A few years ago, I made a dramatic shift in my life.
I started posting regularly on LinkedIn.
I run Lasso, a creative studio, with my husband Allen. I never wanted to start a business. I actively avoided it, and when Allen even suggested it over a decade ago, I said “NO” so fast that we still laugh about it to this day. Thanks to life circumstances we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves (ie: I got fired with a six month old baby at home in 2019), a “never” for me turned into a “this could make sense” in 2020 and I had to learn about Business Development.
For most of my career, creative professionals I knew actively avoided the platform, labeling it as too corporate and bland. Yet, as I shifted from designer to leadership and eventually business owner, a hopeful light appeared in a surprisingly gray place.
If I wanted to work with specific brands and companies, and more specifically the creative leaders working within those companies, there they were on LinkedIn, organized into a list for me. I could see when my contacts knew someone I may like to know. The algorithm actually worked in my favor. Anything I posted or even engaged with made my name appear to others. I felt an unusual but calm knowing: LinkedIn is my place.
I happily realized that I could leave behind the analysis paralysis that plagued me on image focused platforms. My own obsessive wrestling with posts and content could end because the perfect image didn’t carry the same pressure. Reader, an admission that we even avoided posting as a studio on Instagram or anywhere publicly for an entire year. I’m sure some people thought we were no longer in business. While this certainly didn’t break our business as I was actively fostering real life connections, complete avoidance of showing up online was not great biz dev.
So, how do you “biz dev”?
We dreamed of working with creative brands and like so many young creatives, we associated success with working with big and well-known brands and companies. You may dream of working with a very specific brand and company, and feel helpless to think, “How on earth do I get “in”?” The bigger the company, the smaller you can feel outside their walls. The biggest unlock came for me when our first project with Apple came, seemingly out of nowhere. When the email came through to sign an NDA before meeting with their team, I legitimately checked the email address wondering if it was spam. Turns out, it was real and the team was lovely and they wanted Lasso specifically for this project. But where did this aligned gift of a project come from? Simply asking “How did you hear about us?” lead to an answer that made so much sense. An Art Director who worked there knew us. He was in our community. He knew our approach and style and knew it would be a great fit.
Wow. It could be simple. I did not have to become a business development expert. I did not have to cold email anyone. I could simply start to look for more friends and build on the community with shared values we already had. Reflecting back on most of our jobs, I saw the thread of actually knowing the people, or people who knew the decision makers, versus anyone finding us randomly online or being so taken by our website copy that they called us immediately.
I delight in reflecting on the fact that many of my favorite jobs and clients can be traced back to projects and friends who we delighted in working with years prior. Sometimes, they simply had been friends or acquaintances unrelated to work at all. Take our largest client right now: Creative Arts Collective, a grant organization who supports artists and spirituality. How did we get that job? We took on a local non-profit client four years ago that was close to our hearts for a discounted rate. In developing that work and the relationships with people there, the wife of the founder ended up being the woman who led my first ever Artist’s Way cohort. We became friends, I dove into Julia Cameron’s life changing words and experienced personal growth that was meaningful to me, and years later that same woman landed a gig at the grant organization. When the possibility of a rebrand came up internally, she dropped our name to their Marketing Director. As we discussed their dreams, needs and struggles paired with how we could support them, it was an easy and clear yes for all of us. All the small connections and seeds planted over the years came to fruition in just the right timing.
How to Go Corporate without losing your soul
I started hanging out more in the so-called corporate threads of LinkedIn and found other profiles, and started seeing them for what they were: Humans. More specifically, creatives, business owners, and leaders in mid-life who were likely living very similarly to me. Perhaps they also had kids at home and sometimes felt so tired trying to do it all, despite loving their work and family deeply. Perhaps some days they also wrestle the feeling they are masquerading as an adult and business owner. I imagine they also dream about creative personal projects, but often feel too tired to complete them. They are the ones that give me the strong feeling we would have already been friends, had we gone to the same art school or simply met at a coffee shop.
I stopped looking for people to hire us. I started looking for humans to connect with.
My content strategy was simple: post as humanly as I could. Mostly this translates to sharing things that are on my heart and spirit, and writing the same way I would talk to a friend. Thinking about the energy I want to experience, and sharing things and words that embody that. I like to share poetry and personal stories. I love to share job opportunities and the fact that despite the dumpster fire of scrolling any thread on any platform, there is hope and the right jobs will find the right people at the right time. I love to send people personal messages telling them how much I love their work. I like to be maybe a little too honest, writing about the challenges of raising small kids while running a business, and navigating the fear that it might all fall apart.
