I was permanently banned from LinkedIn

All I could think was, ‘if a CEO was trying to find and contact me for consulting, how would they?’

My entire business hinges on communications via LinkedIn.

Like, every facet.

Content, lead flow for consulting, networking, recruiting and so much more.

All I could imagine was: “If a CEO is talking to their friend and suggests they work with me, how will they find me? How will they look me up?”

I woke up to the dreaded “LinkedIn jail’ message on Friday, May 5th.

At first, I wasn’t too worried.

Just confused.

I emailed them for clarification. What did I do wrong? Why were they locking me out? How did I break the terms of service?

Of course, there’s ZERO way to get in touch with anyone at LinkedIn.

My buddy Chris Orlob had gone through this just a few weeks prior.

I text him.

He said it was a black box with not many answers.

I figured it would just take time before they let me back in.

After 24 hours they finally replied suggesting that they’d get to my case within 14-30 days. 😳

Damn. That’s a long time.

I hope it doesn’t take that long…

I was a bit worried, but didn’t want to over think it.

After 7 days, I woke up to the following message:

Wait, what?

What does permanently restricted mean?

I started to panic.

I replied, asking for clarification and received this just minutes later:

So, I’m banned from LinkedIn permanently? For what? With no explanation as to how I violated the terms of service in the first place!

I would receive 5 messages over the next 12 hours stating this:

I spiraled for the rest of Thursday.

I began reaching out to some friends who were so kind to help.

Chris Orlob, Mike Molinet, Beau Hoge, Kunal Sarda, Rusty Von Waldburg, Scott Leese and a few others.

Friday came. I created my new LinkedIn account.

After 12 years with the same account & >30,000 followers it was deflating to create a new one.

After signing in, I realized I couldn’t connect with anyone.

I emailed LinkedIn, waving the white flag and asking why I couldn’t connect with anyone on my new account.

They reminded me that I was “Personally” banned from LinkedIn indefinitely.

I asked a friend here in Utah that I knew experienced this.

His response scared me.

‘I’m completely locked out too. I’m done with LinkedIn, they are very bad at being a good company’…

I had little to no confidence that someone at LinkedIn could hold find the person that holds the power to unlock blacklisted accounts.

At this point all I could think was, ‘I guess this is my sign… I have no option but to buy an SMB and operate it’…

Still not a terrible option.

But it was hard to imagine spending 12 years networking with and building friendships via LinkedIn and now I was permanently banned… for no reason.

After 40 hours I got a reply from LinkedIn:

Finally a relief.

But I wanted closure.

Just let me know what I did to get permanently banned in the first place. I asked. Here’s the response:

😳

WTF.

I’ll be sending LinkedIn my therapy invoices for the next 12 months.

Regardless, I’m beyond grateful for those of you that were able to help. I owe each of you tremendously.

Learnings from all of this

For 40 hours, I couldn’t do much but think ‘what do I do now’…

For a solo-consulting business, it would have killed me.

So, now what?

Diversify my income streams

This has been top of mind, but I didn’t have any specific timelines around that. This changed that. Right now >90% of my monthly income is from consulting. I’ve expedited some timelines on projects to fix this

Double down on SMB acquisition

I’ve spent ~2 hours a day for the last month in my search to acquire a highly profitable SMB business. Tons of learnings here already. I’ll be sharing these in my next article

Build a multi-channel distribution strategy

My wife has been telling me this for a while. I’ve been lazy about it. Not anymore. Twitter, Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram are coming soon. Maybe Onlyfans, who knows. ;-)

---

Thank you for all your support!

Here’s what’s coming:

➡️ How I’m sourcing my first SMB acquisition

➡️ Of all the verticals to choose from, how I’m determining what’s best for me

➡️ Details on how I’m diversifying my income streams

If you have specific topics that you’d love to hear about, reply to this email, I’d love to hear from you! I reply to all of them.

If you have any interest in sponsoring this newsletter, email me. It’s now going out to >1,000 professionals, entrepreneurs and builders!

---

📚 I’m launching a course on selling your services online and building your side hustle while still holding a full time job. I get 10 people a week wanting to learn how I’ve built a consulting business. It’s the main reason I built it in public.

I’m packaging up everything I know into a single course including how to source deals, how to price and package your offering and how to build a repeatable monthly income stream while still working.

If you’ve ever wanted to try selling your knowledge and expertise, I’ll walk you through step by step on my journey to >$40k a month in 90 days.

Check it out here on pre-sale for 75% off: https://www.blakeharber.com/offers/o3Yh6nTc/checkout

---