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12 things to say out loud that become LinkedIn posts for consultants

Twelve questions to answer out loud for two minutes. Each one becomes a LinkedIn post from your real client work. No blank page.

Consultants rarely lack material. The problem is that daily work does not look like content until someone asks you a good question. The twelve prompts below are those questions. Answer one out loud for about two minutes, record it, and you have the raw material for a post drawn from your real work.

How to use these prompts

Record, do not rehearse. Pick one prompt, press record on your phone and answer it as if a colleague had asked you over lunch. Do not write notes first. Notes turn into a script, and a script sounds like one.

  1. Choose one prompt. Not three.
  2. Record about two minutes. Stop when you have said it.
  3. Listen once, or read the transcript.
  4. Run the confidentiality check below.
  5. Cut it into a post using the method in how to turn a voice memo into a LinkedIn post.

If you do not know what to pick, pick the prompt that makes you want to start talking.

Prompts from client work

These come from what you see in engagements. They are usually the easiest, because you have told these stories before.

  1. What is a mistake a client made that you see others repeat? What did it cost them, and what would you tell the next person?
  2. What question do you get from clients every single week? What is your short answer, and what is the longer one behind it?
  3. Think of a result a client got. What actually caused it, and what did people assume caused it?
  4. What is a myth in your field that you keep correcting? What do people believe, and what happens when they act on it?

Prompts from your process

These show how you work. They build trust because they are specific and a little unglamorous.

  1. How do you start a new project? What are the first three things you do before you give any advice?
  2. What tool or habit did you drop, and why? What did you replace it with, if anything?
  3. What is one checklist you use every time? Walk through it as if teaching an assistant.
  4. What is a decision you reversed? What did you believe before, what changed your mind, and what did the change cost you?

Prompts from your opinions

These take a position. Say what you think and give one reason, not five.

  1. What advice common in your industry do you disagree with? What do you say instead?
  2. What trend are you deliberately ignoring, and what would make you pay attention?
  3. If a beginner in your field asked for one piece of advice, what would you say, and what would you warn them against?
  4. What is one thing you expect to change in your field, and what is the evidence you see in your own work? Treat it as a guess, not a promise.

Confidentiality check

Client stories are the best material and the riskiest. Before any recording becomes a post, go through this list. If you answer "yes" to any line, change the post or ask permission.

CONFIDENTIALITY CHECK
[ ] Does the post name the client, or could a reader guess who it is
    from the industry, city, size and situation together?
[ ] Does it include a figure, date or detail that only the client knows?
[ ] Does it make the client look foolish, even if it is true?
[ ] Is there anything covered by your contract or an NDA?
[ ] Does it mention an employee or a customer of the client?
[ ] Would you be comfortable if the client read it tomorrow?

SAFER WAYS TO TELL THE STORY
- Change the industry or the details that do not matter to the point
- Combine two cases into one pattern and say so
- Tell it about yourself: what you got wrong, not what they got wrong
- Ask the client in writing if the story is too good to lose

When in doubt, leave it out. A less exciting post you can stand behind is better than a good one that costs you a client.

From prompt to post

Once you have a recording, the next job is cutting it. Find the sharpest sentence, move it to the top, keep a few short lines and end with one line that stays with the reader. The full steps, with a worked example, are in the voice memo to LinkedIn post guide. For the edit that keeps your own phrasing, use the checklist in making LinkedIn posts sound like you.

Tip: keep the twelve prompts on your phone's home screen or in a note, and answer one a week. Twelve weekly posts cover a quarter, and by then you will have your own questions to add.

TalkPost is being built so you could record one of these answers and get a draft in your own voice, learned from 10 of your past posts. You would edit it and post it yourself. If that is useful to you, you can join the early access list.