I look for posts and people who feel real and un-performative. Somedays the threads can feel overwhelming, and if I’m not in a good emotional place, something may trigger imposter syndrome or feeling I’m not doing enough or not doing things right.
Navigating the LinkedIn Overwhelm
Especially now, the “thought leader” category of posts abounds. While some are extremely thoughtful, many can feel bloated, full of advice and guarantees floating in the ether. AI created another level of bloat as we were all flooded and overwhelmed on a new level. There too are the posts and personalities who claim to know how to solve all your professional and personal woes, just a click and $27 course away. It can feel like a stage for performing and selling your skills and services. If you don’t actually know any of the humans on there, I can see why you’d avoid it.
Even for me, posting on LinkedIn started to feel off. Last year was so hard for so many of us, this year too. Ways of working and living and operating proved to no longer work like they had before. Uncertainty and fear felt palpable, and reading the barrage of thought leadership posts and solutions honestly made me feel like shit. I’d try to write something, but everything that came out felt like I was trying to prove something and get someone to hire me for a faux online confidence that didn’t feel sincere. I stopped showing up online and quietly panicked behind the scenes.
I have no interest in being perceived as a thought leader, and despite clearly needing to present myself as knowledgeable in the services I sell, I do not know it all. Turns out making peace with this, admitting my deepest fears and practicing safety and faith in uncertainty was the catalyst to help me turn the corner. In my space of fear, LinkedIn overwhelmed me. When I got clear on what I wanted, it could be an energetic tool. All I had to do was show up again and only post what felt true for me. Let me look for the humans again.
Looking for Doors and Windows
In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron speaks to the power of Synchronicity — a concept introduced by Carl Jung, that can simply be described as meaningful coincidences. Cameron calls them signs confirming you are on the right, supported path. Creating space for them means showing up, simply taking small aligned steps in the directions of your creative desires and being open to what opportunities may appear. She claims doors (and sometimes surprising windows) will open — pass through, and mystical synchronicities will follow. The people, resources and reinforcements will appear. This has been true for me again and again, in both work and in life.
And so I show up on LinkedIn, and keep my heart open. I let go of obsessive planning or control. Who knows who could see the words I write? Who knows who is looking for a studio just like us? I believe they are out there. I believe they will find us. I believe connection is the key.
Is honest connection possible online?
What I honestly want more than a thriving business is connection. Real, engaged relationships that go beyond Likes and reactions and emoji littered comment threads. I want to find the people out there who are seeking a rich and meaningful life, and who want to do creative work with other people who give them energy and insights and a beautifully human experience. I want to enjoy my day to day and delight in other humans, holding onto hope in the duality of this life.
Can this honest connection happen on LinkedIn? My experience is that real, authentic connection is most deeply made offline. Start the connections on LinkedIn, absolutely. Foster them, encourage them, comment with your favorite emojis. And also, turn the meaningful connections into coffee dates, lunches, or phone calls while you drive to pick up your kids from school. Enjoy the forgotten art of simply connecting with no agenda or to-do, and let the surprises and synchronicities unfold.
While I’m proud of what we’ve made happen in our 6 years in business, I will actively tell you I do not know it all, or that what has worked for me will most certainly work for whoever may read my perfectly paced and spaced advice on LinkedIn. There is no business advice that is just right for everyone. Despite actively not wanting to start a business, somehow I started one, with my husband no less. Multiple times we’ve wondered, “Can we do this? Will our business continue to exist?” There is much to be uncovered when our deepest fears come to the surface.
We return to trusting ourselves and each other. We return to aligning with what we love and value. We return to fostering honest relationships with other humans with the motive not for work, but connection and faith that the things that are meant for us will not pass us by. It has always led to people and jobs that are just right for us, for right now.
So my friend, to wrap up:
My name is Lindsey Laseter and I love LinkedIn.
BIO
Lindsey Laseter is a creative human making her way. A mom of two, she is also the Co-Founder & Creative Director of Lasso Studio with her husband Allen in Nashville, TN. She runs Ladies, Wine & Design focused on building creative community around honest conversations, and is often fantasizing about being an art teacher in the woods.
