Every conversion this website has ever recorded came from LinkedIn.
Not search. Not email. LinkedIn. Which means the most valuable copy I write all year is not a landing page or a subject line. It is the two lines at the top of a post, before the "see more" link cuts me off.
So I went back through everything that ran and pulled the openers. Twenty-seven of them, filed by the move they make.
These are mine. My clients, my numbers, my bad years. You cannot copy them, and you should not try. What you can copy is the shape underneath each one, which is why every hook gets a note on what it is doing and the one variable you have to make yours.
Two Lines. That's the Whole Budget.
LinkedIn shows about two lines before it truncates. Less on a phone. Somebody scrolling at 7:40 in the morning gives you that and nothing more.
So the hook has one job, and it is not to summarize the post. It is to open a loop the reader cannot leave alone.
Four things kill a hook before the second line:
- It explains instead of provokes
- It front-loads context nobody asked for ("As a founder, I've often thought about...")
- It gives away the whole point, so there is no reason to expand
- It sounds like the other nine posts in the feed
That last one is the real killer. Your hook is not competing against bad writing. It is competing against a friend's baby photo.
How to Use This
Six moves below. Pick the one that matches what you actually have, because the move has to be backed by something real.
A named-client receipt needs a named client. A confession needs a thing you have not said out loud yet. If you do not have the raw material, do not reach for that move, reach for a different one.
Under each hook: What It's Doing and Swap. Swap is the variable that has to be yours. Change nothing else, change that.
1. The Contrarian Flip
My house move. Name the thing the reader believes, then move the problem somewhere they were not looking.
One caution, because people get this wrong. The flip is not the "it's not X, it's Y" formula everybody on LinkedIn is running into the ground. That construction is a tic. The flip works when the second half genuinely relocates the problem, and it fails when it just swaps a noun for a fancier noun.
Most B2B founders think they have a lead problem.
They have a system problem.
What It's Doing: The reader arrives already agreeing with line one, because they do think that. Line two tells them they have been solving the wrong thing for two years. That stings enough to keep reading.
Swap: The misdiagnosis. It has to be the thing your buyer says out loud in a first call. Guess at it and the whole post collapses.
Most B2B founders are underpaid, and it has nothing to do with how good they are.
It is about how known they are.
What It's Doing: "It has nothing to do with how good they are" is the permission slip. It tells a proud, skeptical reader this post is not about to insult their work, which is the only reason they stay for line two.
Swap: The thing you are letting them off the hook for. Pick the insecurity your buyer is bracing against.
When your growth lives inside someone else's agency, you do not own your growth.
You rent it.
What It's Doing: Two words carry the whole post. "Rent" reframes a spend they already approved into a liability they never agreed to.
Swap: The one-word reframe. Find the verb that makes a comfortable arrangement sound temporary.
Getting furloughed was the best thing that ever happened to my business.
What It's Doing: One line, and it violates what the reader expects to hear about job loss. No second line needed. When the flip is strong enough, a single sentence outperforms two.
Swap: The bad thing you would not undo. Everyone has one. Most people bury it in paragraph four.
I automated 90% of my company so I could be more human, not less.
That sounds backwards. It isn't.
What It's Doing: Line two names the reader's objection before they can type it. You cannot argue with a post that already agreed you would argue.
Swap: The objection. Say it in their words, not your softened version.
More leads will not save a business that cannot follow up on the ones it already has.
What It's Doing: It refuses the thing the reader came to LinkedIn to find. Refusal is a stronger opener than an offer.
Swap: The popular fix you are about to take away.
2. The Named-Client Receipt
The number does the work. Your job is to not get in its way.
Two rules here and neither is negotiable. Full company name, every time. And the number has to be one the client has signed off on, because a case study your client will not repeat is not a receipt, it is a rumor.
Oaklyn Consulting grew gross profit 93% year over year.
Not revenue. Profit.
What It's Doing: "Not revenue. Profit." is the whole hook. Every founder on LinkedIn has learned to discount a revenue number. Profit is the number they cannot wave off, and the fragment makes sure they notice the difference.
Swap: The distinction your number survives that a vague version would not. Find the harder metric you are actually holding.
