Two days ago, I had the best call of my life.
I was meeting with Louie Berstein (named after the famous French king) for the first time. But it felt like I had known him for a long time.
He is sweet. Kept smiling during the whole call.
He is into Guitar.
He also published a thread on Reddit which went viral
A little intro about Louie Berstein.
He is 72 years old. Doesn’t look 72.
He has been in the business world for the last 50 years.
According to him, he has done every type of sales job there is.
I’ve managed salespeople. I’ve been a chief sales officer. I also founded and ran my own company here in Atlanta for 22 years.
It was an IT training company.
And we did well enough that we made the Inc 500. list of 500 fastest growing private companies in America over a five year period.
Talha X
So, first of all, correct me if I’m wrong, but how do you pronounce your name?
Is it Louis or Louis?
Talha X
Yeah.
Louie Bernstein
Loiue. .
Talha X
Right. The French King
Louie Bernstein
Crazy King Louis.
Talha X
I’m into history and stuff like that. So yeah. I read about a lot of those. So yeah. Anyhow, how is the weather over there? Good.
Louie Bernstein
I’m in Atlanta. So it’s beautiful springtime in Atlanta is always nice. Where are you?
Talha X
Currently, I’m in Pakistan. I’m back in my home city because I have a friend’s wedding coming over, this one, this one’s wedding.
So yeah, I’m excited about that. Go
So before like I jump in and start asking you questions, why don’t you start by telling a bit about yourself?
And how you came to become my LinkedIn Top Voice, but we will get to that in a moment before that I want you to introduce yourself to me and my audience.
Louie Bernstein
Well, my name is Louis Bernstein.
Actually, I just turned 72 years old.
I’ve been in the business world for probably about the last almost 50 years of that.
And during that time, I’ve done every type of sales job there is.
I’ve managed salespeople.
I’ve been a chief sales officer.
I also founded and ran my own company here in Atlanta for 22 years
It was an IT training company.
And we did well enough that we made the Inc 500. list of 500 fastest-growing private companies in America over five years.
Talha X
Yeah, I will be honest with you, sorry for cutting you off. But to be honest, you don’t look like 72.
Yeah, I was under the impression that you would like 50-something or something like that.
Louie Bernstein
Well, you know, good genes are all I can tell you, you know, I just got lucky, you know, and I take pretty good care of myself. So who knows, you know, yeah, luck of the job.
Talha X
I think it’s more towards like keeping yourself fit and having good diet and like taking care of yourself.
So that also plays a good part in that.
Anyhow, so let me explain to you what the whole The Notion Millionaire is about.
So, before that, you have to understand who I am.
So basically, I’m a salesman with words, aka the copywriter.
And my first interaction with digital marketing was back in 2014 when I was just a student.
I love marketing and I love understanding how all of this works.
I have also been into psychology for like for the past seven, eight years and I have been reading the psychology a lot.
And because I couldn’t get into psychology due to like several reasons.
So marketing seemed like the best place where I can make use of my psychology knowledge.
And so yeah, for the past four or five years, I have been working with a lot of clients.
And so this year I have started my own newsletter, The Notion Millioniare.
So basically it’s a lead generation mentorship for people like you and me.
Soloprenuers or freelancers who haven’t been in the game for so long.
They need to figure out how to generate leads.
This is what I’m trying to teach. Escape the feast and famine cycle of clients.
Every day I sit down and I write this newsletter and I share my frameworks and my systems and all of that with my subscribers.
So this is what it is about and on every Saturday I featured one LinkedIn Top Voice.
I asked them how has been there a journey to becoming LinkedIn top Voice and being a creator on LinkedIn.
So why don’t you start by sharing your own journey and for becoming a LinkedIn Top Voice. how did you, like did you thought of this when you start contributing a How did it all of this start?
Louie Bernstein
Sure, I’m glad.
No, I did not set out to be a LinkedIn Top Voice.
It just kind of happened.
Please understand. I mean, I’ve done so much in sales.
I’ve even written a sales training course.
It’s a 100,000 word book and it’s got 262 lessons won for every business day of the year.
So I have so much content.
I’ve managed thousands of salespeople.
I’ve worked as a fractional sales executive for many companies.
So I have so much information and quite honestly, I thought it was time to kind of start giving back. you know, my age being 72.
It’s time to share a lot of what I know.
So I just started posting a year or two ago on LinkedIn and put in my comments into the different groups and the badges, the community badges just started getting awarded to me and then last week or maybe the week before I did get awarded the LinkedIn top voice.
I don’t know why.
They didn’t tell me why.
Talha X
I will be honest with you.
