LinkedIn marketing is changing, and many B2B brands are heading into 2026 with the wrong priorities.

In this episode, LinkedIn expert Michelle J Raymond is joined by marketing strategist Bec Chappell to unpack a practical B2B marketing reset for LinkedIn in 2026.

They explore what businesses need to stop, start, rethink and redo to get better results from LinkedIn, without relying on AI shortcuts, beige content or chasing the algorithm.

You’ll learn:

1. Why LinkedIn strategy must align with real marketing fundamentals
2. How brand and relevance drive better B2B outcomes on LinkedIn
3. What role LinkedIn should play in your wider marketing mix
4. How to prepare your LinkedIn marketing for 2026 with confidence

If you’re a B2B marketer, founder or leader using LinkedIn to drive growth, this episode will help you focus on what actually matters next.

Key moments in this episode -

00:00 – The B2B Marketing Reset for 2026

02:15 – Why AI Is Hurting LinkedIn Strategy

09:30 – Bringing Brand Back to LinkedIn

16:10 – Rethinking LinkedIn’s Role in B2B Marketing

21:40 – Aligning Marketing Strategy and LinkedIn

26:40 – How to Prepare Your LinkedIn Strategy for 2026

30:15 – Final Advice for B2B Marketers

Connect with Bec Chappell on LinkedIn

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE J RAYMOND

1. Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn
2. Book a free intro call
3. https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
4. B2B Growth Co newsletter

Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days.

https://metricool.com/michellejraymond/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=20251216_michelle-raymond_dec-premium_en&utm_content=audio&utm_term=q3

#b2bmarketing #linkedin #linkedinmarketing

G'Day everyone.

It's Coach Michelle J Raymond, your trusted guide for building your

brand and your business on LinkedIn.

And this week, listeners, for those of you who have a thorough appreciation for my

Aussie accent, have I got news for you?

Our expert guest is actually another local in Sydney, Bec Chappell.

Welcome to the show.

Hello.

Thank you for having me.

And my accent is like particularly bad at the moment 'cause I was saying to

you just offline, I've been a bit sick.

So you get this like husky, maybe sexy Aussie voice.

Look, they love it.

I'm just saying like the, my compliments and my voice have been smooth as honey.

So I don't know where to go with this listeners, but I promise that today

we're gonna be talking about the big marketing reset that Bec and I think

people should be doing at the end of 2025.

So we don't carry some of the bad habits, I think that have crept into 2025.

So we're gonna talk about what we think Maybe you should stop.

Something you should start.

A redo and a rethink and most of all, how to prep for 2026.

So Bec, you love all things marketing and so this is the reason that I wanted

to come and pick your brain specifically because you are helping businesses with

this stuff, not just LinkedIn, but gasp.

You are actually going outside of LinkedIn.

Is there a world outside of LinkedIn back that we need to be mindful of?

There kind of is.

I don't wanna let the cat outta the bag, but there is a whole

thing called marketing strategy and there are all these other channels

that can be brought into it.

And look, every channel has its ceiling.

I've literally said that twice today already.

But every channel has its ceiling and It's really important I think that

we look outside of just LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a beautiful channel.

It's worked very well for myself.

It's worked very well for many of my customers, but there is a whole world

outside of digital marketing as well, don't wanna, I know who says this?

Rebecca, but it is, yeah, it's definitely, there is a world outside of digital.

Okay, so after this short word about our podcast sponsors Metricool,

we're gonna dive into this.

So listeners grab your pen because I think you're really gonna like this one.

Okay, so Bec here we are, we're at the end of 2025, and there is no doubt that

2025 has been the year that everyone would have us believe that AI can do everything.

It can do your business plan, it can do your marketing plan, it can

do your LinkedIn strategy, it can do everything except the dishes

from what I've figured it out.

But what is one thing that you wish businesses would stop relying

on AI for as they head into 2026?

Yeah, I think the one thing that we actually need AI to do is the dishes,

if you ask me, but I think personally.

I've had many conversations with a lot of tech people this year because I,

I love a healthy discussion, right?

And sometimes I do wanna scream at the end of it.

But I think this, using AI to produce our strategy, or even look at our business

strategy, it's giving us same, same, you know, like, and I think we, none of us get

into to business to be exactly the same.

