Melanie Goodman

Thirty-four viral posts, 3.4% of the total, generated 47% of impressions but often little action: a birthday post with the second-highest impressions produced zero recorded profile views.

• By contrast, 590 posts—60% of everything published—landed between 3,000 and 20,000 impressions each and together produced 46.6% of total impressions.
• They argue the middle is not a consolation prize but the result, because it is repeatable and can be studied.

A birthday post reached 206,330 impressions but brought zero recorded profile views; a Christmas travel post reached 94,608 and drove 2,289 profile views, the most of anything published that year, without being planned for reach.

An early pass through the data sorted top posts and pointed toward a "copy my viral posts" lesson; Melanie Goodman rejected that conclusion after checking what the viral posts actually did beyond reach.

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Video and document/carousel posts also outperformed plain text and polls.

• Opening lines mattered: posts starting with a specific number or statistic averaged 6,804 impressions, nearly three times the 2,345 average for question openings.
• Personal "I" statement openings were the second-strongest hook at 5,333 average impressions.

A number-led opening averaged 6,804 impressions against 2,345 for a question opening; every viral post included a real photo of Melanie Goodman.

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That gap becomes a fee problem: undercharging, quoting low so the client says yes, and over-servicing until the fee no longer covers the work. They frame the profile as a low-stakes place to practise saying what your work is worth before a real negotiation.

Melanie Goodman recommends Vanessa Ugatti's How to Get Paid Your True Worth and says the prompt led to a re-evaluation of their own profile and fee structure; the post states the book copy was bought and no payment was received to mention it.

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The piece lists the costs of billing after delivery—lost money, poor cash flow, debt, write-offs, wasted time, and stress—and the benefits of upfront payment: reliable income, better cash flow, reduced debt, more professional standing, and better clients. It also notes that staff may resist the change.

Melanie Goodman's framing uses a personal cautionary story: a client paid on time for a long while, then stopped and owed money to a long list of people. The guest piece by Vanessa Ugatti adds the practitioner's argument, including the line that you do not need to be stung to decide that money on account is simply how you work.

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Clients come from five layers wrapped around the asset; miss them and the PDF is forgotten by Thursday. The newsletter promises concrete steps for each layer so a business implements a system rather than owning one standalone asset.

The post contrasts "a guide sitting on your site with a download button" with the five layers that turn it into a client acquisition system, then asks readers which layer is missing from their setup.

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The argument is built from a personal spending decision: a brand shoot booked in the first year when the business account held a fraction of the £3,000 cost, against the sensible instinct to wait and build a buffer.

Before the shoot, enquiries were trickling in despite hours spent on content; within about six weeks after the shoot, enquiries picked up and the calibre of prospects changed. Melanie Goodman also acknowledges vanity and a love of shopping as part of the motivation.

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Melanie Goodman analyzed 987 LinkedIn posts over 365 days, generating 3,237,176 total impressions, up 607% year over year.

• Thirty-four viral posts (3.4% of the total) produced 47% of impressions but often little action.
• By contrast, 590 posts (60%) in the 3,000–20,000 impression range they call the "boring middle" produced 46.6% of impressions and were repeatable.
• Image posts drove the most measurable profile views, averaging 8.6 per post.
• Posts opening with a specific number averaged 6,804 impressions, versus 2,345 for question openings.
• The dataset shows 4,847 profile views from 4,014,179 impressions, roughly a 0.12% conversion.

For brands planning a campaign

A workshop or content plan could train consultants to use number-led hooks, image formats and consistent mid-range posts instead of chasing one-off viral hits.

In a post about Vanessa Ugatti's book How to Get Paid Your True Worth, Melanie Goodman links undercharging and over-servicing to profile writing.

• Most profiles describe what a person does all day; few explain what changes for the client.
• The profile becomes a low-stakes place to practise saying what your work is worth before a fee negotiation.

For brands planning a campaign

A workshop can pair profile messaging with fee-setting language, giving consultants practice with value statements before client conversations.

In this Substack guest piece, Vanessa Ugatti argues that getting money on account should be standard business practice, not an exception.

• They list the risks of billing after work (lost money, poor cash flow, debt, write-offs and stress) and the benefits of upfront payment (more reliable income, better clients and professionalism).
• The piece also notes that staff may resist the change and need support.
• Melanie Goodman hosts it for professionals and business owners who want to charge their true worth and collect it.

For brands planning a campaign

A workshop on payment collection could use this as a starting text, then add LinkedIn visibility tactics to help consultants attract clients who accept upfront terms.

