Juliana and Martine didn't have a massive audience on LinkedIn. They didn't have some viral moment that put them on the map. They had fewer than 1,300 followers when Google found them — and reached out.

That's what a smart LinkedIn strategy actually looks like. Not chasing followers. Not going viral. Just showing up consistently in front of the right people until the right people can't ignore you anymore.

I sat down with this husband-and-wife travel creator duo — two of my sponsorship coaching clients — to break down exactly how they've turned LinkedIn into their most powerful business development tool. Here's what they told me.

The "Hannah Montana" Problem Nobody Talks About

Before any of this worked, Juliana had to get over something most creators struggle with: the cringe.

She had a corporate past. She had colleagues on LinkedIn. And the idea of suddenly posting about her travel creator life felt like living a double life.

"I felt like I was living a Hannah Montana life," she told me. "Should I not be talking about what I'm doing in my personal life? I was worried people from work would think I wasn't taking my job seriously."

You know what happened when she pushed through it anyway?

Her coworkers were impressed. People told her they'd keep her in mind. Nobody laughed. Nobody judged. They respected her for putting herself out there.

Here's the thing — this is one of the biggest objections I hear when I tell creators to use LinkedIn. "I don't want my professional contacts to see this." But that fear is almost always wrong. The people you're worried about judging you are usually the same people who end up becoming your biggest advocates.

The only way through is through. Juliana and Martine gave themselves a deadline: one year to go full-time. When you're that hungry for it, you stop caring about cringe.

How to Actually Start (Without Overthinking It)

Juliana's first posts weren't polished LinkedIn thought leadership pieces. She started with event recaps.

Disney had selected her and Martine as two of 25 creators to attend a weekend at Disneyland — the Disney Creators Lab. She took notes, wrote a recap, and tagged the speakers.

"I knew they'd love to show off what they just did," she said. "Kind of boost them up a little bit."

The speakers reposted it. It blew up. They connected with her afterward.

She did the same thing after a Patreon event. Then a Notion event. Each time, the people she tagged had every incentive to amplify her post to their own networks — because she was making them look good.

There it is. The secret to early traction on LinkedIn isn't a big following. It's creating content that other people want to share.

Event recaps work because the speakers and organizers become your distribution. Post-campaign summaries work because the brand you just worked with wants to show off what you built together. You're not building an audience. You're building a network of people who'll do the building for you.

The LinkedIn Strategy That Actually Converts Brands

Here's what separates Juliana and Martine from most travel creators: they're not posting for travel enthusiasts. They're posting for marketers.

On YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — their audience is consumers who love travel content. On LinkedIn, they've flipped the script entirely. They're speaking directly to the people who write the checks.

"It's something so different from what we do on our other platforms," Juliana said. "It actually feels like we get to share a side of our business we don't get to talk about with our audience but are incredibly proud of."

The content mix that's working for them:

Post-campaign summaries. Every time they wrap a brand deal, a LinkedIn post is part of the campaign checklist. They tag the brand, show the results, tell the story. The brand reposts it to their network because they want to brag about what they just did. Now Juliana and Martine are showing up in front of that brand's entire LinkedIn following — marketers, agency contacts, potential future partners.

Education for brand-side audiences. Juliana almost didn't publish one post — she thought it was too obvious. It explained the difference between UGC and a traditional partnership. It performed better than almost anything else she'd written.

"There's a huge gap between the people working on the brand side and the creator side," she said. "And there's not many people talking about it on LinkedIn."

She's right. If you can be the creator who actually helps marketers understand how to work with creators? You become the one they think of when they have a budget to spend.

Case studies for dream brands. Juliana will sometimes post: If I were this brand, here's how I'd work with a travel creator. She's publicly pitching brands she hasn't worked with yet — demonstrating her thinking, her creativity, her understanding of their marketing challenges — before they ever hop on a call.