So I think when we outsource our thinking to AI, it doesn't allow

us to think outside the box.

It allows us to, it can give you the world's best

marketing strategy, by the way.

Like it can, right?

Because it's reading some of the best marketing strategies that

have been put on the internet.

But the reality is it's giving you a textbook answer.

It's giving you like.

Very vanilla, very basic.

It's not helping you think outside and how to connect with your audience.

Sure, you can get great stats on your audience off AI or

whatever platform that you use.

It's not helping you be different.

And I think this is the one thing that I struggle with

is like how are we different?

And I have this chat with clients all the time and that's one of the

questions I ask them and most people struggle to answer because, hey, in all

markets, we are almost all the same.

There are a lot of marketers out there, but it's like, what?

Drilling down into that differentiator.

That's the thing I think that AI has taken from us and that

creativity, like that unique thinking.

And so I think that's one of the things that when we outsource our thinking or

even outsource our writing, like I was watching a really short clip on socials

this morning from a author that's like.

It's in the writing process where you learn the most.

And I was like, oh, isn't that kind of poetic and beautiful?

We are not all great writers, but maybe you're a great talker so you can

transcribe what you talk or, so that's one of the things I think that outsourcing

our creativity and our thinking and our uniqueness to AI, like it can

do it all for you, there's no doubt.

But hey, how boring and you don't get to, to get the lessons on the way.

That is so true.

I have had someone come to a call with me and present a LinkedIn strategy

that AI had obviously helped them to create and this thing was a masterpiece.

There is no way in my lifetime am I creating 70 pages of Like the

most amazing stuff that I'd ever seen from a strategy perspective.

I also looked at it and pretty much thought in my mind, you should put

that in the bin because that is not what is gonna help your business.

Because one differentiation to your point, there was no mention

of anything along those lines.

So of course they'll just look and sound and come across the same as

everybody else in their industry.

And that is, I think, the worst thing that any of us could do.

But the other thing was I just thought if I'm someone, their business

wasn't active on LinkedIn at all.

So we're starting absolute newbies going to 70 pages to get

done as part of this strategy.

Where do you start?

How do you support your team?

How are you actually going to bring this thing to life?

And I felt sorry for them 'cause you talk about overwhelm a lot, and I'm

speaking to a lot of marketers who are overwhelmed because, I don't know, I

think this AI stuff is over complicating a lot of stuff and skipping over the

bits that actually are important.

Is that what you see with your clients?

Yeah, definitely.

And a lot of the clients I work with have teams, right?

And they're completely missing this collaboration opportunity to

find out from their, the teams.

How are you dealing with customers every day?

What?

What's the differentiator in those conversations that you're having?

What's the feedback from your actual customers about this AI experience?

And to your point, it doesn't tell you how to execute and it can't, and

also you're not looking at the real world when you look at an AI strategy.

It's not giving you those nuances in your business of Jenny has to

go at nine to five and work these hours, or, 12 to 12 or whatever it

is because of her living situation.

She's an excellent operator, she's an excellent executor.

This AI strategy works with doing X at X time or like how we look at those nuances

with the people in our business and their living situations and how they all come

together and the conversations that they have or their strengths or it misses

this entire picture of your business.

And in that, if you deliver a strategy and say.

Hi sales team.

'cause by the way, the biggest buy-in you need as a marketer is

your sales and customer service team.

If you go to your sales team, you're like, Hey, this is the marketing

strategy, they're gonna say, where was my input in this because, and then you

create this like massive friction and as solopreneurs, we think that if there's

a solopreneur listening going, that's not relevant to me because I don't have

team and, AI can create my strategy.

It's once again, you're still missing the nuances that make you

and Make your business run the way that it runs based on the way that

you are and your life experiences.

And no matter how much you prompt it with, when I was six, I created a team in my

school and this is a true story, right?

Like when I was six I created some club or I don't know, maybe I was a bit older,

but like it doesn't know that story that I was like entrepreneurial thinking.

And also, let's be honest, I don't know, trying to get money off my friends.

Why was I doing that?

But it doesn't know these little stories about my background or it

doesn't know that in my twenties, like my entire team was made redundant

and I had to build a marketing thing.

And it doesn't know.

It doesn't know, people's Experience and your experience, regardless of how

you prompt it or train it or onboard it, it just doesn't have the nuance.