You are like the most interesting LinkedIn top voice that I have read until this point and I will be honest with you.
And this weekend, the next week, I have a call scheduled with like, I think so more than 10 people.
All of them are like a LinkedIn top voice and you are the most interesting one and I will be honest with you.
So like you weren’t expecting to be a LinkedIn top voice and you’re just going out of the way and you’re just sharing knowledge, and you just happen to be rewarded for that. think that that’s amazing.
So when you were contributing, did you have a strategy in place? or you were just going with the okay, LinkedIn asked me to contribute to this article. So this is what I’m going to do.
So when did you start contributing, and how did that process go?
Louie Bernstein
You mean to the community articles just my posts?
Talha X
Community articles, specifically. Oh, to the community articles.
Louie Bernstein
Well, I became aware of them as LinkedIn was rolling them out, and I thought a lot of the questions were interesting with my experience.
I had an opinion on everything.
So I just started writing them, and apparently, they resonated with a number of people, and it just kind of went from there by sticking to my kind of into my niche, you know,
I’ve only had so much time.
I only work, you know, 20, 25 hours a week now.
So I pick my lanes, sales management, sales coaching, and sales operations.
I can go into the entrepreneur posting, but it’s too much.
You know, I don’t do LinkedIn writing all day. As you can see, I got other things behind me, like guitars that need playing and okay, books that need to be read. I can’t just be writing on LinkedIn. Y
Talha X
And you should also leave like spaces for other people because if you get all the badges, what will other people do?
So that is something that you should keep in mind.
I will be honest, this is the best call ever. Like you are the best person in sales that I’ve met at this point and I’m very humble and I’m like, I feel very lucky.
To be honest, being on this call with you, and there are like so many questions that I really want to ask you, but like I have a structure for this and I do not want to take much of your time.
So anyhow, explain your writing process to me. For me, it is like I write in the morning.
So I’m like when I’m writing in the morning, I write like way better than I’m writing in the evening.
And so what is your process? How do you get into the zone of writing?
Louie Bernstein
I’m similar in that I probably do most of my writing in the morning and I usually pick a topic from that I get questions about and I’ll expand the topic or I’ll take a topic from my sales book.
I also put out a Sunday newsletter called the Sunday Starter and it’s more of type of newsletter. It’s a LinkedIn newsletter. You can find it.
You can call the Sunday starter and what I do with that is I’ll start on Tuesday and I’ll go through and I’ll flush out ideas of things I want to talk about and to me it’s like carving a statue you know I put it all together and just putting a bunch of ideas and throughout week I kind of whip away at it I kind of carve away at it until okay until it becomes something and then through several iterations by Friday or Saturday I’ve got the finished product written okay then I also record the video of it as well because I like I like doing videos.
Talha X
Yeah. While you were explaining your whole process I was thinking about how do you put your personality like I’m saying you for the first time and understand what kind of personality you have like a very beautiful personality so how do you project your personality into your writing like is there a trick to it? How do you do that? Well?
Louie Bernstein
You know, I’ve always felt that for in sales for instance It can’t be one kind of person and another kind of salesperson I think it’s best just to be who you are be a good person and Yeah, give if you give you’ll get so you know.
When you write and if you write from your heart who you are coming through and you don’t have to worry about it Yeah, I think that’s a beautiful analogy and I should be incorporating more of this like being myself when I’m writing out and And not okay, so not being a like it.
Talha X
So the creator mindset is very different. So the critter mindset is okay, this might resonate with my audience. Write this.
I will write if this resonates with my audience or if this is what my audience will like.
Louie Berstein
I will write it from your heart.
Talha X
I think I should just like frame this one. This is like a very golden nugget for me at the moment.
Anyhow, so when you like started writing on LinkedIn, obviously you have been writing for a long time and at this point you might have forget what challenges did you face when you started writing.
So are there any current challenges that you recently faced or like the challenges that you are facing right now or you may remember from your start up writing on LinkedIn or whatever, what challenges did you face?
Louie Bernstein
Well, I think probably like most people I had a bit of imposter syndrome. Meaning, I didn’t think I was good.
Why would anybody want to listen to me?
Don’t have that anymore. Okay.
Talha X
Yeah. Okay. And another thing there. that came along when I was talking to different people and they were saying time management and then staying consistent with writing. So did you face any of these hurdles?
Louie Bernstein
Yeah, but it’s a writing like anything else is a habit. And the more you do it, if you miss a day, you feel like you’ve gone backwards.
So just become habit and the good news is like any habit that you practice, you develop your skill set at doing it.
And you can study other writer’s techniques styles and suggestions. But like anything else, the more you do, the better you get at it.