A few years ago, I made a dramatic shift in my life.
I started posting regularly on LinkedIn.
I run Lasso, a creative studio, with my husband Allen. I never wanted to start a business. I actively avoided it, and when Allen even suggested it over a decade ago, I said “NO” so fast that we still laugh about it to this day. Thanks to life circumstances we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves (ie: I got fired with a six month old baby at home in 2019), a “never” for me turned into a “this could make sense” in 2020 and I had to learn about Business Development.
For most of my career, creative professionals I knew actively avoided the platform, labeling it as too corporate and bland. Yet, as I shifted from designer to leadership and eventually business owner, a hopeful light appeared in a surprisingly gray place.
If I wanted to work with specific brands and companies, and more specifically the creative leaders working within those companies, there they were on LinkedIn, organized into a list for me. I could see when my contacts knew someone I may like to know. The algorithm actually worked in my favor. Anything I posted or even engaged with made my name appear to others. I felt an unusual but calm knowing: LinkedIn is my place.
I happily realized that I could leave behind the analysis paralysis that plagued me on image focused platforms. My own obsessive wrestling with posts and content could end because the perfect image didn’t carry the same pressure. Reader, an admission that we even avoided posting as a studio on Instagram or anywhere publicly for an entire year. I’m sure some people thought we were no longer in business. While this certainly didn’t break our business as I was actively fostering real life connections, complete avoidance of showing up online was not great biz dev.
So, how do you “biz dev”?
We dreamed of working with creative brands and like so many young creatives, we associated success with working with big and well-known brands and companies. You may dream of working with a very specific brand and company, and feel helpless to think, “How on earth do I get “in”?” The bigger the company, the smaller you can feel outside their walls. The biggest unlock came for me when our first project with Apple came, seemingly out of nowhere. When the email came through to sign an NDA before meeting with their team, I legitimately checked the email address wondering if it was spam. Turns out, it was real and the team was lovely and they wanted Lasso specifically for this project. But where did this aligned gift of a project come from? Simply asking “How did you hear about us?” lead to an answer that made so much sense. An Art Director who worked there knew us. He was in our community. He knew our approach and style and knew it would be a great fit.
Wow. It could be simple. I did not have to become a business development expert. I did not have to cold email anyone. I could simply start to look for more friends and build on the community with shared values we already had. Reflecting back on most of our jobs, I saw the thread of actually knowing the people, or people who knew the decision makers, versus anyone finding us randomly online or being so taken by our website copy that they called us immediately.
I delight in reflecting on the fact that many of my favorite jobs and clients can be traced back to projects and friends who we delighted in working with years prior. Sometimes, they simply had been friends or acquaintances unrelated to work at all. Take our largest client right now: Creative Arts Collective, a grant organization who supports artists and spirituality. How did we get that job? We took on a local non-profit client four years ago that was close to our hearts for a discounted rate. In developing that work and the relationships with people there, the wife of the founder ended up being the woman who led my first ever Artist’s Way cohort. We became friends, I dove into Julia Cameron’s life changing words and experienced personal growth that was meaningful to me, and years later that same woman landed a gig at the grant organization. When the possibility of a rebrand came up internally, she dropped our name to their Marketing Director. As we discussed their dreams, needs and struggles paired with how we could support them, it was an easy and clear yes for all of us. All the small connections and seeds planted over the years came to fruition in just the right timing.
How to Go Corporate without losing your soul
I started hanging out more in the so-called corporate threads of LinkedIn and found other profiles, and started seeing them for what they were: Humans. More specifically, creatives, business owners, and leaders in mid-life who were likely living very similarly to me. Perhaps they also had kids at home and sometimes felt so tired trying to do it all, despite loving their work and family deeply. Perhaps some days they also wrestle the feeling they are masquerading as an adult and business owner. I imagine they also dream about creative personal projects, but often feel too tired to complete them. They are the ones that give me the strong feeling we would have already been friends, had we gone to the same art school or simply met at a coffee shop.
I stopped looking for people to hire us. I started looking for humans to connect with.
My content strategy was simple: post as humanly as I could. Mostly this translates to sharing things that are on my heart and spirit, and writing the same way I would talk to a friend. Thinking about the energy I want to experience, and sharing things and words that embody that. I like to share poetry and personal stories. I love to share job opportunities and the fact that despite the dumpster fire of scrolling any thread on any platform, there is hope and the right jobs will find the right people at the right time. I love to send people personal messages telling them how much I love their work. I like to be maybe a little too honest, writing about the challenges of raising small kids while running a business, and navigating the fear that it might all fall apart.