And I think that's what's missing from it.

And that's where, teams struggle then to execute on this

strategy and it doesn't work.

Yeah, look I think it's just a big yes for me.

I've spoken to a number of guests on this particular topic in different ways.

It comes out as beige content that sounds like everybody else.

It comes out that we're all looking and sounding the same as our competitors.

It comes out that the sales team's doing one thing and the

marketing team's doing another.

There's lots of ways that it can help as you acknowledge, and it is

an amazing tool but I agree with you.

I think if we don't actually put ourselves into these strategies and

do the work, you literally just cannot outsource that part of the process,

without going back and refining things.

But I like to stay pretty positive.

And I know with AI, sometimes I might sound like I'm anti

AI, but I'm certainly not.

But I wanna also go to what I think you'd like to see more people Starting to do

more of these things going into 2026.

So I was doing research for the podcast and I downloaded the white

paper on your website called Social Media Won't Save Your Marketing, and

there was a headline in there that particularly grabbed my attention.

And it was the magic of brand is being lost and it really just poked me straight

between the eyes and I thought, yes, I actually think that's what's going on

right now, that brand As a function, as a word, as a, I don't know, as an

energy, I don't know what how you describe it, but it seems to have been pushed

aside and that productivity comes in.

What do you think that businesses should be doing to bring brand back to get that

magic of brand back in the business?

I love this question 'cause I am, even though I'm not a brand strategist and I've

actually never personally worked in brand, I'm probably brand's biggest advocate.

And I wanna sound positive as well.

I'm a big believer, like a lot of my stuff, people would be

like, oh, she must hate AI.

I don't hate AI.

I a hundred percent use it every day in my business.

There's no doubt that it has made my job more efficient.

But what I think.

I think what brand has never had a good wrap and you wanna know why?

It's because people don't like spending money without seeing tangible ROI.

Brand can't do that.

It can, but we can't actually physically track it a lot of the time.

And I think marketing has been, especially as it's been digitised, it's been seen

as this part of your business that should just like a sales team generate money.

So I think people have looked at brand strategists and looked

at, AI can create my logo now.

Sweet AI can create my logo.

There's no, it doesn't matter.

It's just a logo.

It mean it means nothing.

But I think like the brand people in the room, they're like crying right

now 'cause their creativity and the thoughts and the actual human behaviour

that We know psychologically there is so much psychological study that

goes into brands and into creating brands that genuinely have longevity,

but also make people feel something.

And I think that we've taken the emotion out of it with AI

because AI is not emotional.

But guess what?

Humans.

We are emotional.

I'm emotional all the damn time.

I'm a woman, so good luck.

But if you wanna sell to me and you, by the way, men are just as emotional.

They just don't admit it.

But if you want to sell to me.

You have to do it on an emotional level.

Like I need to be feeling something to choose your product over someone else's.

And I think we lost that because we are like, okay, if I go to market

and I do this great ad, I'm gonna get in front of my people but It's

like, how is your ad moving me?

How is your ad making me feel genuinely connected to your brand?

And I think as much as I say it's lost, there are still some

brands that do it particularly well or have created movements.

Like I did a post on White Fox that went wild because White Fox is a really

great example of how you can Build these it's not even necessarily legacy.

They bought onto like this great digital trend.

They got followers, they influencer market, all of that.

But they're also still advertising on the side of buses now, by the way.

So they've had to also still look at their markets and go, what are

the channels that we are not in?

But they've built this cult following.

And I think when we look at brands that have made it, brands that

have built longevity, brands that make people feel something, there's

probably been that cult like element.

And it's because they really know how to bed down into people's emotions and answer

that need of what is the real problem for my consumer and or what, how do I create.

FOMO for my consumer.

That's what White Fox did, right?

It was like, Ooh, I wanna be wearing, and even me, I'm like, I'm

too old to be wearing white fox, but I feel like I should be like,

You've got the hoodie, haven't you?

I don't, but I kind of want the hoodie.

And I'm like, why do I want the hoodie?

I'm a 37-year-old woman.

Why am I trying to be 17?

But it's that whole, like that FOMO piece of what was this

and what was that movement?

And it's like, you know, we see it micro, like there's certain

restaurants I think that have created these micro brands as well.

They create Marrickville pork roll, which you will know, right?