Talha X
Yeah, okay, so it’s all like something else for me at this point, since you have a lot of experience in writing as well.
So I feel like and I have like communicated this with other writers as well. Some of them agree with me and some of them do not agree with me.
So I think so like. If you go go to gym every day your muscles will wear out so do you think this applies to writing as well? If you write every day your brain muscles will wear out
Louie Bernstein
No, no, I don’t I don’t think that’s true and I don’t think if you go to the gym every day.
Your muscles will wear out if I don’t go to the gym every day my muscles wear out
You know the older that you get it takes longer to get in shape and quicker to get out of it.
So, you know, it’s like, you know, you get up every day, you eat breakfast every day
You know a good writing habit every day if nothing else.
You can do something else, you don’t have to post on LinkedIn.
I have a journal that I write every day.
I make entries in my journal and it is a great way to practice your writing because you put everything out there and you don’t you know, maybe nobody sees it.
So you just completely open up. You don’t have to edit anything. just put it all out there and it’s a good habit to get into as well.
Talha X
Yeah, I will agree with you a hundred percent.
To be honest, I struggle with journaling.
I write a lot of journals, but I’m not consistent with them.
So there are days when I’m like two busy with clients work on my other things and so the journaling will skip.
So because that is not a priority for me right now. But yeah, this is a good lesson and thank you for like telling me this.
I think I needed to hear this right now more than anyone.
Okay, one thing like when I started contributing to articles as well and I thought that I should become a top voice because it will look cool and all of that.
But apart from being a cool person on LinkedIn from the top wise page, what other benefits do you see from being a top voice?
Did you experience any influx of clients? or any like did your reach expanded?hlike did you see any tangible benefits?
Louie Bernstein
Well, in the last few years, all of my consulting sales, fractional sales management, all came inbound from LinkedIn.
They found me, they read, and especially because of the videos, I’ve had people who’ve contacted me saying, you know, I’ve been watching your videos,
I feel like I know you. And so, when someone says that, there’s trust.
And when there’s trust, life is easy, right?
They trust you and then, you know, hopefully they’ll become clients of you.
So, yes, I have. The more I’ve been engaged on LinkedIn, the more engagement I’ve gotten, it’s kind of a snowball effect.
In the last couple of weeks, since I put this top four, voice badge. My profile, I’ve gotten a lot of, you know, that’s probably where you found me.
Yeah, you know, so I’ve gotten requests for other interviews and action work. So it just kind of a snowball effect.
But it took some time. You know, you got to can’t give up.
Talha X
So like I was talking to like some Nigerian the top LinkedIn voices and they were like, okay, man, we haven’t seen a thing since we got this badge.
And this is like just another thing for us.
And I was like, okay, I think so there should be more to this than that. And yeah, because I think so what you explained is like the crux of being a LinkedIn top voice;
You become the most trustable person in the industry. Most trustable person in the community, because LinkedIn labels you as someone, right?
Louie Bernstein
Right, but I think it’s, I think it’s kind of the other way around.
You are a trustworthy person, they see you as a trustworthy person, you contribute positively to other people’s posts, you put positive things in your things that will help people, right?
That it’s writing a return, but things that will help people.
And that’s, I don’t know, like I said, I don’t know how they award the badges, but I think if you do those things and then, you know, go back to what you said about the other people, I don’t expect anything about it.
I didn’t go into this expecting anything. went into this to give what I’ve learned, if I get, I’ve got, aside from business, I’ve made so many good friends, met interesting people, had great conversations that, um, that, you know, that’s what I’ve I went into it for the badges, the top voice, it’s a byproduct.
If it happens, it’s fine, if not, you know, that’s okay, I’m honoured that they chose me.
I really am humbled by it because I know there’s not a ton of people who have them, but it’s not what it’s allowed to do.
Talha X
Yeah, I think so this approach to life is more fulfilling in your professional life.
Okay, if you could give me just one single advice, what would it be if I’m the kind of person who comes to you and say,
Hey Louie, I want to become a top voice.
What single advice would you give me? Well, sing us how I don’t know how they give them away.
Louie Bernstein
I don’t think I can give you the exact advice, but I will give you a piece of advice that I give every year.
And by the way, you may like this.
Before I give you my piece of advice, let me share a story.
A couple weeks ago when I turned 72.
I wanted to write something else about, so, I wrote down 32 things that I’ve learned that have helped me and hopefully help you and maybe your listeners and I posted it on reddit.
You know reddit. Okay. Yeah.
Okay If you go to reddit and you go to the life hacks subreddit and you just search for either the top post of all time.
The title I turned 72 today and read that post.