Travel Again Advisory is booked through Q1 2027.
Their website used to lead with the podcast.
What It's Doing: Outcome first, then the small embarrassing detail that explains the gap. The reader recognizes their own homepage in line two.
Swap: The before. It has to be specific enough to be slightly uncomfortable and true enough that the client would say it themselves.
RE/MAX Commercial Advisors Group grew engaged website visits 486% since the 2023 commercial real estate downturn.
They just never stopped marketing.
What It's Doing: The context is the argument. Anyone can grow in a good year. The downturn is what makes the number mean something.
Swap: The circumstance. Growth during a hard thing beats a bigger number during an easy one.
ATC moves commercial vehicles for a living. Its website was stuck in park.
What It's Doing: The pun is the hook. It is a little corny and it works, because it makes the business legible in six words. Use one of these a quarter, not one a week.
Swap: The metaphor their industry hands you for free.
LiquidSMARTS cut its bounce rate from 63% to 38%.
Nobody changed the product.
What It's Doing: Before and after in one line, then a fragment that removes the obvious excuse. The reader's first instinct is "they must have fixed the offer." Line two takes that away and leaves them with the actual lesson.
Swap: The thing that did not change. Naming what stayed the same is what makes the change credible.
SalesSparx sold more in one quarter than they did the whole year before.
What It's Doing: No percentage. A comparison anybody can picture without doing math. Percentages are precise, but a scene beats precision in a feed.
Swap: The comparison. Convert your percentage into something a reader can see.
3. The Confession
The highest-risk move on the list and the one that outperforms everything else when the thing is actually true.
The bar is simple. If you would be a little uncomfortable if a prospect read it, it qualifies. If it makes you look good in a humble costume, it does not.
One of our biggest clients went bankrupt. Then several more did, all at once.
I don't tell this story often.
What It's Doing: Line two is the hook, not line one. "I don't tell this story often" signals the reader is getting something the rest of the feed is not. That is the rarest thing on LinkedIn.
Swap: The story you actually do not tell often. If you have told it four times this year, it is a bit, and readers can feel the difference.
My right hand quit. I didn't replace her. I automated 90% of the business instead.
What It's Doing: Three short sentences, each one a small escalation. The middle one is the surprise. Most people would lead with the automation, and leading with the automation makes it a brag.
Swap: The middle sentence. The decision that sounds slightly irresponsible is the one that earns the read.
I started Rockstarr & Moon to pay the bills. Nothing more.
What It's Doing: It strips the origin myth off a company that could easily have one. Founders are exhausted by origin myths. Refusing to tell one is a differentiator.
Swap: The unglamorous reason you started. Resist the urge to retrofit a vision onto it.
I didn't have a plan. I had a next step.
What It's Doing: Eight words. It reads as advice and it is actually a confession, which is why it does not land like a platitude.
Swap: The thing you did not have. Absence is more specific than presence.
There's a difference between building a business out of fear and building one on purpose.
I've done both.
What It's Doing: Line one could have come from anybody. Line two makes it yours, and it costs something to say. That cost is what the reader is responding to.
Swap: The admission in line two. A generic line one is fine here as long as line two puts your name on it.
4. The Specific Number
Different from the receipt. The receipt is your client's number. This one is yours, and it is usually not a flattering one.
Odd numbers beat round numbers. A real timeline beats "recently." And the number has to be checkable by you, because at some point somebody will ask.
From furloughed to $500K.
What It's Doing: Five words spanning several years. The compression is the hook. There is no way to read this and not want the middle.
Swap: The two endpoints. Pick the widest true gap you can name in one line.
Twenty-one days. 3 AM to 7 PM, every one of them.
What It's Doing: No outcome yet. Just the cost. Stating the price before the prize makes the prize credible when it shows up in paragraph three.
Swap: The unit of suffering. Hours, days, dollars, attempts. Whichever one you actually counted.
Our clients went from paying in 30 days, to 60, to 90.
Then they stopped.
What It's Doing: The rhythm does it. Three numbers accelerating, then a two-word sentence that drops the floor out. You could write this as one sentence and it would be worth nothing.
Swap: The sequence. Find the three data points that show a slide, then end it early.
I have about twenty lead magnets live right now.
