Ep 200: From Corporate Layoff to Inbound Consulting Through LinkedIn
If your network only exists inside your job title, you’re more vulnerable than you think.
A layoff can feel like the floor dropping out from under you.
It can also expose a hard truth: the relationships and reputation you built might be tied to a company name, not to you.
Nikki Ramirez learned that firsthand. After 15 years as a journalist turned marketer, including a role as director of marketing at Forbes, she was unexpectedly let go. She realized her network wasn’t big enough outside of her title.
So she started building on LinkedIn. She went from about 2,000 to 10,000 followers in six months and is now approaching 50,000. Today, her consulting business is completely inbound from LinkedIn.
Here’s how she did it, and how you can build a personal brand that lasts beyond any company name.
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Consistency compounds (and the algorithm is a needy god)
Nikki calls the LinkedIn algorithm “a very needy and testy god.” It wants your time and attention, and it’ll do whatever it wants anyway.
Anyone who claims to know exactly what the algorithm is doing is guessing.
What does work? Consistency. Telling your story 100 different times, 100 different ways. Showing up. And most importantly, connecting, engaging and building community.
LinkedIn isn’t a place to post into oblivion and hope someone sees it. It’s a networking opportunity. You have to make the effort to make sure people see you.
Building a brand while you’re still employed
After her layoff, Nikki took an agency role. But before accepting, she told them upfront: “I’m building a personal brand on LinkedIn. If you’re not okay with that, I can’t take this job.”
They said yes. She still had to navigate a lot of corporate red tape: what she could say, what she couldn’t, and the fact that she couldn’t publicly announce she was taking personal branding clients.
Some coworkers didn’t get it. (“Is she just living on LinkedIn all day?”) But her boss saw the value. She was getting invited to speak on behalf of the agency, and people were reaching out asking for agency recommendations because they followed and trusted her.
That’s the part short-sighted leaders miss: an employee with a personal brand brings visibility to the company, too.
I’ve been there. I was laid off back in 2008, and ever since, I’ve kept multiple streams of income. Once a layoff shatters your sense of stability, you don’t want to rely on one source again.
Authentic doesn’t mean oversharing
Nikki’s Authentic Story Framework starts with a misconception a lot of people have: that being authentic online means showing your whole self.
It doesn’t.
Authenticity means choosing the parts of yourself that support your goals and presenting them honestly. Not a fake persona. A focused one.
Nikki loves bad reality TV. She doesn’t need to talk about it all day. Instead, she leans into:
Her belief in personal branding
A little bit of being a mom who left her corporate career
Her “villain origin story” and her willingness to call out corporate
As she puts it, the journalist in her tells the story. The marketer in her asks, “What’s the point of the story?”
Pick the origin story that serves your goal
Most of us have multiple origin stories.
Nikki could have led with her transition from journalism to marketing, the story of how she became a strategic storyteller. Instead, she chose her layoff because that’s the story that connects with the women she serves.
If you’d told her at the time that the layoff would be the best thing that ever happened to her, she would have told you where to go. Now she looks back and sees it as the moment that changed everything.
From there, she builds out:
Content pillars
An ideal audience persona
Tone of voice
A profile that reflects all of it
Personal branding is the journey. LinkedIn is just the vehicle.
Curate your feed like a networking party
When people tell me LinkedIn feels cringey and performative, I always think, “You should probably unfollow some people.”
Nikki agrees. If you only log in when you need a job, a promotion or are at a conference, your feed is going to be chaos.
Curate it. Build it brick by brick. When you do, LinkedIn feels like a curated networking party where the people you want to hang out with are right there in the comments.
Your profile is your landing page
Most of your audience will lurk for a while. That’s normal.
When they finally click over to your profile, they need to know within the first few seconds:
Who you are
What you do
Who you do it for
How they can work with you
Think of it like the top of the fold in a newspaper. Nikki says a strong LinkedIn profile can even work as your website when you’re first starting out.
Use the Trojan horse approach
Every post should do one of three things: educate, entertain or inspire.
But inside that post, Nikki slips in little nods to what she does. A funny story about her toddler becomes a point about marketing. An inspirational story mentions a conversation with a client.
It’s not a pitch. It’s a breadcrumb. Those small nods make people curious enough to visit your profile.
Balance top, middle and bottom of funnel content
If you only create top-of-funnel content, you might become well known without getting any inbound leads. If you only create bottom-of-funnel content, nobody pays attention.
Nikki showed how one idea, her layoff, can become all three:
Top of funnel: “I thought my layoff was going to be the worst thing to ever happen to me. It was the best. Here’s my story.”
Middle of funnel: “I got laid off without a personal brand to back me up. Here are five things I wish I’d been building while I was still at Forbes.”
Bottom of funnel: “Here’s why I wish I’d had a personal brand, and how you can build yours. Join my cohort.”
Try this
Pick one story you tell often. Write three versions of it this week: one to inspire, one to educate and one with a clear invitation to work with you.
Then look at your profile and ask: Would a stranger know exactly who I help and how to work with me within five seconds?
Nikki Ramirez
Nikki is a Pittsburgh-based marketing consultant, LinkedIn creator, brand storyteller, and professional oversharer who believes your voice is your most underutilized business asset and is passionate about helping others use it to build their personal brands and businesses.