They've gone big now, but when they first started, like they created this

absolute demand from a really great product, but they, it's that brand.

They were like.

We create the best pork roll in Sydney.

And everyone's looking for a good banh mi right?

Like delicious, expensive banh mi though by the way.

'Cause it used to be five bucks and these days you're paying 16.

Inflation.

That's how you really felt it through the banh mi

Brand.

I think it's brand.

It is

cause for those of you who don't know, this is a place that is more like a little

hole in the wall shop that has a lineup for as far as the eye can see every single

day, all day, every day of the week.

People are queuing up, they're traveling from the other side of

Sydney to come and get some of this.

They're driving past probably 20 other places that they could

buy exactly the same product.

And it would be just as delicious by the way.

At a cheaper price, but, and possibly even as good or better tasting.

But brand is what gets them in that door, and I think that's just The power

of brand and Bec, I have to, always, I apologise to all of the people out there

that are in charge of marketing, branding, these types of things within business.

As someone that spent 20 years in sales.

I didn't care about branding.

I saw zero value in it.

I thought it was rubbish.

I was the best sales person in the world, and it was all to do with me that the

business got sales until I had to set up my own business and then all of a sudden

had to understand everything behind it.

And beyond colours and logos, because that was the extent

of my knowledge of branding.

That's literally where I was at.

And then fast forward six years, I'm still figuring this out for

myself so I can still stand out.

And that word that you said before about differentiation.

How is Michelle J Raymond different to other people out there in the world?

When everything that makes me want to do that, at the same time my brain

says, Michelle, be like all of them.

That's how everyone else is doing it.

You should do it the same 'cause it's safe and it's comfortable and you

won't stand out because you've been taught your whole life as an Aussie.

To not be the tall poppy and get, we literally as a culture

chop people down that think that they're better than us in some way.

And so we'll do it to ourselves before anyone else even gets a chance now.

And that to me is something that I've had to learn and grow with over time

because now I see brand as this powerful thing where You can charge higher prices.

You get to work with better customers.

You do get to stand out in a pretty tough market out there.

Let's be clear, people aren't throwing cash around in 2025, and

it's only gonna get worse in 2026.

So from my sales Little heart, I'm like thinking, you gotta

get this brand thing working

Yeah.

And I think if you want if you also wanna know the practicalities of how to do it.

'cause I think the conversation is always, oh, you need a brand.

You need a brand.

And I know with me, I hate seeing those messages without yeah, but how?

And it's please stop gate keeping this concept of brand.

So I just wanna give Two thoughts on that if I can.

The first one is figure honestly, figure out the hill you're gonna die on.

What is the thing in your market that you believe in?

That's why you created your own business.

That's why you are here.

And I know it sounds fluffy and I'm very practical and I'm all

those great things, but genuinely.

What is it that you give a shit about?

Can I say shit?

You can.

What is it that you give a shit about?

Because I promise you there's something in there that's that fire in the belly.

And when you bed down into that, then ask yourself why it matters to the

person that's going to buy from you.

Because to your point, consumers have never had more access to brands.

They've never been advertised to more than they are now, and they've never had.

To be more careful with how they're spending their money.

So you'd better make it worth their while.

And if you are arrogant enough to think that you don't need to, and that AI

can just continue to spit out same, same stuff for you, I think you are,

you're going to slowly disappear.

And that's sad because no one should slowly disappear when they have a

reason for starting their own business and a fire in their belly as to

something that they genuinely wanna see different in their industry.

So I think they're the two things I would say, how you bed down into brand.

It is about like, look.

Logos matters, colours matters.

We know that psychologically, all that stuff does matter, but really what matters

most, I personally think is that messaging and nailing like what you care about.

Look, it's a big ditto for me on this one as well, and I think that's

the thing that for myself, as I've questioned my own business over the

last few months, because, things weren't happening as Quickly and

easily on social is what it was.

Go back 2020, 2021.

It was amazing.

We were living the gold rush dream on social, everyone was on there.

It's been amazing.

And now we're six years, almost later going into 2026, where

that's not the world we live in.

And so it, let's talk about a rethink from that perspective

and possibly something that this audience is not expecting me to say.

I mean, This is a podcast about using social media For B2B growth.

So that is literally the premise of this show.

But social has shifted and people have shifted what they

do and don't like has shifted.