A post argues that a downloadable guide alone is not a client acquisition system.

• Five layers around it drive results; without them, the PDF is forgotten by Thursday.
• Melanie Goodman's newsletter breaks down the layers with concrete steps to help readers build a system rather than a standalone asset.

For brands planning a campaign

A content plan can include lead-magnet system design, not just asset creation.

Melanie Goodman describes spending nearly £3,000 on a brand shoot in their first year, despite sensible instincts to wait.

• Before the shoot, enquiries trickled in despite hours of content work.
• Within about six weeks after the shoot, enquiries picked up and the calibre changed; prospects no longer had to work out whether the business was legitimate before the call.
• The post's lesson: presentation is part of the product, and people read visual signals before words.

For brands planning a campaign

A workshop can include visual identity and profile photography in consultant positioning, linking them to enquiry quality rather than vanity.

The central finding is the “boring middle”: 590 posts with 3,000–20,000 impressions each produced 46.6% of total impressions, while 34 viral posts produced 47%.

• Image posts were the most reliable format for profile views; posts opening with a specific number averaged 6,804 impressions, against 2,345 for question openings.
• The method: inspect LinkedIn’s own analytics, sort by outcomes beyond reach, and repeat formats and hooks that work in ordinary posts.

Own-account analytics, format and hook comparisons, and correlations between impressions, profile views and followers.

Melanie Goodman notes that viral posts are real but not a strategy; a Christmas travel post drove the most profile views without being planned for reach.

For brands planning a campaign

A brand can build a workshop or content plan around measurable LinkedIn formats: number-led openings, image posts, personal stakes and a publishing cadence that treats consistent middle-tier posts as the asset rather than chasing virals.

Examples: Source 1

That gap can make it harder to justify fees.

• A profile offers a low-stakes place to practise stating the value of one’s work.
• The post recommends Vanessa Ugatti’s book How to Get Paid Your True Worth; Goodman says they bought the copy and received no payment to mention it.

Profile review and a book-informed exercise linking client outcomes to fees.

For brands planning a campaign

For professional services firms, a practical workshop could rewrite consultant profiles around client outcomes and use that language in fee discussions.

Examples: Source 1

It describes professionals who deliver well but avoid the money conversation, then covers the costs of billing after delivery: lost money, poor cash flow, debt, write-offs, wasted time and stress.

• The proposed benefits are better collection, cash flow, professionalism and client selection.
• The post includes a guest piece from Vanessa Ugatti on the True Worth Methodology, while Goodman frames payment collection as a practice to build deliberately.

Case-based argument, a list of problems and benefits, and a guest practitioner’s explanation.

The detailed methodology is attributed to Vanessa Ugatti in a guest piece; Goodman provides the framing and curation. Ask for the guest piece if you need the methodology.

For brands planning a campaign

A firm can use this as a workshop or content theme on deposit and upfront-payment policies, scripts for raising fees, and reducing late-payment risk.

Examples: Source 1

Before the shoot, they used a conference photo taken on a friend’s phone, and enquiries trickled in despite their content work.

• Within about six weeks of the shoot, enquiries picked up and the calibre changed.
• The argument: presentation is part of the product, not a cost beside it, because prospects read visual signals before written claims.

Before-and-after business anecdote with a specific spend and observed outcome.

The post acknowledges vanity and a love of shopping as part of the motivation, presenting a personal experience rather than a controlled test.

For brands planning a campaign

A brand evaluating Melanie Goodman for a professional-services audience can brief a session on visual credibility: when to invest in photography, how presentation affects enquiry quality, and how to connect brand assets to LinkedIn profiles and content.

Examples: Source 1

Clients come from the five layers wrapped around it; without them, the PDF is forgotten by Thursday. The newsletter breaks down all five layers with concrete steps to help a business implement a system rather than own one standalone asset.

Five-layer framework and newsletter prompt asking which layer is missing.

For brands planning a campaign

A campaign plan can use this topic for a workshop or content series on building distribution and follow-up around an existing lead magnet: the five layers, ownership inside the firm and concrete implementation steps.

Examples: Source 1

They pair first-person business experiences with frameworks, lists, or diagnostic questions. Posts are largely text and image on LinkedIn, alongside longer newsletter pieces on Substack.

First-person anecdote plus a framework, list or diagnostic question.

For brands planning a campaign

A brand can expect direct, numeric and practice-oriented content, suited to professional-services audiences looking for implementation steps rather than abstract thought leadership.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4 · Source 5

A Substack guest piece by Ugatti outlines the True Worth Methodology and getting money on account.

