I removed 1,524 LinkedIn connections
đȘ And my reach, engagement, and sales improved


đ Welcome Tata, Ramon, Tara, Aaron, Amy & more who joined Profit Ladder.
Hey there!
Most think growing an audience on LinkedIn means adding more connections and followers. But what if thatâs actually hurting your reach?
In this issue, Iâll show you how I removed 1,524 âbadâ connections â and how thatâs improved my reach, engagement, and sales.
If youâre posting content on social as part of your audience-building strategy but youâre getting dismal engagement, todayâs deep dive will be a welcome reprieve.
Letâs get into it!

Ever hear billionaires say, âMoney wonât make you happyâ?
Itâs easy to roll your eyes at that. But theyâre not wrong. More money doesnât automatically equate to more happiness.
And on LinkedIn, more followers doesnât mean more reach. And certainly doesnât mean more revenue.
For a while, I had over 11,000 followers (~7k were connections). Sounds impressive, right?
But my posts were barely reaching 300 people â <2% of my network!
Meanwhile, my friend Caitlin has 2,109 followers, and her content not only reaches thousands, but she receives steady DMs from people looking to hire her.
What gives?!
The algorithm doesnât care about your vanity metrics
When you post, LinkedIn initially shows it to a small percentage of your first-degree connections.
If those people engage, LinkedInâs algorithm expands the reach. If they donât, the algorithm assumes your content isnât valuable, and throttles it.
So if thousands of your connections donât care about your content, the algorithm learns:
â Your content = irrelevant
â Your content = not worth showing to others
â Your content = dead on arrival
The result?
Youâre posting into the void, while people who would care about your content never see it.
Now, letâs be clear â cleaning up your connections isnât a silver bullet.
In addition to removing connections, Iâve also been consistent with these equally important habits:
Continually testing + refining my content: format, length, cadence, tone, topics
Tuning up my profile
Engaging with my ICPâs content
Engaging with partnerâs content â people with whom I share an audience
Sending connection requests to my ICP
Spending the majority of my time in the DMs â where the rubber meets the road
If youâre doing these habits and still struggling with reach, purging your connections may be the missing puzzle piece.
How I tidied up my connections
Since last October, Iâve been using an automation tool to systematically disconnect from 1,524 connections â people who were dead weight in my network.
In parallel, my content has gotten more reach, improved engagement, and more DMs. Thatâs resulted in more (better) sales calls â with fewer total connections.
What follows is a step-by-step walkthrough of what I did, so you can do the same.
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