I look for posts and people who feel real and un-performative. Somedays the threads can feel overwhelming, and if I’m not in a good emotional place, something may trigger imposter syndrome or feeling I’m not doing enough or not doing things right.
Navigating the LinkedIn Overwhelm
Especially now, the “thought leader” category of posts abounds. While some are extremely thoughtful, many can feel bloated, full of advice and guarantees floating in the ether. AI created another level of bloat as we were all flooded and overwhelmed on a new level. There too are the posts and personalities who claim to know how to solve all your professional and personal woes, just a click and $27 course away. It can feel like a stage for performing and selling your skills and services. If you don’t actually know any of the humans on there, I can see why you’d avoid it.
Even for me, posting on LinkedIn started to feel off. Last year was so hard for so many of us, this year too. Ways of working and living and operating proved to no longer work like they had before. Uncertainty and fear felt palpable, and reading the barrage of thought leadership posts and solutions honestly made me feel like shit. I’d try to write something, but everything that came out felt like I was trying to prove something and get someone to hire me for a faux online confidence that didn’t feel sincere. I stopped showing up online and quietly panicked behind the scenes.
I have no interest in being perceived as a thought leader, and despite clearly needing to present myself as knowledgeable in the services I sell, I do not know it all. Turns out making peace with this, admitting my deepest fears and practicing safety and faith in uncertainty was the catalyst to help me turn the corner. In my space of fear, LinkedIn overwhelmed me. When I got clear on what I wanted, it could be an energetic tool. All I had to do was show up again and only post what felt true for me. Let me look for the humans again.
Looking for Doors and Windows
In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron speaks to the power of Synchronicity — a concept introduced by Carl Jung, that can simply be described as meaningful coincidences. Cameron calls them signs confirming you are on the right, supported path. Creating space for them means showing up, simply taking small aligned steps in the directions of your creative desires and being open to what opportunities may appear. She claims doors (and sometimes surprising windows) will open — pass through, and mystical synchronicities will follow. The people, resources and reinforcements will appear. This has been true for me again and again, in both work and in life.
And so I show up on LinkedIn, and keep my heart open. I let go of obsessive planning or control. Who knows who could see the words I write? Who knows who is looking for a studio just like us? I believe they are out there. I believe they will find us. I believe connection is the key.
Is honest connection possible online?
What I honestly want more than a thriving business is connection. Real, engaged relationships that go beyond Likes and reactions and emoji littered comment threads. I want to find the people out there who are seeking a rich and meaningful life, and who want to do creative work with other people who give them energy and insights and a beautifully human experience. I want to enjoy my day to day and delight in other humans, holding onto hope in the duality of this life.
Can this honest connection happen on LinkedIn? My experience is that real, authentic connection is most deeply made offline. Start the connections on LinkedIn, absolutely. Foster them, encourage them, comment with your favorite emojis. And also, turn the meaningful connections into coffee dates, lunches, or phone calls while you drive to pick up your kids from school. Enjoy the forgotten art of simply connecting with no agenda or to-do, and let the surprises and synchronicities unfold.
While I’m proud of what we’ve made happen in our 6 years in business, I will actively tell you I do not know it all, or that what has worked for me will most certainly work for whoever may read my perfectly paced and spaced advice on LinkedIn. There is no business advice that is just right for everyone. Despite actively not wanting to start a business, somehow I started one, with my husband no less. Multiple times we’ve wondered, “Can we do this? Will our business continue to exist?” There is much to be uncovered when our deepest fears come to the surface.
We return to trusting ourselves and each other. We return to aligning with what we love and value. We return to fostering honest relationships with other humans with the motive not for work, but connection and faith that the things that are meant for us will not pass us by. It has always led to people and jobs that are just right for us, for right now.
So my friend, to wrap up:
My name is Lindsey Laseter and I love LinkedIn.
BIO
Lindsey Laseter is a creative human making her way. A mom of two, she is also the Co-Founder & Creative Director of Lasso Studio with her husband Allen in Nashville, TN. She runs Ladies, Wine & Design focused on building creative community around honest conversations, and is often fantasizing about being an art teacher in the woods.
Further Reading
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