Original disclosure

I bought this copy. Nobody sent it to me, nobody is paying me to mention it.

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John Soriano checks hook rate, hold rate, and CTR before killing an ad, then re-cuts one clip into five testable ads. Melanie Goodman compares post formats and opening lines to find repeatable patterns in the ordinary middle of their LinkedIn account.

John Soriano works on paid ad creative for DTC brands, mainly video and UGC editing for Meta and TikTok. Melanie Goodman focuses on organic LinkedIn content and professional-services profiles, with an emphasis on fee conversations and client acquisition for consultants.

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Ibtehaj Ahmed critiques generic banners and offers a who/what/why/how formula. Melanie Goodman argues that brand photography and profile wording shape enquiry quality and the ability to justify fees.

Ibtehaj Ahmed focuses on visual brand systems, LinkedIn banner design, and ghostwriting. Melanie Goodman focuses on content performance analysis, professional-services positioning, and payment collection.

Read original · Original 2

Tim S Dodd writes about humanized outreach to warm up prospects; Melanie Goodman covers content patterns, profile positioning, and payment habits for professional services.

Tim S Dodd centers on outreach systems and an AI SDR-style product for B2B sales teams. Melanie Goodman focuses on organic content performance and the fee conversations that follow profile attention.

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The posts argue that a buyer lands on a person's content, clicks the name, scrolls the profile and forms an opinion before any contact happens.

• Companies getting the best results, they say, build personal presence for sales and marketing staff alongside a company page.
• That suits a practice whose partners or business-development staff work named prospect lists and need warm approaches, or one that wants a managed outreach operation: the posts describe 11 years of client acquisition work and a LinkedIn outreach service built on it, emphasizing humanising approaches so prospects are warm by the time a call happens.

The posts don't address fees or payment collection, so ask for a separate source on those needs.

• Their proof is testimonial rather than measured: they describe consistent high-value meetings and referral-warm calls, and cite a 73% figure about members preferring posts from people over company pages, but publish no account data of their own that readers can check.
• The teaching also sits inside promotion of a paid outreach product, so firms buying workshop modules should distinguish what is taught from what is sold.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The posts treat the profile banner as the most-seen piece of real estate a person owns, offer a copy formula—who you help, what you do, why they should care, how to act—and report before-and-after results after replacing generic templates, including a 280% rise in profile views over three weeks and 19 inbound messages for one client. This is the fastest, cheapest slice of the visibility goal and can run before any publishing cadence starts.

It covers one layer.

• The posts don't deal with post formats, publishing cadence, audience demographics or fee and payment conversations; ask for the creator's published method or another source to cover the firm's remaining publishing and pricing needs.
• The results are per-client anecdotes rather than account-level data a reader can audit, and the offer is design work requested by direct message, so the firm buys a service rather than a reusable method.
• Melanie Goodman ties format and opening line to profile views and follower growth across 987 published posts; this alternative's numbers are individual claims.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The money-on-account method published on Melanie Goodman's newsletter is credited to Vanessa Ugatti.

• It covers the risks of billing after delivery, how to answer standard objections, why money on account must be topped up during a project rather than taken only at the start, and why staff resistance is a predictable obstacle when a firm changes policy.
• Melanie credits the book How to Get Paid Your True Worth and describes Vanessa Ugatti as working with lawyers and professional services firms on the psychology of charging, so the fee half of the firm's needs traces back to this material.

This is a named source for the fee method, not a fully described alternative.

• The material appears here in one guest essay and one post mentioning the book, both published on Melanie Goodman's newsletter.
• Vanessa Ugatti's own accounts, talks, rates and delivered engagements aren't described; collect that material before choosing between the two for the payment module.
• The visibility need isn't covered.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The posts offer a cheap diagnostic for ads that appear to have stopped working: check hook rate, hold rate, click-through and conversion in turn, and judge each against the account's own average.

• They also provide a re-edit list that turns one raw UGC clip into five testable openers without a reshoot.
• That's the practical alternative if the firm ever runs comparable work for a DTC or ecommerce client.

Melanie Goodman's posts don't address LinkedIn, consultant profiles, professional-services buyers or fee conversations, so this alternative answers neither need for a LinkedIn campaign.

• Its method also depends on data a LinkedIn programme doesn't produce: hook rate and hold rate come from paid social impressions, and the worked numbers are ad account metrics, not profile views or enquiries.
• Choosing it means changing the campaign, not swapping supplier.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2