Matt’s Mix Tape, Vol. 147

Jun 10, 2022

Hi, I’m Matt Tillotson, and this is Matt’s Mix Tape: ideas on using writing and exercise to remix ourselves in middle life.

This week’s Mix:

A career update
Getting LinkedIn locked in
This week’s Florida photo

A career update

Matt Tillotson @matttillotson

Some personal news: I’m joining Write of Passage full-time as the Director of Customer Success. From a silent student in cohort one, to lead mentor by cohort eight, to this new role, I’m thrilled to serve the world’s best online writing school and community.

As a mentor, I’ve seen people write online to:

Forge new career paths
Create new friendships
Build businesses
Address trauma
Work through addiction and substance abuse

Now writing online has changed my life as well.

When my last full-time role as a marketing director ended, I didn’t know what I wanted next. All I really knew was:

“Phew. I don’t want to do that again.”

(Much) later, I found my new thing. Write of Passage founder David Perell shared some kind words yesterday:

David Perell @david_perell

@matttillotson Welcome to the team! You've consistently been a standout student and a dedicated mentor. You have the heart, grit, tenacity, passion, and commitment to excellence that we want to pass on to our students.

Is it bragging to share that?

I don’t even care.

Getting to this role required slogging a road filled with twists, dead ends, a lot of prayer, pushing (very!) far outside my comfort zone, and believing something better was coming with zero tangible evidence.

Write of Passage is growing, with great new things to come. I can’t wait.

And so much work to do, starting Monday.

If you’re job hunting: keep going.

Your trophy is out there.

Getting LinkedIn locked in

I am focusing on LinkedIn, for a couple of reasons:

Part of my new role will involve finding and fostering talent to join the team. LinkedIn is a great place to do that. Write of Passage has little-to-no presence there right now. I can help fill that vacuum.
I’ve mentored 100+ online writers, but I haven’t reaaaally built a large online audience of my own. (Although I am proud of, and grateful for, every one of my ~~1,310~~ 1,329 Mix Tape subscribers).

Audience building is a hole in my writing street cred.

I’m consistent. I write well enough I guess. Now I want to show I can build a sizable audience.

Maybe I can do that on LinkedIn. The opportunity seems vast. Some friends are having success there. My plan:

Post once per day. I’ve been “batch drafting” groups of 150-ish word posts in sprints of 25 minutes. The sprints work well—timer on, head down, draft. Topics include writing online, newsletters, content strategies, etc. But also career transitions, mentoring, and other learnings-to-come from my new role. Oh—and Apple Notes tips.
Spend 25-ish minutes a day commenting on other posts. Like Twitter, leaving (useful) comments on other posts is the best way to be visible when your audience is smaller. I’m seeing some results with that strategy already.

So, I’ll be blabbing about LinkedIn here in the weeks ahead. I expect a 6-12 month commitment to see results. I’m up for it.

(Requisite ask: follow me on LinkedIn!)