Absolutely.

So let's have a rethink about something, and this is something

that's gonna challenge me from your perspective, and I'm okay with that.

That's why I've got you here because I think it's important.

Why do you think that businesses need to actually rethink Social's role in

their marketing mix going into 2026.

I'm gonna let you have this one because I think I need to hear this

message just as much as everyone else.

Look, I think socials, I wanna preface it with socials are a very

important part of your strategy.

They, I would never, unless you are, have an ethical issue with I found myself on

meta this morning going, why am I here?

I ethically hate this platform.

I hate what they stand for and I hate what they do.

So I think probably a lot of people are having those internal

conversations too, right?

'cause we know, and even LinkedIn, there's been so much conversation

at the moment about the ethics behind that and blah blah, blah.

We can talk about ethics all day, but Social media, important channel, and I

think that, you're still gonna have some of your audience there, but the reason I

wouldn't say keep putting all your eggs in that one basket is the reason, I wouldn't

say put your eggs in In any one basket.

I think it's this diversification so that if something gets switched off tomorrow,

your business does not tank because that's the scariest thing in business is having,

if all your leads come from word of mouth and then your biggest word of mouth

generator decides that they don't like you anymore 'cause you have a disagreement.

'cause as humans that can happen.

What do you do?

You don't have a backup.

You have to have, I think for all your channels.

And it's not to say that you have to do everything either, because

there are a lot of marketing channels and there's a lot of marketing

channels that won't be right for your business, but there's a lot that will.

So that's why it comes back to understanding and actually doing

research into your market and knowing social media channel number one.

Google AdWords.

Maybe that's my channel number two.

But obviously, that digital frame of what AdWords looks like and chat GPT searches

and, AI searches as a whole, all changing.

It's a constantly changing environment.

But that's why I also argue why is your entire marketing strategy digital?

Like, why are we so set on something that, like the internet goes down and

people are losing their absolute mind.

Did we forget that we can pick up a phone?

Did we forget that there are other ways that we can communicate and

actually sometimes are better.

Like I had a really good conversation actually with a digital marketer

this year, and her comment to me was.

If you pick up the phone to ask about a proposal that you sent,

you're in the top, like 0.1%.

And I was like, isn't that tragic?

But you're not wrong because most people send an email, they're like,

Hey Michelle, did you get my proposal?

Did you have any questions?

Please tell me if you had any questions.

Why are we not picking up the phone going.

Hey Michelle, I sent you that proposal a week ago.

Just, did you have any thoughts on that?

Is there anything you wanna come back at me?

No pressure to obviously go with me, but I'd love the feedback regardless

because, I'm building a business here just like you are, especially

if you're in that B2B space.

Hey, let's have a owner to owner conversation and you could say.

Hated the proposal.

It didn't meet my needs at all.

Yeah.

Like these honest conversations and this honest feedback

that we are missing so often.

So it's about that marketing strategy and picking those channels outside of just

social media so that we are genuinely, for lack of a better expression, future

proofing our businesses against, relying heavily on just one thing that We don't

know what LinkedIn's gonna do tomorrow.

We don't know if they're gonna switch the algorithm.

We don't know if they're gonna completely just turn off

'cause they, whatever happens.

And I was in a conversation this week with our under 16's ban.

It was like, oh, all the 15 year olds are gonna go to LinkedIn now.

And I was like, good.

They can work on their careers.

And I was like.

I don't see that happening, but like it could, you know, it's a watch now.

We don't actually know, we don't know the future of these platforms.

We don't know if governments are gonna crack down more on that, the

type of advertising allowed on them, or if, Meta's just brought in this

thing where you can update your feed and curate your feed more accurately.

Have they?

I don't know if I believe it, but they're spruiking that they've done it

so, you know, we don't actually know.

So people might go, if they brought that in on LinkedIn, I don't think anyone's

gonna opt in to hear a personal story about how you can then buy from me.

Like I think that'll be the first thing, like if I see another personal story,

I'm opting out, but making sure that I think we have that diversification

across channels and that we're not heavily reliant on any one channel at

any one time for our business' success.

Look, and there would be people out there going, LinkedIn's not going away Bec.

That's rubbish.

I'll give you the handy tip January in 2024, I woke up to a cease and desist

letter from LinkedIn, threatening that I would lose my whole LinkedIn account if

I didn't change the name of this podcast.