It’ll give you a pretty much good philosophy of how I feel about life Okay, okay My other yeah, it got it got in that subreddit the life hacks and the inspirational subreddit is now the all-time most upvoted post.
Talha X
Yeah. Yeah. Become a lifelong learner.
I think so I got it. (I was searching for it online)
Louie Bernstein
yeah well yeah okay.
In terms of LinkedIn and sales and all those other things the key is resilience.
You have to build your resilience.
Business is hard. Sales is hard.
Get knocked down every day all the things you try but you kind of get back up.
Every day is a new day with new opportunities to succeed and you just have to approach every day and you have to build that resilience.
Whether it’s through your own mantras and you develop for yourself and journaling.
Engaging with positive people.
Just don’t give up if you’ve got something going and you know you could succeed.
Know it’s going to be hard just keep going and that’ll build your resilience because without resilience in business and sales, you’re doomed
Talha X
I would agree a hundred per cent with you.
I will be honest with you.
I think so like three or four weeks back I was just thinking about this and I was like okay if I want to like become a great person so I should have immense resilience in me and I should have like a big heart.
So if you want to become something other than the ordinary and you want to become a big person so you should have a big heart.
Because I think that these are like the prerequisites of getting somewhere.
If you do not have these you will not get anywhere in your life.
So I would agree 100% with you.
I just searched for your life hacks and turns out that you got viral from that I turn 72 today and those 32 things.
Because someone just like this is an article by the poke I don’t know if you okay let me share my screen so you will find this like very interesting.
So, this is the article, so I think that this is yours, right?
Louie Bernstein
Oh, yes, somebody, what is that another, yeah, there was a couple of articles written about it somewhere, yes, send that to me, I don’t know about that.
Talha X
Yeah, okay, so this is an article, let me share that with your own LinkedIn.
Louie Bernstein
Yeah, and you know, the funniest thing, I mean, in my wildest dreams, I never expected that result, but I think right now, people are looking for positivity. s
Something hopeful.
There’s so much chaos and trouble in the world that maybe just a ray or two of Sunshine helps.
And so I think that’s one of the reasons why it went up.
I’m actually going to start another YouTube shorts channel, I’m going turn each of these into a little… YouTube shorts.
You know, this, this, more than this, when this went viral. And in 24 hours, over 11 million views.
Talha X
Oh, wow. That is huge.
Louie Bernstein
And 97,000 shares. I couldn’t believe it.
I really couldn’t believe it.
And the comments, you know, there were a few haters or whatever. But overwhelmingly, the comments were so nice and so positive.
It was just so heartwarming.
Talha X
Yeah. I think so, if you enjoy the journey more than the results or the end goal, then you will experience these kinds of things.
I should label this my feature that I’m going to write afterwards;
Golden lessons from 72 years old Sales Executive.
So, I think this should be This is great.
Anyhow, what do you see the future of creators on LinkedIn in your own opinion?
Louie Bernstein
You know, I see a lot of creators on LinkedIn who, and I know this is unpopular to say, but I see a lot of creators on LinkedIn whose, whose only goal is to get followers.
So they can teach them who can then teach other people to get followers. but nothing substantive comes from that.
They’re not teaching them how to do something specific other than get followers.
I saw the same thing in 2000, 1999, 2000 when internet email marketing first started happening.
They were just teaching people how to do it but not producing anything.
So I think, I think the future for creators to really have an impact is to focus focus on where they can help with specific things, whether it’s public speaking, whether it’s sales, whether it’s being a better accountant.
You’re creator that can present in a painful way that can make a difference in someone’s life, I think those are the creators that will ultimately and eventually succeed.
Talha X
Yeah, I think so you just explained my whole business notion in one line, I will be honest with you.
So when I was on, I was doing a remote job in my last year and that is when I decided I should become a creator and so I should put out like notion templates and all of these details out there. And I was seeing all of these creators and they were just putting out templates with no reason at all.
They were just creating templates in the notion system and just putting it out there.
So I was like Okay, so what I should do?
And I realized that I should teach people something different, something meaningful to their business.
Something that is the bloodline of their business and that is when I decided that I should go with the lead generation and teach all of this.
Because the core product at the start of my business were these notion templates and notion systems for marketing and sales management.
But I realized that I should teach I should give out to the people more than this.
So I agree with you 100%. Give value.
Apart from this, I will be honest with you. I’m like really happy with you that I’ve met you today.
Like the lessons I have learned these are timeless lessons.
So thank you so much and your advice and your time.
It means a lot to me. Oh Well, thank you very much.
Louie Bernstein
I appreciate that and I’m glad enough. Thanks for reaching out to me.