I pulled the download report last week and three things surprised me.
What It's Doing: Line one establishes standing. Line two promises a payoff with a number attached, so the reader knows exactly how long the post is and that it ends somewhere.
Swap: The count of surprises. Say the number. "A few things surprised me" gets scrolled past.
6,100 people subscribe to a newsletter about commercial real estate.
What It's Doing: It picks the least likely-sounding fact and states it flatly. The reader's first reaction is disbelief, and disbelief is engagement.
Swap: Your most improbable true number. Deliver it without adjectives.
5. The Bad Tuesday
An ordinary moment, rendered specifically enough that the reader is standing in it. This is the hardest move to fake and the easiest one to overwrite.
Two rules. Concrete nouns only. And no lesson in the hook, because the whole point is that the reader does not yet know why you are telling them this.
I discovered my favorite bands by accident.
I went to see the Violent Femmes, and left obsessed with Jimmy's Chicken Shack.
What It's Doing: Nobody reading this expects a marketing post. The specificity of the second band name is what sells it, because a made-up story would have said "another band." This is my favorite post I have ever written and the reason is entirely in line two.
Swap: The proper noun. Vague memories read as fiction. The oddly specific detail is the proof.
When'd you last do real marketing work on a day that wasn't a Sunday?
What It's Doing: It puts a calendar in the reader's head and the answer embarrasses them slightly. Sunday is doing all the work. "On a weekend" would be nothing.
Swap: The day. Whichever one your buyer's real life actually gets eaten by.
The first sign of trouble wasn't a lost client. It was a slow one.
What It's Doing: It relocates the reader's attention to something already happening in their business right now. The best scene hooks are ones the reader is currently standing in without knowing it.
Swap: The early symptom. The one that looks boring at the time.
Life doesn't always wait for you to be ready.
Sometimes it kicks the door open and says: now.
What It's Doing: The only hook here with no data in it, and it earns the spot because line two is a physical image. Abstractions need a body to live in.
Swap: The image. If you cannot see it, cut it.
6. The Direct Question
I will be straight with you about this one. I almost never open with a question, and going back through everything, I found exactly one.
The reason is that most question hooks are fake questions. "Struggling with lead generation?" is not a question, it is an ad, and readers have been trained to scroll past it since 2011.
A question opener only works when the reader genuinely does not know their own answer.
Ask yourself one question: if your top three clients vanished tomorrow, would you still have a business?
What It's Doing: The reader has to actually run the numbers to answer. That pause is the hook. And for most of them the answer is no, which they have never said out loud.
Swap: The scenario. It has to be plausible enough to picture and bad enough to matter.
Where my questions actually live
Here is the more useful finding. I do write a lot of questions. They just sit at the bottom of the post, not the top, and that is where they earn their keep.
A question at the top asks a stranger to do work before they have any reason to. A question at the bottom asks someone who just read four hundred words of yours to say what they think. One gets skipped. The other fills the comments.
Three of mine that ran as closers:
When was the last time your website earned you a record month?
Would you rather be found or be remembered?
What would you sell if you weren't playing it safe?
What They're Doing: Each one hands the reader back their own situation and asks for a verdict on it. None of them can be answered with yes or no, which is the only thing that matters in a closing question.
Swap: The verdict you are asking for. If someone can answer it in one word without thinking, rewrite it.
The Test Before You Post
Write the hook. Then run it through this, in order.
Cover the rest of the post. If the two lines do not make you want to read on, nothing below them will save it.
Read it out loud. If you would not say it to a person at a table, delete it. Anything with "leverage," "unlock," or "in today's landscape" in it fails here automatically.
Check whether it is yours. Swap your name for a competitor's. If the hook still works, it is generic and you have written an ad.
Ask what it costs you. The best hooks on this page cost me something to publish. A bankruptcy, a bad year, a number I would rather round up. Nothing on LinkedIn performs like something that was slightly expensive to say.
Most of what you post will not land. That is the job. But a hook is the cheapest thing in your entire marketing operation to fix, and it is the one with the most leverage on whether anything else you wrote gets read at all.
Bookmark this. Come back to it the next time you are staring at an empty composer with something worth saying and no idea how to start.