So for those of you who have been listening to the podcast for a while,

you'll already know that and the amount of effort and impact that

had on our business and the amount of work that Lil and I had to do.

I thought that I was the world's biggest fan and supporter of

LinkedIn with everything that I do, and it still impacted me.

We're seeing it with AI tools that are doing automatic screening.

I know people that have lost their accounts from using tools they

shouldn't have inadvertently, maybe they didn't know it was against the

user agreement 'cause the websites all say how amazing these tools are.

I've had it happen to people accidentally.

I've seen people lose their YouTube channel accounts.

This isn't unique to LinkedIn at all, but one of my favourite things that

you had on your white paper in terms of diversification was collaborations.

And if I actually think about it when I go back to 2020, 2021,

I lived in collaboration land.

Whether I was guesting on podcasts.

LinkedIn lives partnering up with people, like there were so many different ways

that I used to do that, that I don't think I've been doing that as much this year.

And so that's probably one small takeaway that I'm gonna be looking

at as far as the rethink on my side.

What other things can I be doing?

So we've got the rethink.

Let's go onto the redo because I think this is an important

one, and I know that you're just gonna say, yep, it is Michelle.

It's even more important than you probably give it credit for.

And that is that I think that people put marketing strategies together, then they

put LinkedIn strategies together, and the activities are two very separate things.

What approach do you think the businesses need to redo so that

their marketing and their LinkedIn presence actually work together?

So I wanna start even before marketing, right?

I wanna go back to business strategy because I think that also gets overlooked.

Like, why are we here?

Why are we doing what we do?

And look I'm guilty for sometimes not doing this, but I've started being really

diligent in November Every year I sit down and go, did I meet the business

goals that I'd wanted for this year and what were the three year ones?

And I try not to go too far in advance 'cause we don't actually, the world is

moving quickly and I don't know what I'm gonna be wanting to do in five

years, so I'm not gonna five year plan.

But for me, I think go back to that business strategy and then

we align that with marketing and we go, okay, this is what we want.

This is what our customer wants, this is how the market's changing.

These are the channels available to us.

And then we build out from there.

And I think.

Nailing that.

Then we go, where does LinkedIn fit into this?

And how do I actually need to be using it?

Not just to generate content, but actually to potentially look

at the collaborations on there.

Go back and who am I friending or following or whatever on LinkedIn?

Who am I talking to in, in my conversations?

Who am I, going after, for lack of a better expression, but who

am I trying to attract as well?

'cause we know the thing with social media platforms And our strategy is they're

often about us pushing out content.

They're not often about how we actually engage on the platform, and you would

know a lot more about this, but that engagement piece is almost way more

important than the content piece.

My, like my Instagram, I barely put anything on there these days.

I don't love being on there.

I'll set and forget it from my LinkedIn to be honest, but I know

that when my engagement drops, when I'm actually not commenting or liking

or following, or even on LinkedIn.

Everything drops because at the end of the day, the platform

wants you living on there.

The algorithm feeds off you seeing its ads, making its shareholders happy,

making its advertisers happy, like that's the reality of these platforms.

So in your LinkedIn strategy, go back to your marketing strategy of

who, who am I trying to talk to?

Who has my audience?

Who is in a different industry that we can CoLab with?

And looking at it from a whole point of view of the whole marketing

strategy and where like our LinkedIn or our social media fits within all

the other channels that we are doing.

And what are the things that I'm only gonna put through my email or what are

the things that, someone's only gonna see if they visit my website, like making

sure that it's all aligned as well.

And our message is the same through every channel.

I think that's super important too.

Yeah.

Many people listening to this would probably think, yeah,

we already do all of that.

I'm currently working with some global teams who are all running

their own mission, going in their own directions, in their own way and style.

And we're trying to bring that all back together.

And the question that I ask clients often is, why do people buy your product?

And when I ask marketers that and they start feeding back features and

functions and and I'm like, no, that's not why anyone buys your products.

This all sounds easy when we talk about it for 30 minutes on a podcast.

Doing these fundamentals and getting back to those basics, I

really think is the best way that businesses can really prep for 2026.

I don't think it's the complicated things that people need to be worried about.

I think it's, we skipped over some Steps and forgot about the

basics and getting back to strategy and fundamentals of marketing.

