Nobody’s Buying. Everyone’s Selling.
The past couple weeks, I decided to give LinkedIn a real try.
Up until recently, I’ve basically avoided it. It always felt like a shitty networking event where everyone’s holding a stack of business cards but nobody actually wants to talk to you. Lots of jargon, lots of self-congratulations, lots of people desperately trying to look more polished than they actually are. Not exactly my vibe.
But I kept hearing the same refrain from other designers: “It’s where the work is.” So I figured why the hell not? I showed up. I wrote posts. I shared what I’ve learned over the years about branding and design and small business. I made on-brand graphics for consistency and to hopefully stop scrollers mid-scroll.
And… silence. Not completely, but close enough. Hardly any engagement. Definitely no new clients. Just me, throwing my perspective into a feed already bloated with “leadership insights” and AI-polished sales pitches. Because LinkedIn isn’t really a marketplace — it’s more like a swap meet where everybody brought their product but forgot their wallet. Nobody’s buying, because everybody’s too busy selling.
That’s the discouraging part. But I honestly don’t even blame people. It’s a tough time to be a small business. Everyone’s cautious. Money’s tight, budgets are stretched, risks feel scarier than ever. And when you’re a small business that works with small businesses (like me), you’re basically swimming upstream twice. You’re feeling your own pressure and the pressure of your clients trying to hold on.
So why keep at it? Why bother showing up in a space that feels like a giant game of business Mad Libs?
I'm not sure. But here’s what I do know: people still want to work with people. Real people. Not jargon. Not corporate-speak. Not AI-generated fluff. People want the mess, the quirks, the imperfection — the human fingerprints on the work.
That’s the part of LinkedIn that gives me a sliver of hope. Because buried under the noise there are real humans trying to figure this out. Real entrepreneurs who don’t have all the answers but are showing up anyway. Those are the people I want to find. And the only way to do that is to keep being real, even when the algorithm doesn’t clap for it.
Do I wish I was getting more traction? Sure. Do I wish clients were sliding into my DMs after every post? Absolutely. But I also know that building anything meaningful — whether it’s a brand, a business, or a reputation — takes time. And it takes a willingness to stand out by being yourself, not a sanitized version of yourself designed to “perform.”
LinkedIn sucks. But maybe that’s why it matters to show up as a human there. Because if everyone else is busy polishing themselves into beige perfection, the easiest way to stand out is to be unapologetically real.
And that’s the plan: keep showing up. Keep telling the truth. Keep putting my perspective out there, even if it doesn’t rack up the likes. Because likes don’t build brands. Connection does.
And if there’s one thing I still believe about small business, it’s this: connection will always be stronger than the noise.