Why Non-Obvious Brands Are the Move

One thing that makes their approach stand out: they're not just chasing the obvious travel deals.

"Working with hotels and cruises are very obvious first steps for travel creators," Juliana told me. "But it gets interesting when you try to work with brands that maybe aren't travel focused and connect them to travel."

People who travel need to save money for their trip. Pitch finance companies. They have a home they leave behind — cleaning products. They might have pets. They need tech tools to edit their content on the road.

The Adobe deal is a perfect example. Adobe reached out, gave them an open brief — just show us how you use one of our tools — and Juliana and Martine didn't take the easy path. They built an emotional short film about the tension between being present on a trip and capturing the moment. They bought a specific map on Amazon just for one shot. They integrated Adobe naturally into a story that had nothing to do with software.

"We were thinking bigger picture," Juliana said. "How could this be a portfolio piece to show other technology brands how we can integrate them into our storytelling?"

Every campaign is a pitch for the next campaign. That's the mindset. You're not just executing the deal in front of you — you're building the case study that opens the next door.

When they landed a snack sponsorship, their first thought was: great, this checks the food and beverage box we can show to other brands.

That's how you build momentum. Each deal becomes the proof point that earns the next one.

The Follower Count Myth, Destroyed

I want to be really clear about something, because I pointed this out directly in our conversation: Juliana has 1,287 followers on LinkedIn.

That's it.

Google still found them. Google still reached out.

"It's the socially acceptable social network to have open on your computer at work," Juliana said. "They're on it all the time."

You don't need 50,000 followers on LinkedIn to have meaningful impact. The people on LinkedIn are in decision-making roles at these companies. One marketer seeing your post and thinking this creator gets it is worth more than 10,000 passive scroll-bys from consumers.

Juliana's also aggressive about connection requests. She sends them constantly — not with a pitch, not with a long note. Just a connection request, timed to coincide with an outbound pitch email she's already sending to that same person. So when they see her email, they also see her LinkedIn request, and her portfolio is right there.

If you want to learn more about exactly how to reach out cold, I break down the full cold pitch system — including how to personalize it and who to target — in Sponsor Magnet.

Why the System Matters More Than the Strategy

Here's what I want to zoom in on, because Juliana said something that really stuck with me.

Before they joined Wizard's Guild, they'd pitch, then spiral. Was this the right move? Did we word it wrong? Should we follow up or is that too pushy?

The coaching program gave them a system — a specific follow-up cadence, a formula they trusted — and suddenly they stopped second-guessing every decision. They just executed.

"How much effort you put in is how much effort you get out," Juliana said.

It also helped them realize they were in deals they shouldn't be in. Two long-term partners they'd been working with were paying them way below what they were worth. One of our coaches helped them renegotiate. They kept the relationships — just at a higher price point.

That's what happens when you start treating this like a business instead of a side hustle. You stop being grateful for any deal that lands. You start knowing your worth.

Martine put it simply: "If you want these to give you money as a business, you have to treat it as a business."

The Advice They'd Give You

If you're staring at a blank LinkedIn profile right now wondering where to even start, here's what Juliana said directly:

"Start noticing what you notice while you're creating things. What are the things you're learning? What saved you a little time this week? Start documenting all that. And don't be afraid to tag brands you want to work with. You'd be really surprised by how supportive people are."

Martine added: "Don't assume people already know what you want to say. Open up. You don't know who's listening."

There's a story about a guy who got a job working for Oprah because he posted on YouTube and only got 10 views per video — but one of them was Oprah.

You never know who's watching.

So — what's the first LinkedIn post you've been putting off writing? What happened in your creator business this week that's worth documenting?

Start there.

Want the full system for landing brand deals — including how to pitch, follow up, and negotiate? Grab Sponsor Magnet, my book that walks you through every step of turning your influence into sponsorship income.

And if you want hands-on coaching and a community of creators doing this at a high level, Wizard's Guild is where that happens.