And then we worry about content and algorithm and those kind of things.

So I would like to ask you one last question as we prep for 2026.

'cause we've gone over what to stop.

What to start, what to redo and what to rethink.

So what is your single best piece of advice that you could give businesses

that are preparing their marketing and their LinkedIn presence for 2026?

What are you going with?

Only one.

Only one.

Don't do things that you think you have to.

So I think that would be my, like to your point, you mentioned it

earlier, and I loved that you said it.

It was this, we've had this, I wanna follow, follow, follow, follow, follow.

It's like that sheep mentality because it's safe and it's like,

but if they're doing it and they're getting results and they're

telling me they're getting results.

Then they must like, it's gonna work for me and if I'm not

doing it, I'm gonna get FOMO.

So I think changing the mindset from, I, I see this thing and I see

this ad where this person tells me they're, making 50K a month, like by

doing X, Y, Z. And if I follow this system, I think come back to yourself.

And I think don't just do the things that you think that you have to do.

So it's about what you know will actually get you results.

What you tried and tested what that, that whole piece of research that I think we

do forget because it's a lot harder than posting to LinkedIn and then blaming

LinkedIn that the algorithm's shit and that, that's why I can't get sales.

I think it's a lot easier to go down that path than it is to actually,

sit down and go, what am I gonna do?

What am I gonna focus on and what's important to me?

Look, I was guilty of this, especially when I first started out, and everybody

would say I had to be on every social platform because I was a small

business and I needed to be seen.

I was like.

I hate Twitter.

I have zero interest in Instagram.

I, and I was putting stuff there because people told me I should put stuff there,

and that's how I'd get discovered.

And all that happened was I put crap stuff that wasn't really

a good reflection of my brand.

I didn't enjoy it.

It was taking me away from the things that I was good at and should have been doing.

It just all looked C grade at best.

So I found for me and my business, it doesn't mean it works for everyone

listening to the podcast that I actually had to come back and say, what do I love?

Okay.

I love LinkedIn.

That's my go-to.

I know, right?

Big surprise to the audience of this podcast.

From there it was also like, okay, so LinkedIn content lasts not very long.

Where can I have content that would last longer?

So YouTube was the next step for me.

And obviously podcasting is a big piece of, my approach these days.

But again, am I just doing those things for the sake of it, or am I

doing them half baked or do I need to come back and focus and find out?

What am I doing and am I actually standing out to my audience or just

doing it because I enjoy it, which I have been guilty of in the past of

just doing things that I loved that weren't necessarily gonna be helping

my clients or find new business.

And so there's always this balance and you have to enjoy what you do.

I am not saying don't do that, but yeah, it's been interesting.

I think for me I am going through a time of the year of reflection of.

This was a bumpy year for me.

I've shared that many times on this podcast.

It was all guns are blazing for the first six months we're on fire.

This is great.

Oh my God, what happened?

The world just dropped off for three months to, okay, we're back again.

Seems things are ticking in and I've doubted myself big time,

and at the same time, it's okay, what's working and what's not?

And what am I gonna take into the new year?

So Bec, thank you for everything that you've shared.

For anybody that has enjoyed this conversation, Bec and I

actually met through her podcast.

And so if you love podcasts, Bec, can you tell everyone about your podcast so

that they can come and check you out?

And of course, all the details will be in the show notes.

Yeah, sure can.

I've got a podcast called Marketing Espresso.

It is designed that you can have it with your morning coffee, although

it has gone away from its original.

I guess the original reason it was launched, but I have really great

guests on there like yourself.

And I also try to give like a tip, like a, like just really

practical, similar to this Pody.

Really practical things that you can actually execute in your business, but

also just, yeah, things to think through.

So it's marketing espresso and that's, yeah, one a really great

way to listen to more of me.

Exactly.

So thank you so much for coming on.

It's a bit of Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, and I hope everybody has

enjoyed it as much as what I have.

Next week's podcast, another friend is coming on the show, Nancy Harhut, bringing

her behavioral science in marketing tips.

She just blows my mind.

Another friend that I got to meet earlier this year at Social Media Marketing World.

So I do hope you'll join us.

Bec.

Thank you so much.

And.

I wish you every success in 2026.

Thank you so much for having me and you as well.

Until next week.

Cheers.