your own version of the shape.

Seven posts: impressions, likes, comments and which layer each belongs to
Post	Impressions (relative)	Likes	Comments	Layer
7 sales quotes that still hold up	102,579	541	54	Reach
7 sales myths I believed	95,705	199	81	Reach
Most of what works, no one taught me	92,202	309	56	Reach
7 things I wish I knew	43,028	277	61	Reach
Struggle vs scale	17,531	152	32	Reach
I'm a Co-Founder	not in my figures	183	86	Trust
2.5 years sober today	2,728	65	5	Trust

Layer one: the reach posts

#1 by reach

Joe Stone

Co-Founder at JumpLead

Posted on LinkedIn

7 sales quotes that still hold up. Decades later.

I've been reading Zig Ziglar's 'Secrets of Closing the Sale' over the last few days. Written in 1984. Still hits harder than most modern sales content.

…see more on LinkedIn

541 likes54 comments · 53 shares

Creator analytics

102,579impressions

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.

Read the post on LinkedIn

#2 by reach

Joe Stone

Co-Founder at JumpLead

Posted on LinkedIn

7 sales myths I believed that cost me deals.

15 years in. I fell for every single one. Some of them for way too long.

…see more on LinkedIn

199 likes81 comments · 10 shares

Creator analytics

95,705impressions

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.

Read the post on LinkedIn

#3 by reach

Joe Stone

Co-Founder at JumpLead

Posted on LinkedIn

Most of what works in sales, no one taught me.

I've sat through MEDDIC, SPIN, Challenger, and Sandler training. Read lots of sales strategy books. Done various kick-offs.

Useful, all of them. But the lessons that actually moved deals came from experience.

…see more on LinkedIn

309 likes56 comments · 19 shares

Creator analytics

92,202impressions

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.

Read the post on LinkedIn

#4 by reach

Joe Stone

Co-Founder at JumpLead

Posted on LinkedIn

7 things I wish I knew before I started in sales.

15 years later, I'm still learning most of them.

…see more on LinkedIn

277 likes61 comments · 24 shares

Creator analytics

43,028impressions0.78% engagement rate

Format: Whiteboard listicle. Hindsight wisdom.
Why it worked: A strong engagement rate at that reach. "Wish I knew" lands with everyone, and it gets shared because people tag juniors and new starters.

Read the post on LinkedIn

#5 by reach

Joe Stone

Co-Founder at JumpLead

Posted on LinkedIn

The difference between salespeople who struggle and salespeople who scale.

15 years in. I've seen both. I've been both.

…see more on LinkedIn

152 likes32 comments · 13 shares

Creator analytics

17,531impressions0.99% engagement rate

Format: Whiteboard. Side-by-side comparison.
Why it worked: Around 1%, the best rate of the five. Two columns, so you can tell which one you're in.

Read the post on LinkedIn

Look at what those five share. A small, specific number in the hook and a first-person admission. Nothing that reads like a brochure. Now look at the next two. Different job entirely.

Layer two: the trust posts

Trust layer

Joe Stone

Co-Founder at JumpLead

Posted on LinkedIn

I'm a Co-Founder.

Genuinely never thought I'd write those words.

15 years in sales. Every role, every manager, every deal won and lost, every difficult conversation, every mistake I made and every one I learned from. It all led here.

Read the rest on LinkedIn

183 likes86 comments

Creator analytics

Impressions not in my figures

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 and their own stories. Nobody saves a post like this. It's the one that decides whether someone who has been reading quietly ever replies to you.

Read the post on LinkedIn

Trust layer

Joe Stone

Co-Founder at JumpLead

Posted on LinkedIn

2.5 years sober today.

I don't keep track like I used to at the beginning but I knew this one was coming up.

Not sharing to boast. I don't have anything against drinking. I loved it for years. Until I didn't.

…see more on LinkedIn

65 likes5 comments

Creator analytics

2.6%engagement rate2,728 impressions

Roughly three times the rate of 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.

Read the post on LinkedIn

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.

The rule

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

The board graphic from the top post: 7 timeless sales quotes from Zig Ziglar, seven numbered points in different colours with small icons. — That's the whole spec. People screenshot it, which is where the saves and the shares come from.

01The headline at the top. The board's own line, not the post's opening.
02Five to seven points. No more.
03One colour per point.
04A small icon per point.

The rule

Rotate the shapes, not the themes. Same four subjects, five ways in. 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.

Have someone specific in mind and write to what they're stuck on. Write for them, not about yourself.

Be relatable over impressive.

People engage with honesty. The posts where I admit what went wrong get more saves than the ones where everything went right.

Consistency beats virality.

One viral post doesn't build a pipeline. Posting three or four times a week for months does.

Post after 8:45am, UK time.

My 7:30am posts don't do as well. The 8:45 to 9:15am window has been the sweet spot. That's one account and one test, so treat it as a starting point rather than a law.

Story first, lesson second.

Lead with a human moment, not a framework title. "I lost a deal last week" beats "5 ways to handle objections".

End strong, don't add a CTA.

The best posts finish on a line that makes people think, not a "like and follow" ask. Let the content do the selling.

Engage with other people.

Posting is half of it. Comment on other people's content. Reply to comments on yours. The network gets built in the conversations, not just the posts.

Learn from what doesn't land.

Most of your posts won't go viral. That's fine. Study the ones that do and work out why. For me it's usually specificity and a personal opening.

Use a visual when it adds something.

Whiteboard graphics get high saves and shares because people screenshot them. Don't force one onto every post.

Don't copy, adapt.

Study creators you admire, then make it yours. Your audience will spot anything lifted straight.

The rule

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. If you try it, use my referral link below. Same Stanley either way. It just tells them I sent you.
x.getstanley.ai
https://x.getstanley.ai/r/zpyvpj
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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.

Joe Stone on LinkedIn

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 and fractional sales leadership, with consulting and coaching alongside.

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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